The Pillsbury Doughboy sent me a Valentine over the weekend!

I LOVE the Doughboy! I was kind of squealing when I saw the e-card in my inbox. Haha.

Hope your weekend was sweet! More posts to come about mine—I made my first roast chicken and it was EPIC.

I found these beautiful print-and-cut Valentine’ Day cards entirely by accident over at the Poets.org. (I love wasting online time on [legit] poetry sites.) I love these cards. I seriously want to do something with them, like tags for V Day treats or something. Aren’t they pretty? E. E. Cummings kills me.

Would you wipe your hands on this poetic Mr. Darcy proposal dishtowel? (I couldn’t. Maybe I’ll repurpose it into a pillow so I can stare at it longingly and lovingly hug it to sleep. If you’re creeped out by that visual, you OBVIOUSLY don’t know Mr. Darcy like I do. Kthanksbye.)

And wow, look! A heart-shaped cocotte from Staub. I love the black one even more! Le Creuset, I’m breaking up with you.

We are celebrating this weekend at this:

Granted, I realize stuffing my face in front of someone isn’t the most attractive/romantic thing to do, but LA’s most popular food  trucks are going to all be there. Even a GRILLED CHEESE TRUCK, c’mon now!

How are you celebrating Happy Hearts Day?

Look at a picture of today’s weather in Los Angeles:

Why don’t we replace it with this?

Yum! Did that make you smile? (Or hungry?)

I’m sitting here warming up with thoughts of the wonderful B4D (Breakfast For Dinner) Party we had with friends last weekend.

This kind of party is easy to put together and is a cinch to host. I thought maybe if I could think of breakfast fare that can all go into one oven and cook together, it would make hosting that much easier. So on the menu for the evening was: Spinach Cheese Frittata, Baked Chicken Sausages, Homemade Waffles and fresh fruit. And oh, Mimosas! Because who doesn’t like champagne + orange juice on a Saturday night?

The Baked Chicken Sausages were a healthier alternative to pork ones, picked up from Trader Joe’s. The dish was actually an experiment. I tossed some halved fingerling potatoes (no peeling, so easy!) with some sliced onions and green peppers with some olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Laid those in a pan around the sausages that had little diagonal incisions on top. Baked at 375 degrees covered for 20 minutes (so the steam thoroughly cooks the sausages) and another 30 minutes or so uncovered (for browning). They came out full-flavored from the browning, with the peppers nice and soft, the onions caramelized and the potatoes thoroughly seasoned. I’ll be making this several times from now on.

As for the Spinach Cheese Frittata, would you like the recipe? Fancy a Frittata for your Friday? Here ‘tis!

Spinach Cheese Frittata
8 large eggs
4 large egg whites
2 cups spinach, fresh, baby leaves, chopped
4 Tbsp scallion(s), finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup shredded fat-free or lite cheddar cheese

Spray an 8×8 baking pan with cooking spray. In a large bowl, beat together eggs and egg whites; stir in spinach, scallion, salt and pepper. Pour mixture into pan, top with cheese. Bake at 375-degree oven. Mine took a while, maybe 30-40 minutes, because the eggs had to set and the cheese had to turn a golden brown. You can probably test at 20 minutes to see how “behaved” your egg mixture is. Let stand for a bit before cutting into wedges. The next time I make this I plan to throw in some red peppers and mushrooms, too! Another one for the recipe box.

The waffles were fun to make with this home-use, personalized waffle maker, the Presto Flipside (lots of great reviews on Amazon). You wait for it to heat up, pour in the waffle mix, flip it over to the other side and a beep goes off telling you your waffle is done.

Hello, Waffles. I believe it’s time you met my tummy!

We topped ours with peanut butter and real maple syrup. Yes, peanut butter. It’s an oddly awesome combination that E. introduced me to—he grew up with peanut butter + syrup on his pancakes and waffles. You should give it a try the next time you have these breakfast treats. It’s uncommonly yummy.

We finished the evening with more Mimosas and rounds of Super Mario Wii—which I’m bad at, but it’s ok. In the kitchen, I’m good. Avoiding poisonous mushrooms and snapping monster plants, not so much!

I hope you get to throw an omnommnomy B4D party of your own, too!

I woke up last Saturday morning thinking that I wanted, no needed, to make this:

I had made an Egg In The Basket before, but thought that with Valentine’s Day coming up I could give my idea of making this variation a go. Sometimes these are also called Toad In The Hole (beats me why), but I’ve nicknamed in this version the Heart In A Hole (at least it isn’t the other way around, huh?). I literally got up and zombiewalked to the kitchen in my pj’s to make this, because I had been thinking about it all the night before, wondering if it would work.

So, I took a slice of bread, which turned out to be multi-grain because there was nothing else in the house. This one is Milton’s multi-grain, which I have an unabashed affection for. I buttered both sides (the world would be a sad place indeed without butter!).

Used one of my heart cookie cutters from this mega collection that I’ve had for many years, and cut out a heart from the middle.

Put a little more butter in a pan (what? Julia Child LOVED butter!) and waited for it to melt.

Set the bread slice in the middle, and carefully broke an egg into the heart shape.

I covered the pan so the steam would allow the top of the eggs to set a little.

Flipped it over when I thought the yolk was sufficiently set and waited for that part to toast a little. I also toasted the cut-out heart itself in the same way.

The final outcome wasn’t as pretty as I wanted it to be, but I’m picky like that. I would have wanted the yolk a bit runny, so I’m probably going to take it out of the pan a little earlier than I did the next time I make it.

It was a hearty (oh puns, I love you so) dish that was as much fun to eat as it was fun to make! I hope you get to eggsperiment on your own, too!