BFD - January '11

It's the first BFD of the year and I thought I'd start off with something sweet and scrumptious...it's all downhill after this. :-) We're starting off the new year with

Stuffed chocolate croissants (aka "french toast croissants")
Apple-cinnamon breakfast risotto

I thought about doing stuffed french toast, but then I found the recipe for chocolate stuffed croissants. The croissants were a little spendy, but I was able to buy them at Costco for $5.99 for 12. That's not too bad. I used a mixture of semi-sweet chocolate chips and vanilla chips. Topped off with powdered sugar, these french toast croissants were yummy. They didn't have that eggy taste that french toast can have sometimes. My only complaint about this recipe is that I had alot of batter remaining. I followed the recipe and made 12 croissants, but I easily had enough batter leftover for 6 more. So, either I didn't soak the croissants enough in the batter or the recipe amounts were overgenerous. Since I like the way the croissants turned out, I think that the next time I make this I will cut the batter portion of the recipe in half. Aside from that, no complaints. This was almost like having dessert.

I make regular risotto both as a side dish and a main meal, so when I came across this recipe for Apple-Cinnamon Breakfast Risotto, I knew right away that I wanted to try it. Best of all, it's made in the crock-pot, so I didn't have to stir it for half an hour! Let me take a minute to make a plug for a crock-pot cookbook that I got for Christmas: The Crock-pot Recipe Collection. I search the internet for recipes but sometimes I get overwhelmed. I like having at my fingertips a collection of crock-pot recipes that has full color photos for about 95% of the recipes.

Click to enlarge

OK, enough about that; on to the breakfast risotto. I used regular apple juice instead of the recommended unfiltered apple juice and light brown sugar instead of dark brown sugar. I was not disappointed. Holy cow, this was delicious! If you're tired of your morning oatmeal, use this as a replacement. Rather than writing out the recipe, I took a picture of it. Just click on it to enlarge it. The recipe says to cook on High for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Maybe with unfiltered apple juice, I don't know, but I had to cook this for 3 hours. After 2 1/2 hours, I added an additional 1/2 cup of warm apple juice. I splurged and bought some dried cranberries and sliced almonds to top off my risotto. If you can buy these in bulk then you can purchase only what you need and it won't be that expensive. The recipe says that it makes 6 servings and I would go along with that if it's going to be your main meal. But, if you're serving this as a side dish, or as part of a larger breakfast (or dinner), then I would say it makes 8 maybe 10 servings. If you prep everything the night before and can manage to haul your backside out of bed at 3:00am to put all the ingredients in the crock-pot, then you will be rewarded with warm, apple-cinnamon yumminess for breakfast. If you can't get out of bed that early, then enjoy it for dinner.