Weekend Eats: Bread Toppers

Photo: Serious Eats

Sometimes my favorite meals are the easiest. You can open a bottle of merlot wine, buy a wedge of brie and a fresh loaf of grainy bread, and voilà, you have the makings of a delicious feast!

It's almost blueberry season! Make ahead a jar of blueberry jam to top brie cheese on bread or toast.

Blueberry Jam

Ingredients: 

2 cups fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons chia seeds
1/2 cup of honey or maple syrup

Directions:

Dump the blueberries, chia seeds, and honey or maple syrup
 into a saucepan and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes or so. I use a potato masher to smash the blueberries (leaving chunks). Remove from the heat and pour into a jar. It thickens as it cools. Refrigerate until needed.

Serve on grainy bread (or multigrain toast) on top of a spread of brie cheese.

🍏🥄🍽🍴🧅🥄🍽🍴🍋🥄🍽🍴🍏🥄🍽🍴🧅🥄🍽🍴🍋🥄 🍽🍴🥄🍽🍴🍏

Another topper for your slices of grainy bread is chilled chicken salad. It's also a chance to use leftovers -- chicken and/or vegetables! If you don't have fresh leftover vegetables, frozen vegetables work too.

Dijon Chicken Salad With Vegetables 

Ingredients:

16 oz cooked white chicken breast, diced

Select one: 10 oz frozen, cooked and cooled California Mix vegetables, diced; cooked asparagus, diced; or raw onions, celery, and carrots, diced

Photo: Christy Denny

1/2 - 1 cup low-fat mayonnaise (Don't use tasteless fat-free.)

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons lemon juice (Often I use vinegar.)

Salt and pepper to taste (Began with a teaspoon of salt, and go from there.)

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped

Variation: Sometimes I use a chopped tarty apple in my chicken salad for a satisfying crunch. We enjoy food due to its texture and flavor.

Directions:

Toss all your chosen ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix well. Chill for one hour before serving on your fresh (or toasted) grainy bread.

Add some fresh fruit (grapes, strawberries, orange and peach slices, whatever is in season) and you're consuming all the major food groups - protein, whole grains, fruit and vegetables. Bon Appetite! 🍷

You may also enjoy:

Pasta e Fagioli

Making Pizza Dough

Starbucks-esque Lemon Loaf

Tasting Mead Is On My Bucket List

A Blueberry Crumble Day

Photo: nutmegnanny.com

Today I will satisfy a craving for blueberry crumble. There are several fruit and batter desserts that are alike. A crumble has a little oatmeal in the streusel topping.

So in a nutshell what are the differences between 7 similar fruit desserts?: A crumble has a streusel topping made of butter, all-purpose flour, oats and sometimes nuts, and it is baked in an oven. A crisp is a crumble with no oatmeal or nuts (and yet people confuse it with a crumble). A cobbler is fruit topped with biscuit dough usually of all-purpose flour. A buckle has a greater cake to fruit ratio, a fruit coffee cake if you will. And finally, a brown Betty is made with bread crumbs and brown sugar. (I'd eat a brown Betty, but have never made one.) A grunt (aka slump) contains all-purpose flour and the ingredients of a cobbler or crumble, yet is made in a skillet on the stovetop, so it steams, as opposed to, bakes in an oven. As it steams it can grunt. I almost always go for a crumble. Here's the recipe:

Blueberry Crumble

Ingredients:

Blueberry preparation
16 oz fresh (or frozen) blueberries
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice (or squeeze 1/2 of a lemon)
a sprinkle of salt
Chopped nuts are optional.
💟💙💜
Streusel topping
1/2 cup (1 minute or 5 minute) oats

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 - 4 tablespoons butter (One stick has 8 tablespoons. I use as little as I can get away with, but use up to 4 tablespoons for a good streusel texture and flavor.)
a sprinkle of salt

Directions:

1) Mix the blueberries, sugar, lemon juice, flour and salt.

2) Pour into a buttered square or round 9" pie baking pan.

3) In a mixing bowl combine the next 6 streusel topping ingredients and mix well. You can work the butter into the flour with your fingers if you wish. 

4) Distribute the streusel topping evenly over the blueberry mixture.

5) Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 30 - 35 minutes. The blueberry mixture will bubble and the streusel topping will start to brown.

Remove from the oven and eat warm. Some people like to add a scoop of ice cream or whipping cream, but I eat it as is.


You may also enjoy: 
Lemon Squares Light 
Intense Orange Julius
Easy Low Fat Ice Cream   
Creole Bread Pudding With Bourbon Sauce