Romantic Sunday Brunch

Sometimes, actually quite often, on Sunday morning we want to enjoy a homemade breakfast or brunch. My husband loves Eggs Benedict and especially Eggs Royale, and those particular dishes are very common in our table. This Sunday, I wanted to try something else, but something from eggs. I think the Eggs are crucial part of the breakfast or brunch. We end up to cook Eggs Cocotte, a classic French dish. I served it with a homemade sourdough bread which I made in the same morning, since nothing beats the oven-fresh bread.

For the dessert I prepared French toast from Finnish pulla with Rosemary Bilberry sauce. Wow, what a dish! I almost started to cry, it was so damn delicious!

For drinks, my Hubby made smoothie using fresh mango, blood grapefruit and mint leaves. Since the mango wasn’t ripe enough to be very sweet, he added a teaspoon of maple syrup. It made huge difference. The other thing which always make a difference for the brunch, is champagne. For us, champagne is must, as my motto says... No champagne, no brunch ;)

Sunday Brunch Menu

Eggs Cocotte,  Rye sourdough bread

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French toast and Rosemary Bilberry sauce, 

fresh blueberries

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Mango, Blood grapefruit & Mint Smoothie

Dom Pérignon Champagne Brut 2006

Coffee 

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The recipes for the dishes you can find from the links below:
 

Eggs Cocotte, Rye Sourdough bread

 
French toast & Rosemary Bilberry sauce

 

Mango Mint smoothie

Eggs Cocotte

Brunch needs one egg dish, and our favourite is Eggs Benedict or Eggs Royale, but this recipe is something different. Fos last Sunday's brunch I made Eggs Cocotte, or Ouefs Cocotte in originally, for a change. This is easy but almost as good as Benedicts. Just put all ingredients in to a ramekins and cook. That's all you need to do.

This is more healthy dish than Benedicts since there is no butter involved, just cream is used. But many qualitites which I like in Benedicts, is still in this dish. Eggs with runny yolks, ham and spinach. As an extra, salty cheese gives a nice addition to this dish kind of replacing the feeling of Hollandaise sauce.

Size of this dish is quite small, so if you hungry or do not have anything else with this, I recommend to double the recipe.

Eggs Cocotte
For 2 person
2 large eggs
0,5 dl spinach (cooked/sauteed and cooled)
2-4 slices of prosciutto
30 g brie (or feta or chevre)
2 tbsp cream
Black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 180 C.
Divide spinach, prosciutto and cheese among ramekins, season with black pepper. Crack in an egg and add a half of the cream to each ramekin.

Place bowls in a baking dish, and pour hot water into baking dish until it is halfway up the sides of the bowl. Transfer baking dish to oven, being careful not to let the water splash into the bowls. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until whites are set and the yolk is still soft.

Serve with slice of good quality bread.

French toast with Rosemary Blueberry sauce

Bilberry is THE best berry which grows in Finland, to my mind. It is a real superfood. This time I used it as a sauce for my brunch dessert, French toast. I added some rosemary to the sauce, to give the nice earthiness flavor and some lemon zest to give a twist. The combination really worked.

As I mentioned that bilberry is superfood, I think that also French toast is superfood :D Maybe not in a similar way, but it is super good to my soul... And when I make it using Finnish pulla, it is even better.

Many of the french toast recipes contain cinnamon and sugar, but with pulla, sugar does not need to be added since the pulla is already sweet pastry. And instead of cinnamon, I prefer cardamom which, as well, is ingredient of the pulla.

French toast
For 2 person
4 slice of day old Finnish pulla or french bread (about 2-3 cm thick slices)
1 large egg
2 dl milk
butter for cooking

Beat and milk together in a bowl. Place the bread in the bowl and let the bread soak up the egg on one side for about 1 minute, then turn and let soak on other side. Let any excess egg mixture drip off into bowl. Heat frying pan or griddle.

Melt a small amount of butter in pan. Place french toast pieces in pan and fry until golden on first side. Flip and cook other side until golden and crispy.

Rosemary Blueberry sauce
100 g bilberries (or blueberries)
50 g sugar
1 sprig of rosemary
1/4 lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice

Combine blueberries, rosemary, sugar and water in a saucepan, bring it to boil. Cook approx. 10 minutes, until sauce has thickened some amount. Cool. Season with lemon juice and zest of lemon.

Mango Mint Smoothie

I don't fancy pure juices, not even it is so trendy nowadays. They are just not enough for me. And my tummy gets ill. The worst for my tummy is orange juice. But I like smoothies, and fruities.

This drink, is my favourite for lazy Sunday brunch, maybe because I love mango, and I love herbs. Combining them, can’t go wrong… Quite many herbs goes nice with mango. Or what you think? To get some acidity to the drink, I have used orange or lemon, and now I tried blood grapefruit. All of them are good, but the amount needs to be considered. Don’t put lemon as much as more sweet orange. But is this smoothie?

I call is a smoothie, but maybe it really is fruitie, since there are no milk products used. For me, name is not the important one, and you can call it either you want. But, do enjoy the taste!don't fancy pure juice, not even it is so trendy nowadays.

Mango Mint Smoothie
for 2 person
1 ripe mango
1 blood grapefruit
15-20 mint leaves
1 tsp maple syrap (optional)
1,5-2 dl ice

Add all ingredients to the blender. Blend well. Garnish with some mint and serve right away.

Tribute to Finnish superfoods

Whipped porridges are quite common Finnish dishes, like porriges overall, and usually these whipped versions are made of semolina. The berries varies a lot, but the most favourite ones are lingonberry and redcurrant. But you can use any berries you like. The dish is often served as a dessert, with cold milk, since it is sweet. Altough, it can easily be a light lunch or breakfast as well, especially if the amount of sugar is reduced.

Today I wanted to prepare whipped porridge for light lunch, because we have done nothing but eaten all weekend. We celebrated our friend's 40th birthday and had so many nice breakfasts, lunches and dinners. So today it was good idea to eat a bit lighter... Instead of semolina I chose more healthier option for the flour, I used rye. And for berries, my preference is always bilberry. I just love them. So Finnish and so healthy!

If you haven't tried this dish yet, I really recommend to do so. What could be more Finnish than this?? A real superfoods!

Whipped Blueberry Rye Porridge
for 4 person
1 l water
pinch of salt
0,5 l blueberries (preferably bilberries)
100 ml sugar (optional, if you like sweet. I didn't use any)
300 ml rye flour

Boil the water in a pot, add salt and bilberries. Bring to a boil. Start adding rye flour whipping at the same time to avoid clods. After all flour has been added, cook over low heat 15 minutes. Let it cool.
Using mixer, whip the porridge until fluffy and light.
Enjoy with cold milk!

Bircher - breakfast made previous evening

I just managed to tell you that I'm not good with breakfasts. Well I'm not, but I still wanted to add one easy and yet delicious breakfast in here. This overnight muesli, I call it raw porridge, is perfect for the mornings you don't have time to prepare anything. This is healthy and keeps you satisfied all morning, and the tastes awesome. You really should try this!

Bircher Raw Porridge
For 1 person
5 g wheat bran
20 g rolled oats
125 g curd or fat-free natural yoghurt
75 g apple grated
100 ml apple juice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Honey to taste (optional)

Combine all ingridients together in a bowl. If you don't want to use bran, just add 5 g more rolled oats. When adding apple juice, check that consistency is runny, since the oats will puff up during the night.
Let the muesli rest in a fridge over night.
Just before serving, you can add fresh slices of apple, crushed nuts and honey.

Super healthy, super delicious breakfast

Everyone says that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well, it might be but I'm not good at it. For me, enough is black coffee. Sometimes I make exception, especially in the weekend. But then, I think it is more like brunch, not breakfast. Well, anyhow, I eat breakfast quite rarely.

I love pancakes, but they are not that good for me. How does the saying goes: "a moment on your lips, a lifetime on your hips". This is so true, at least for me. That's why I was more than happy when I found recipe of a healthy, low calorie pancakes.

This is already sort of a classic, but I still want to put the recipe in here. Altough, I changed it a bit, instead of using two eggs, I use 1 egg and one egg white. And most of the ingredients contains cinnamon, but I replace it with cardamon, which goes so well with blueberries. And I serve these with blueberries.

Banana Pancakes
For 1 person
1 ripe banana
1 egg
1  egg white
cardamon to taste

Place banana, egg and egg white in the blender, and blend it well, until smooth.
Heat the skillet and add bit of oil (for the non-stick pan you don't need to do that). Add the batter to the skillet and let space them out since they tend to spread. Be careful with the temperature, pancakes tend to turn too dark very easily.
When bubbles start to form, flip the over and cook on the other side

Serve pancakes with berries, e.g. blueberries, strawberries, rasberries and/or black currant. And if you like, pour some maple syrup on top of the pancake pile.