Photos: yogurt on my mind

I’ve been on a bit of a yogurt kick lately. It’s a simple breakfast to make at home, it breaks up the monotony of cereal and toast, and depending on how you dress it up, it can pretty healthy. I generally enjoy a base of Greek yogurt topped with granola, maybe some fruit, and honey. I prefer using Greek yogurt as a base, because it provides more of a blank slate. Flavored yogurts are good, but I prefer something that’s not as loaded with sugar, etc. But yogurt is one of those simple dishes that doesn’t even require a recipe; you can accidentally make a breakfast parfait by spilling the contents in a bowl.

In the midst of this kick, I was sent some samples of Müller yogurt to try. Müller is a European company making their way into the American market via Quaker. They sent me samples of four different types: three of the Corner yogurts, which are plain or Greek yogurt with additions like blueberries, caramelized almonds, and chocolate malt balls, plus a cup of fruit mix-in.

In general, I liked all four, with a preference toward the Greek Corner. It’s hard not to like the sweet toppings in particular, between the almonds and the chocolate balls, and the fruit mix-in was as good as any fruit yogurt I’ve tried. But again, I love the blank slate of Greek yogurt, and the Müller brand provides some interesting alternatives to blend in.

What about you? Any favorite brands or mixings of yogurt you make at home? Give me some combinations to try!

(Disclosure: Müller provided the samples of their yogurt. Opinions are my own.)

Photos: a burrito named for Yours Truly

It’s been a blog-long dream of mine to get breakfast dishes named after me. And I’ve had a couple temporary wins: Nick’s wings and waffles at The Best Breakfast & Sandwiches, for instance, or Pancakes With Nick at Sunny Street Cafe during National Pancake Week. And now there’s the perfect marriage between my work at Ohio State and my love of breakfast: the breakfast burrito at Sloopy’s Diner in the Ohio Union will be named after yours truly next year!

Yup, that’s the face of a guy excited about having a burrito named after him. Life achievement: unlocked! The dish is assigned during the 2013-2014 academic year. It was revealed at a small Wizard of Oz-themed ceremony in the Ohio Union. Hence the Dorothy.

The face of victory. The burrito is doused in salsa, cheese, and the tears of my enemies.

After the ceremony they held a small reception at Sloopy’s where everyone got to taste the Sandwich Club entries. There’s a great line-up overall! The named burrito will officially be on the menu at the start of the next school year. If you want to visit Sloopy’s (which offers a good breakfast for a day wandering around campus), here are their stats:

Sloopy’s Diner
Inside the Ohio Union
1739 N. High St.
http://ohiounion.osu.edu/dine_and_shop/sloopys

Photos: The Cuisine of Eastern Pennsylvania

Over my recent spring break we headed east to visit Mrs. Bfast w/Nick’s family. Most of her family hails from Pennsylvania, with one whole contingent from the southeast corner of the state in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania Dutch territory. This region, like every region with a good identity, sports some very unique eating. First up: pickled beet eggs. My wife’s grammie has always made them, and I never knew or loved them until I had hers. The beets and eggs (hard-boiled) are pickled together in the beet juice, vinegar, and sugar. They’re a little sweet and they stain your fingers.

At a family dinner we also had a dish called corn pie.

This is a very basic mixture of corn, hard-boiled eggs, milk, and butter in a pie crust, flavored with salt and pepper. It’s simple, easy-to-like comfort food.

Pizza is pizza, but it always tastes better when it’s a little sentimental. This is a slice of the meat lovers from P&J Pizza in Womelsdorf. P&J was my wife’s grandfathers favorite pizza place; the family that owned the place always called him “Charlie,” even though that’s not his name. When Pop passed away a couple years ago, we actually had to make the call to P&J to let them know that Charlie had passed, and they were genuinely disappointed to lose a friend.

We spent a morning in the adorable and vibrant small town of Lititz, including breakfast at a home-cooking buffet (blog post coming soon!). Lititz was just voted Coolest Small Town in America by Budget Travel, and from what I’ve seen that’s a worthy title. Storefronts are not only occupied by small businesses, but they’re busy, too. There’s a healthy mix of history and some modern invention, and the town overall is very well-kept. We visited two food-related places that are steeped in history.

The first stop was the Julius Sturgis pretzel factory, first pretzel bakery in the U.S. The small stone building still houses the old equipment and ovens, although they only make soft pretzels on site. The twice-baked pretzels are made at a larger factory nearby.

On the tour you learn to roll and twist your own pretzel.

And then there’s the obligatory sampling of the fresh soft pretzels.

Around the corner from Julius Sturgis is Wilbur Chocolate Company, still making chocolate in their original production space. The lower level is a shop and museum, but on the floors above you can hear the equipment thumping away.

Part of the gift shop serves as a small museum, with displays of old packaging, equipment, and photos.

Out of sheer curiosity, I picked up a bag of Wilbur’s coffee. The package noted that the beans are dusted with cocoa, and they seriously weren’t kidding.

If you’re eating in eastern Pennsylvania, you’ve got to have some scrapple! Scrapple is made from the butcher’s meat scraps, mixed with cornmeal and seasonings, then sliced and fried. When it’s done well, it’s good. When it’s not done well… it’s hard to forget what goes into it. This was the version served at our buffet breakfast in Lititz, and it was quite good. Crispy and well-seasoned.

We finished the weekend with breakfast at a local diner called Risser’s Family Restaurant. You have to love small town diners and their placemats with local advertising.

At Risser’s I tried their eggs benedict with a couple hash brown patties. All very good – the hollandaise was a little on the thick side – but all in all it was a fitting end to a weekend of comfort food.

Photos: Dutch babies

My boys are early risers like their father, so when I find myself suddenly awake and active at 6:45am on a Saturday, I’ve got the time to fix something more than just a bowl of cereal. Just recently Sam over at Pie Are Round (which I just got, Sam: pie are round, as opposed to pi ‘r’ squared – ha!) posted a recipe for Dutch babies. I haven’t had a Dutch baby since we visited Helser’s in Portland a couple years ago. But the simplicity of Sam’s recipe was tempting, since you make it with ingredients you’re likely to have around like flour, eggs, milk, sugar, salt, etc., and with the extra time I decided to give it a go. I’ll let you look up the specifics of the recipe on Sam’s blog, but here’s the end result. I was amazed at how much it puffed up, starting from a small pour of batter in the skillet.

Following Sam’s lead, we filled the pancake with apples (canned apples, boo – next time we’ll use homemade ones), plus a sprinkling of cinnamon and powdered sugar, and a slight drizzle of syrup.

Look at how high it expands. I’m adding this recipe to the repertoire, although I might drop the cooking time from 20 minutes to 18, and I’ll lower the pan to the bottom rack of the oven, as the top edges were a little crispy. Still, this is an easy and tasty recipe that’s versatile: you could dress it simply with sugar, lemon juice, or syrup, or choose a variety of fruit toppings (the apples are very good), or even with savory bites like scrambled eggs and sausage.

And I had to look up the origins, given my Dutch background. Dutch babies are also frequently called German pancakes, but the “Dutch” name comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch; they were mistakenly called “Dutch” upon immigration because of their speaking of “Deutsch.”