Brunch

I love brunch. I like going to brunch, and preparing brunch. I have visions of hosting one of those decadent brunches where I'm not rushed and overwhelmed and can greet my guests with a mimosa.

And then I decided to go pick up my dry cleaning.



Since I just moved, I'm still discovering everything about my neighborhood. One of my more unpleasant discoveries is that the dry cleaner closest to me does not take credit cards. This is rather problematic when you've got a $37 dry cleaning bill and only $18 in your wallet.

Of course, I could've just gone to the nearest ATM, but I refuse out of principle. I just cannot pay the ATM fee plus my own bank's fee. Cuss that! Of course, I could've just waited until after my brunch to go to the ATM and get my dry cleaning. But as it was, I had left the dry cleaning for a couple of weeks already and I knew there was a chance that I wouldn't get back there until the next day or week. So I bit the bullet and walked many, many blocks to my own bank for money, then got my dry cleaning.

Then I spent a mildly panicked half hour getting everything together for brunch.


It was all a bit rushed but luckily my guests were not on time and I had kept the menu fairly simple. I made a breakfast casserole based on this one. I subbed regular chopped onions for leeks and added turkey sausage. I also added way too much goat cheese--I used a full 4 oz. log. I love goat cheese but half of that would have been sufficient. Actually, other cheeses would have worked well too, I think, like Gruyere.


Also, unlike the recipe, I left out the cottage cheese and added a little milk to the eggs instead. I didn't have the special seasoning so I just used salt and pepper, some cayenne and parsley.


It took about 30-35 min in my oven and came out nice and puffed. Quite delicious, I must say! My lovely guests agreed.


We did have mimosas and fruit too, but I was too busy chatting and eating to take better photos.


And for dessert... my second attempt at cinnamon rolls. I had tried this recipe before, to take to a brunch, but I made the mistake of trying it the morning of, and discovered that it was the stickiest dough ever--such a disaster that I just threw it out and ended up buying some fruit. I was prepared this time for the stickiness and added a lot more flour which did help but it kind of toughened up the rolls, I thought. It's not a traditional cinnamon roll recipe since it doesn't use yeast or require any extra rising time. They weren't the most attractive cinnamon rolls but they tasted pretty good. They were surprisingly even better the next day after about 30 seconds in the microwave.

Some day I'll try a real cinnamon roll recipe but this isn't too bad as a quick option. And some day I'll host a brunch without attempting to run any errands beforehand.