I know John’s not the biggest Food Network fan, but Paula Dean and I are soul mates. She fries things, I fry things. She loves bacon, I buy it in bulk. She has a southern accent, I can fake a southern accent really well. However, when she introduced the world to Krispie Kreme bread pudding, she lost me a little. Why? One wrinkly little word: raisins. I hate them, can’t stand them, pick them out of muffins and carrot cake, truly can’t stand the little buggers. Her recipe also calls for canned fruit. Omg, what the fart monkey. Whatever, back to me. Safeway had doughnuts on sale, so what better time to make doughnut bread pudding? I followed my original bread pudding recipe, using cream, milk, eggs, coconut, vanilla, and white and dark chocolate. New to the mix were the doughnuts, replacing the usual challah bread, banana/chocolate cream, and sliced bananas. The beauty of bread pudding is that you can be so creative with it and it’s a great way to use up little things left over, for example the two half eaten bananas I had in my fridge. Such an an breezy dessert or snack. Just make sure to let the mixture soak up the liquid, otherwise you’ll end up with a crunchy dry crouton bread pudding.
From John:
Just wanted to let everyone know that this will be Varta’s last post on Epic Portions. She is starting her own blog at http://vartamelon.blogspot.com/. Make sure you add her to your daily blog readings. Thanks very much to Varta for all the great posts!
Ingredients minus the heavy cream
Not all made it to the finale
Cream, milk, coconut, egg, plops of banana/chocolate cream, and banana
11 and half cut up doughnuts. I totally typo'd that as doughbuts the first time and I'm still laughing.
Pour the wet mixture on top of the doughnuts
Love sprinkles
Golden yummy. After baking
DELICIOUS! Especially with ice cream on top.
After seeing John’s suicide sandwich I found out I have a competitive side which I never knew I had. Gears started turning in my head to come up with the most cholesterol laden, fatty sandwich I could come up with. I’ve always wanted to make the grilled cheese sandwich burger before and that’s pretty heavy, so I figured that was the perfect place to start. Bacon just feels natural to me, so of course that was going to be worked in. And more cheese, I love cheese. Normally I wouldn’t advocate the use of the plastic cheese, but it flows with the overall scheme. Still, something was missing. Then I remembered when I made the sausage stuffed french toast and someone suggested sausage gravy, I had never made sausage gravy before so I thought it’d be fun to give it a try. Super easy! Concerns me actually, if I can whip up sausage gravy in a few minutes now, what’s going to stop me from putting on everything. I digress. I’ll let the pictures do the talking from here…
Sometimes, there is planning involved
[click to continue…]
edit: this was Varta’s doing, not John. John could never even imagine making something as delicious as this. most apologies.
Bananas. Like the flavor, hate the fruit, why’d they have to be so mushy? So browsing through World Market on Saturday, where I made a beeline for the food stuff they tuck in the back, look at what I found.
Holy. Bananas.
That night was also my good friends birthday dinner where when we were about to order dessert, the waiter told us that all the desserts on the menu were mini sized. MINI? Yea, we definitely closed the menus and went to Cold Stone. That got me thinking though, about a single serving size banana flavored ice cream treat. *Inspiration*
I made a simple graham cracker crust, using a cupcake tray as the mold to keep the size right. A blob of the banana chocolate spread was covered by thin slices of banana and carefully topped with ice cream. I wanted it too look pretty so I made chocolate ganache (just melt chocolate and add some cream) and spread a layer over the ice cream. Back into the freezer to firm up and done! (Side note, I ran out of ganache and one was left top naked, and I actually preferred it that way)
I really need to work on my food photography. I would have attempted to take an autopsy shot and just better pictures in general, but my dad, uncle, brother, cousin, and my brothers friend were all waiting for me to plate and serve.
I love my gym. Unfortunately, its location tests me on a daily basis. First of all, it’s right next to a Starbucks, and I’m a prissy Persian girl, Starbucks’ marketing team thrives on us. Second, when I drive home, McDonald’s is on MY side of the road, so a detour to the drive-thru is on the way home. Darn you, convenience. After an hour of Zumba though, I convinced myself that today I deserved a treat. I pulled in thinking I’d order a Happy Meal just to curb the craving when something caught my eye.
Hubba Hubba Drool.
Screw the Happy Meal, bring on the bacon. Giddy as can be I didn’t even bother to wait until I got home, I put the fries in the cup holder and burger box in my lap. This is why we have red lights, right? I wish I looked at the odometer to see how many miles it took me to finish it because I inhaled it. Obviously, the expectations and standards of a fast food burger are pretty low, but I have to say it was a delicious burger. Tastes like actual beef (I know, duh) and not what I call “McDonald’s burger meat”. Good bun, more importantly, bun to beef ratio was on par. You know when you get a Big Mac and it’s half bread? None of that. I ordered the bacon and cheese angus burger and there was a good amount of bacon on there. That’s another point most fast food places miss with burgers, not enough bacon. I also was pleasantly surprised when I took a look and saw red onion. Fancy. Passing up the Golden Arches on the way home just got harder.
From John:
I actually had the same exact thing for lunch yesterday and have to agree that these things are pretty damn good. Unfortunately I was at work when I got it and had no intentions of doing a review, so enjoy these terrible pictures taken with my Blackberry.
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