B, L & D

Yesterday was the first time I’ve ever made any Bobby Flay recipes, partly because I’m not all that much of a meat person. Recently he made some breakfast sandwiches that looked more like something Rachael would make, but with an Iron Chef’s touch.

For breakfast, I made his scrambled sandwich with cream gravy. The original recipe calls for sausage, and the browned bits & fat are poured into the cream gravy. I used Canadian bacon instead. I didn’t print out the recipe and because of that, forgot to put in fresh sage at the end. (I was mad at myself for forgetting, since I actually had some sage to throw in there.) I’m sure it would’ve given it a "gourmet" flavor. I love breakfast sandwiches, especially homemade ones, since you are in control of the grease. Don made his with a fried egg instead of scrambled. He surprised me by putting the gravy on his too. He proclaimed it "pretty good," which is a high mark on his rating system. The gravy part (basically a bechamel sauce) reminded me of Rachael’s Croque Monsieur recipe that has a similar sauce. I have a feeling her sandwich would be good too, although I have to admit that I never tried it since the way she described it didn't sound good (describing the sauce as "glue").

For lunch, I tried Bobby’s nutella & banana sandwich. The bread is pan-fried cinnamon toast, then you put it sugar side down, spread nutella on it, and sliced bananas. My toast turned out sticky (although it hardened after it cooled a little) so I put mine sugar side up. Instead of bananas I put leftover cream cheese frosting. There’s a bite taken out of my toast in the photo because Don sampled the bread while I was putting this all together. The bread is from the King Arthur Flour website, it’s "Harvest Bread" and has sweet potatoes, cinnamon, raisins, and whole wheat flour, it’s very good. Anyway, this was a good sandwich too, or would make a good dessert. Very indulgent and over-the-top.

The "D" here refers to "Dessert." Ellie Krieger made carrot cake cupcakes on Saturday’s show. What I liked about her recipe is that it doesn’t have tons of oil like most carrot cake or zucchini bread recipes do. I made half a batch which yielded 6 cupcakes, and it only required 2 tablespoons of oil. The cupcakes were very moist, I’m sure the applsauce helped. The frosting was very cream cheese-ey, since it was only cream cheese and powdered sugar, and most recipes for that sort of frosting call for butter (which would dilute the flavor some). Don didn’t like the frosting but liked the cupcakes. I liked the whole thing. I did feel that it was missing something, though. I had read the reviews and someone had suggested raisiins, so I did throw some in with my batter. Maybe it was missing pineapple or coconut. These sorts of cakes always taste better the second day and I haven’t tried them yet today, to see if the flavors have blended a little more.

Oh, my favorite Anthony Bourdain made a Barry Manilow reference on his "No Reservations" show! He was in Vegas, and made the comment that "If you hit Barry Manilow’s face with a drumstick, it gives a sound much like a snare drum." Poor Barry. Tony seems to have no mercy when it comes to other celebrities, though. On the other hand, I was watching "Feasting on Asphalt" and while cooking breakfast in someone’s RV, Alton Brown was going through their spice cabinet and came across a jar of Emeril’s Essence. His reaction was hilarious, but he made it fun by doing the "Bam" thing, in a good-hearted way. As opposed to Tony, who would have gone on a rambling tirade about Emeril.