Dancehall Revenge and Sunday Brunch

On saturday night (technically sunday) my neighbours decided that they were going to have an impromptu afterhours party, complete with a Pogues sing along and a thrash metal dance party. This all began at 3 am. When i finally got up on Sunday i wrote my neighbours a small note, and then realizing how hungover they must be - made myself a nice brunch, and had a little party of my own - featuring some dancehall....

I actually didn't really have the appropriate ingredients, but i managed to pull this off. I used the new PC bagel thins, which are great, but not really to support a sunday brunch. I also didn't have any spinach for eggs Florentine, so i used rapini!

Without a great deal of sleep, i wasn't really in the mood to make hollandaise, and for one it seems a little much - even when one is musically inducing a hangover. Instead i made this sauce which is a mix of sour cream, dijon and horseradish. This was actually a good choice considering the bitterness of the rapini.

Didn't really make up for the aborted sleep or the cans of PBR i found all over the hallway, but it did cheer me up a little - and the soundtrack didn't hurt either!

Banana Brie French Toast

Now i don't usually make french toast, i'm not a big sweet breakfast kinda person, but occasionally i like to make something a little challenging and just different. I had some of the brie left over from the Cheese Dinner Feast, and thought it would make a nice addition to "stuffed" french toast.

La Hacienda (which i'm sure you're all sick of reading about) has a french toast i've mentioned before that uses croissants and has brie and various fruits inside. I took that as a inspiration and made a banana french toast with brie and candied walnuts.

For the egg mixture i did eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon and maple syrup. Before i put the french toast together i heated up some butter and added the walnuts and some more maple syrup, cooking them until they were browned and crispy with the sugar.

I made this french toast both on the stove top and the oven. I did the bread in the egg mixture, cooking both sides. I then lay four pieces out, added sliced bananas, brie, walnuts and a bit of syrup.


I then topped them with another piece of the french toast, poured some of the left over egg mixture and walnuts and baked it for about 7 minutes. When they were done i put them on a platter, added the rest of the nuts, some more syrup and butter. (yeah i love maple syrup).

A decedent brunch on a rainy sunday.

Seafood Poached Eggs with Sweet Potaot Rostis

This was a kinda slapped together meal that turned out quite well. There were a couple of influences behind this meal - one was that i had some left over cooked scallops from the ...... of saturday night and i wanted to use them up. Earlier last week i bought some of that fake crab that is really Pollock - i think its a pretty good snack as its low in cals and has protein, so i often snack on it. I thought i would combine the two for either a seafood salad thing or something else.

When i was preparing the meal i remembered a lobster poached eggs dish i had in New York, and thought maybe i could do something along those lines. I thought instead of an english muffins (and mainly because i didn't have one) I would make the sweet potato rosti that i did for my New Years Day Brunch. Who can deny shredded and pan fried sweet potatoes????

I thought i would keep two elements sort of traditional, and i wilted some spinach, but added shallots and garlic. I also poached the egg - i used the silicone ones, since i was preparing so many elements at the same time and didn't need to be stressing about poaching eggs - but they do give them a very uniformed shape.

When contemplating a sauce i realized that i already had a whole lot going on in the dish as i had mixed the chopped scallops and "crab" with green onions, dijon, lemon juice and a little may to help bind it. This along with the sweet potatoes, spinach and the yolk of the egg would be enough, so i left it plain. I think i made the right choice.

Above:

Sunday Brunch
Shredded Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients