Iced French Toast Latte

I was in a grocery store this week that has a fabulous coffee bar, and saw that one of their specials this month was a french toast latte.

Hold. The. Phone.

French toast latte? That sounded amazing.

However, this was in the early evening, and I try not to drink coffee that late in the day (otherwise I don't sleep well).

But I could not get this latte off my mind.

So, this weekend I decided to try and replicate it at home.  Without tasting it, I have no idea what the ingredients of said latte actually are - but I took a guess.

I'm no stranger to making my own simple syrups for coffee at home, and I figured a Cinnamon Maple simple syrup would be appropriate in this case.  Depending on your preference, you can use as little or as much of the syrup as you want, and the same goes for the milk.

Also, I happen to like my lattes iced, but you can also use the ingredients hot - just warm the milk in a saucepan first.

Iced French Toast Latte

• 3 oz. brewed espresso or strong coffee, cooled
• 1 - 2 T. cinnamon maple simple syrup (see below), cooled*
• 1 C. milk*
• ice

Place ice in glass, then pour in simple syrup and espresso.  Add milk to taste and serve immediately.

Cinnamon Maple Simple Syrup

• 1/2 C. water
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1/2 C. brown sugar
• 1 T. real maple syrup

Place water and cinnamon sticks in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil.  Add brown sugar and maple syrup, and stir until sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat.  Makes about 1/2 cup.  Refrigerate any unused portion in airtight container up to 1 week.

*The amounts listed for syrup and milk are just guidelines - use as much as you like per your tastes.

Original Recipe

Skillet-Glazed Pork Chops

Oh my goodness... I'VE MISSED YOU GUYS!

I did not intend on being away from you this long, and for that I apologize! But things got a little crazy around here after Thanksgiving.

I have some good news and some bad news... let's get the bad news over with first because I don't like to dwell on sad things.

Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away the weekend after Thanksgiving after 85 glorious years on this earth.  I told you all a bit about him over the summer - he was definitely one in a million.

My cousin and I had the honor of giving the eulogy at his funeral, and our family was humbled by the hundreds of people that came over the course of two days to pay their respects.  He will be VERY missed, but the awesome part is that he led a full life and kept us all smiling and laughing for many years!

This is super tough because I also lost my very dear great aunt over the summer - Aunt Joyce was like a grandmother to me.  She was super spunky and forward-thinking, and she gave great advice.  She was also incredibly easy to talk to.  I know that part of life & aging is moving on, but it's hard to say goodbye to people that mean so much to you!  

That being said - on to the good news.  The rest of my hiatus was spent with my new boyfriend.

Mr. V is painfully jealous as he is very handsome & a younger man.

Much, much younger.

16 days old, to be exact.

My best friend Lauren had her baby on November 22!!  I just got back from Myrtle Beach visiting Holt Vittles and he could not be sweeter. 

But let me tell you... after spending 4 days with a newborn baby, I realized that I'm just not cut out for having children.

....

I'm totally joking, I just thought that might give my mother-in-law a little jolt in her seat since she is SO looking forward to having grandchildren.

Don't worry Pammy Vittles, we're still planning on being parents... someday :)

But actually, the visit opened my eyes in a different way.

See, I'm an only child but I have a bunch of younger cousins, I started babysitting neighborhood kids at 13, and worked in both a nursery and a summer camp.  So I'm no stranger to the kiddos.

But babies have always kind of weirded me out.

Which sounds horrible, I know, but I mean - they just seem so fragile and mysterious.  I'm that girl who gets offered to hold someone's infant and says "Oh... no thank you."  I am just not a baby person.

I have always felt confident that I could be a good mother at some point, but the whole infant stage makes me a little wary.  Especially since that part comes first!

However, Lauren is like my sister... which makes Holt my nephew.

 Lauren & Holt

So as soon as I got into her house I was basically like "Ok, let's cut to the chase - now give me that baby."  She gladly obliged and... the rest is history.

I'm in love!

"Holt Hogan" & I

How cute is he?

But as I've learned from both Lauren and Nat Vittles, being a new mom is a ton of work... so I am thinking Mr. V had better enjoy meals such as this while he can :)

Skillet-Glazed Pork Chops

• 4 boneless center-cut or loin chops , 3/4 to 1 inch thick
• Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 1/2 C. maple syrup (since good maple syrup is expensive, I used half honey)
• 2 t. Dijon mustard 
• 1/4 C. cider vinegar 
• 1 t. minced fresh thyme 
• 1 T. vegetable oil

Trim chops and slash through fat and silver skin on thin sides of each chop, making 2 cuts about 2" apart on each (this helps to prevent the sides of the chops from curling up in the pan as they cook). Pat chops dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Combine maple syrup, mustard, vinegar, and thyme in bowl or large measuring cup.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add pork to skillet and cook until well browned, about 5 minutes. Turn chops and add glaze mixture. Turn heat down to medium-low and cook until internal temperature registers 140 degrees (5 to 8 minutes).  Remove chops to plate and tent with foil.

Then, reduce glaze: return any accumulated juices to skillet and simmer glaze over medium heat until thick and syrupy. (Tip: you want the liquid to have small but plentiful bubbles, and a spatula dragged through the mixture should make a trail.)  Pour reduced glaze over chops & serve.  Serves 4, 1 chop per person.


Recipe from Cook's Country

Pumpkin Pancake Muffins with Maple Cream Cheese Swirl

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but I feel like Autumn and its holidays have been getting edged out more and more by Christmas with each passing year - and I don't like it one bit.

Don't get me wrong - I enjoy "the holiday season" as much as anyone else.  Christmas is fun times.  But can we agree to get through Thanksgiving first before we're subjected to Christmas carols in stores that have their halls decked with boughs of holly?

Worst of all, I walked into Dunkin' Donuts this week and noticed that their seasonal flavor Pumpkin has already been replaced by GINGERBREAD!

Well let me tell you something. Vittles and Bits is not done with pumpkin yet, so if you're looking for Christmas cookies in mid-November, I suggest you look elsewhere! 

...

Alright, good, you're still here.  Well now that we've gotten that out of the way, I must say I keep on hearing about Pancake Muffins and have been very intrigued.  I wasn't able to find any recipes that looked overly inspiring, though, so I decided to come up with my own.

Much like my guest-blogger Natalie Vittles (and her Homemade Granola), I don't like breakfast items that are overly sweet.  Treats like Coffeecake Muffins are nice for a special occasion, but as much as I enjoy my desserts, I don't need to eat them at 7AM.

So I'll warn you that these are pretty low-key when it comes to the sugar (much like real pancakes are - usually it's only when you drown them in gallons of maple syrup that they become so sweet).

If you do like sweets, though, you can feel free to treat this like a real pancake.  Pop it in the microwave for 10 seconds and pour some maple syrup over the top!  Instant pancake before work without all the effort :)

Pumpkin Pancake Muffins with Maple Cream Cheese Swirl

• 1 3/4 C. flour (can use a combo of whole wheat & all purpose if you'd like)
• 2 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 t. cinnamon
• 1/4 t. cloves
• 1/8 t. nutmeg
• 1/2 C. sugar
• 2 T. pure maple syrup (sorry Aunt Jemima, you're not welcome in this recipe!)
• 1/4 C. plain nonfat yogurt
• 1/4 C. canola oil
• 1 egg + 1 yolk
• 3/4 C. pumpkin
• 1/2 C. buttermilk

Filling:

• 2 oz. cream cheese (I used neufchatel), softened
• 2 T. pure maple syrup
• 2 T. powdered sugar

Preheat oven 350 degrees.  Prepare muffin tin with 12 liners or nonstick spray.

In a small bowl, combine 3 filling ingredients until well blended. Set aside.

Make muffin batter: mix dry ingredients, flour through nutmeg, in large bowl.  In separate bowl, whisk sugar with remaining wet ingredients (maple syrup through buttermilk) until combined.  Make a well in flour mixture and pour in wet ingredients.  Mix only until dry ingredients become moistened - do not overmix.

Spoon 2 heaping tablespoons of batter into each muffin cup, then using 2 hands on either side of the tin, bang bottom of pan on counter to spread batter evenly.  Place about 1/2 t. of cream cheese filling in each cup, and top with remaining muffin batter (about 1 heaping tablespoon more into each cup).

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool on rack.

Original Recipe

Homemade Granola

On this last day of August, I have got a treat for you - a guest post by Natalie Vittles!

She has been kind enough to take some time out of her busy schedule to share not only her super-secret and super-delicious homemade granola recipe, but also a little history of how it came to be!

Ahhh!!
 
I'm not sure which I'm more excited about.

You be the judge.  Enjoy :)

As Maggie mentioned in her last post, I don't have a lot of spare time on my hands these days. I am a mother to a very rambunctious 3 year old boy and a happy-go-lucky, but still needy 5 month old infant. Oh and I just started law school.  I ever-so-wisely rode the late pregnancy hormone-induced wave of ambition straight into that logistical calamity.

As you may have guessed, a lot of my time-consuming stay-at-home-mom-with-a-perfectionist-hippie-streak obsessions have fallen by the wayside. While our first child was on a super strict cloth diaper regimen (which even included toting giant bags of soiled linens on vacation) our second receives this conscience-soothing treatment in increasingly rare cases such as when the toosh isn't a little bit irritated, or when he isn't about to take a nap, or for that matter when dirty diapers aren't in queue behind 2 days of backlogged laundry - i.e almost never.

But there is one law school felled tradition that I quickly resurrected - making my own granola. It's just too good. It makes the store-bought stuff (even the organic, pumpkin seed, super omega, etc. stuff) seem like Cap'n Crunch in comparison. Nothing against the Cap'n, but that's dessert not breakfast.  

I had been making this recipe every week for a year, slowly changing things as I went along. Finding a good granola recipe to start with was no easy task. Even my trusty Mark Bittman, the man who taught me how to cook..well.."Everything..," left me with burnt and bland granola after way too many steps and way too many pans and bowls. I eventually adapted a recipe from Delicious Living magazine, a free handout at our local co-op. 

If you compare the recipes, you'll see that in the end I just added almond butter (to create the crunchy clumps), subtracted the coconut (because it really didn't add anything to the taste), and greatly reduced the cooking time (to avoid the burnt taste). Amazing how it took me a whole year to get to this point, but hindsight is 20/20. 

The final recipe is very adaptable and customizable. You can add different seeds, nuts and dried fruit for a completely new taste. It's equally as good with yogurt as it is with milk, which is a plus since I've been addicted to Greek yogurt lately. Is that stuff amazing or what?!  And I assure you that you do not need to be a domestic goddess like Ms. Vittles to make this recipe. If your idea of cooking is throwing ingredients into a giant bowl (or if you've just got a lot on your plate), this recipe is for you:

Homemade Granola

• 8 cups uncooked rolled oats
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1 cup almonds, chopped or sliced
• 3/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup sunflower oil*
• 1 TB Molasses
• 1 TB vanilla extract
• 1 heaping spoonful (or more) Almond Butter
• cinnamon
• salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix first 5 dry ingredients. Make well and add in next 6 ingredients. Stir to combine. Press mixture into two jelly roll pans and sprinkle with a little bit of salt and a lot of cinnamon. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, stir, and bake for 10 additional minutes. Remove granola from pans immediately (otherwise it will stick) and put in resealable bag or storage container. I keep mine in the same giant Pyrex bowl that I used to mix the ingredients. After it comes out of the oven you can add dried fruit to the recipe.

*Any neutral, high heat oil could probably be used if sunflower oil isn't available.

Recipe Adapted (by Natalie) from Delicious Living Mag.com