A long holiday weekend either means several days packed with travel and exciting activities, or an opportunity to stay around the house and catch up on much needed rest. This 4th of July weekend, I chose the later. Intentionally staying at home (which takes a lot of intention for me) and chilling out in front of the TV and with a good book also gave me the chance to work on some recipes I had swirling around in my mind.

First up, blueberry scones made with whole-grain pastry flour. Last summer, I shared a recipe for whole-grain blueberry muffins using seasonal, locally grown blueberries. Well, it’s blueberry season again, so take advantage!

Blueberries are packed with good nutrition – anti-oxidants (vitamin A and vitamin C), fiber, and only 84 calories per cup. I mostly prefer to eat blueberries straight from the container rather than cooking with them because, like most fruit, they taste delicious all on their own and it’s healthier to eat them raw. However, every now and then, I do like them in a breakfast or tea-time pastry such as muffins or scones.

My recipe is adapted from a recipe for cranberry-walnut scones that I got from the little recipe booklet that came with my KitchenAid food processor. By the way, if you don’t have a food processor, get one! Every kitchen should have one, as it makes many culinary tasks so much easier and quicker — sifting flour, grating and slicing vegetables, even kneading dough.

So with this recipe, it calls for a food processor, but you can still make these scones even if you don’t have one by using a hand-held pastry blender or two knives to cut the butter into the flour. Enjoy!

Blueberry Scones
Adapted from a recipe for Cranberry-Walnut Scones by Kitchen Aid

NOTE: If you don’t have a food processor, then you can cut the butter into the flour with two knifes or a hand-held pastry blender. Everything else you can do by hand with a fork or rubber spatula.

1-1/4 cup organic whole grain pastry flour
3/4 cup organic unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons organic cane sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground cinnamon
1/3 cup organic unsalted butter, cut in to small cubes
(Keep in refrigerator until ready to use)
1 egg yolk or 1 flax seed egg replacer
(Combine 1-1/2 tsp flax meal +3 tsp water and let sit for 2 minutes)
2/3 cup organic whipping cream
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In large bowl food processor, combine flours, baking powder, salt, sugar and cinnamon and pulse about 5 times to combine.  Add the cold cubed butter to the bowl of the food processor, cover and pulse about 5 times for 2 seconds each to obtain a fine crumbly mixture.

In a small bowl, combine the whipping cream and flax mixture or egg yolk and stir well. Drizzle the cream mixture over the ingredients in the food processor, cover and process for about 5 seconds to obtain a chunky crumbly mixture.

Transfer the scone dough into a large bowl and gently incorporate the blueberries into the dough with your hands, being sure not to mash the blueberries (or at least not very many).

Lightly flour a large cutting board or flat surface and turn the dough out onto the board. With your hands, flatten and pat the dough into a 1″ think circle about 7″ wide. Then with a floured knife, make four long diagonal cuts across the flattened dough to create 8 wedges. Place the wedges spaced out on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 18 – 20 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.

Tamika Felder of Tamika and Friends, Inc. shares a guest post for FlavorDiva.com, which was inspired by her organization’s recent Chocolate & Crème fundraiser for their work on cervical cancer awareness. In addition to leading a nonprofit, working in public television, and being a great cook, Tamika recently started a blog with two other cervical cancer survivors to document their quest to train for a triathlon next year.

As I sat there in traffic during my 1.5 hour commute from work, my mind began to drift to all of the work I needed to do in preparation for my non-profit organization’s (Tamika & Friends, Inc.) Chocolate & Crème Affair, which was to be held in D.C. at Sonoma Restaurant and Bar. This fundraiser for cervical cancer awareness featured chocolates and desserts from renowned chocolatiers and bakers in addition to a silent auction. Unfortunately during my drive, my thoughts never got passed the word chocolate!

Instead of thinking about the phone calls I had to make and emails I had to send, I started daydreaming about the cupcakes we would serve and the fondue fountain that would overflow with luscious, decadent white and milk chocolate throughout the evening. As I began salivating, reality kicked in and reminded me that I’m part of a cervical cancer survivor slim down challenge and we are training for a triathlon next year, which meant I would have to pass up the chocolate for now!

After getting home, I still couldn’t shake the chocolate craving that kept creeping into my thoughts. I looked through my pantry and noticed the chocolate chips and walnuts. I saw the bananas sitting on the counter and thought hmmm, I should try the chocolate banana bread recipe I recently came across. Why bananas you might ask? Well in my mind, that helped to outweigh the chocolate and bread elements and make it healthy!

Even though I didn’t deny my chocolaty-baked-goods craving, I followed my indulgence with a walk around the block. Chocolate chip banana bread might not fully qualify as the most nutritious of foods, but it’s still a good treat in moderation, so enjoy. Just be sure to step it up in the gym or around the block afterwards!

Chocolate Banana Nut Bread
Here’s Tesia’s take on the recipe adapted from the AllRecipes.com version by Tracie P.

1-1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 cup natural cane sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 over ripe bananas, well mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup whole plain yogurt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the butter, yogurt, vanilla, and eggs. Then mix in the mashed bananas. In another large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and cocoa powder. Stir the wet mixture into the dry mixture with a spatula until just combined. Next, fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

Pour batter into floured loaf pan and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of bread comes out clean. Allow bread to cool for at least 20 minutes before removing it from the pan, then let bread cool completely before serving.

I’m back! Every now and then you just have to take a break. That was the case for me last week. After pushing hard in August to maintain my blogging schedule of posting twice a week and working to win the 2009 Black Weblog Awards for best food blog (which I did – thank you!), I had to slow down for a moment to regroup. Also, I had to make an adjustment to a new endeavor added to my schedule – yoga teacher training.

I’ve written about my interest in dance and yoga before, which both go hand in hand with my passion around food, nutrition and good eating. All of these things are about nurturing your health and well-being. I study dance and movement regularly (multiple classes a week) and have been practicing yoga on some level since 2000. So wanting to deepen my own yoga practice and prepare myself for teaching others about using movement for feeding mind, body and spirit, I’m now working on my 200-hour-level certification with Shakti Mind Body Studio.

This has inspired me to share the recipe for this post – a quinoa-millet hot breakfast cereal, which I first came across during a recent yoga retreat I attended. Definitely uncommon and associated with health food stores, you might be wondering, ‘what in the world is quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) or millet?’

Quinoa is a grain-like seed native to South America and high in protein and various minerals. It’s fluffy when cooked and has a nutty flavor. It can be eaten like oatmeal as in my recipe or like rice or cous cous. Millet is a grain that’s also a substitute for rice or cous cous and can be used in baked goods such as breads and muffins.

Cooked together in water, similar to how you might make oatmeal; this combination makes a great hot breakfast cereal that adds some variety to your mornings – variety in taste and in the nutrients provided. I’m from the south, so I love grits for breakfast (savory preferred – butter and salt), but I also enjoy oatmeal topped with chopped nuts, brown sugar and dried fruit. That’s exactly the same approach I use when making quinoa-millet cereal. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Quinoa-Millet Hot Cereal
Makes about 4 servings

1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup millet, rinsed and drained
2-1/2 cups water
Chopped nuts
Currants, raisins or cranberries
Dried apricots, diced

Bring water and a pinch of salt to a boil in small sauce pan. Add quinoa and millet, stir, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add a little hot water if it cooks too quickly. The cereal should be neither too watery nor dry (more like porridge).

Serve in a bowl with chopped nuts, dried fruit such as raisins, currants and apricots, along with one to two tablespoons of maple syrup or agave nectar. You can also use brown sugar instead.

This past weekend I experimented with whole grain baking thanks to inspiration I received from the cookbook Super Natural Cooking by blogger Heidi Swanson. I picked up the book during a recent weekend excursion to New York’s Hudson Valley. Driving about 1 1/2 hours outside of NYC with my foodie friend, Norah Burton, we visited the quaint towns of Hyde Park (home to the Culinary Institute of America), Rhinebeck and Red Hook among a few others.

In addition to taking a self-guided tour of CIA, looking for area farmers’ markets and interesting shops, and stumbling upon a couple of great restaurants, we visited Greig Farm in Red Hook. This small farm was full of ripe, u-pick blueberries.

Although the weather made it a bit too hot for us to pick that afternoon, we went out into the fields to taste a few berries and take photos before driving a short distance down the road to the farm’s store, Gigi Market. That’s where I stumbled upon Heidi’s book, which is all about cooking with whole, natural ingredients, including a wide variety of whole grains.

Wanting to share a recipe with you not from the book, but inspired by the cookbook and my trip to Greig Farm, I came up with my version of blueberry muffins that are delicious and provide you with the good nutrition that whole grains offer.

Often times, people think whole grains mean a dry and flavorless baked good, but with techniques that often include blending different types of flours or adding certain ingredients such as yogurt, whole grain baking can result in tasty textures and flavors that are higher in protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals than regular all-purpose flour.

My blueberry muffins recipe calls for whole-wheat pastry flour, which is milled from soft wheat. It helps give muffins and quick breads a more tender texture than you would get from using regular whole-wheat flour. Some recipes call for part whole-wheat pastry flour and part all-purpose flour, but I decided to go all the way and use all whole grain flour. The yogurt helps to make the muffins moist and tender.

If you never or rarely bake with whole grain flour, give this recipe a try. It just may entice you to experiment a little more with whole grain baking. Thanks to Heidi Swanson’s cookbook, I’m already looking forward to working more with whole grains in my kitchen.

Whole Grain Blueberry Muffins
Makes 14 muffins

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup of natural cane sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup whole, plain yogurt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons whole milk
1-1/2 cups blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, fully whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. In another bowl, fully mix together melted butter, yogurt and almond extract. Then, add eggs and briskly stir to combine.

Create a well in the flour mixture and add the butter, yogurt and egg mixture stirring together briskly with a rubber spatula. Be sure to incorporate all of the flour until just combined (do not over mix). Then fold the whole milk and blueberries into the batter.

Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper muffin liners and fill them to the top with the batter. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes. When muffins are done, they will begin to brown on top.

Remove muffins from oven and allow them to cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring them to a baking rack to cool a few minutes more. Serve muffins warm (tastiest) or at room temperature.

I’ve taken a loss several times before when trying to make french toast that looks like the french toast I’ve had in a few good restaurants. I finally achieved beautiful slices of this breakfast dish, just the way I like, once I realized that it’s about the bread. Of course you have to get the basics for the dip right too – milk, egg, a little sweetness and spices.

Just like the papa al pomodoro recipe I featured earlier this month, french toast is a recipe for making use of day old (stale) bread. An ingenious recipe for not letting good food go to waste.

In order to get that classic french toast look and texture, use brioche or challah bread. I prefer brioche, but challah works fine as well. Brioche is a rich, yet airy french bread made with butter and eggs. Challah is a kosher bread often a part of Jewish holiday meals. It doesn’t include butter, which is what makes it kosher (butter and eggs can’t mix – or so I read). Brioche is sometimes braided, but not always, but from what I’ve seen in the bakery, challah is always braided.

These types of breads tend to allow for better absorption of the milk and egg mixture for french toast, and they’re the type of bread often used in restaurants so using them at home gives you a familiar look. Give it a try this weekend! Have you used other types of bread for making french toast?  

Classic French Toast
Serves 2 – 4

4 slices of brioche or challah bread
1 cup of milk
1 large egg
2 tablespoons maple syrup plus more for serving
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Generous sprinkle of cinnamon
Generous pinch of salt
2 tablespoons butter

In a wide shallow bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Slice bread into one inch thick slices. One at a time, place the bread in the bowl with the milk and egg mixture for about 30 seconds, then flip to soak the other side for another 15 – 30 seconds. Set soaked bread aside.

Heat a large, non-stick skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Melt one tablespoon of butter and then put two of the soaked bread slices into the skillet (all four slices if they fit easily). Cook on one side for about four minutes. Then flip and cook on the other side for another 4 minutes (re-flip if necessary to get a nice golden brown color).

Set the two cooked slices aside, melt the other tablespoon of butter and cook the remaining two soaked slices as described above. Once cooked, cut the slices on a diagonal and serve with maple syrup and fresh fruit. 

Sometimes, ripe fruits and vegetables are just too good to be cooked or sugar coated. They’re delicious in their own right and packed with nutrition. I came real close to featuring a pound cake with peaches in syrup or a peach cobbler (I probably will later), but in honor of the peak of summer and the bounty of seasonal produce available, I dedicate this post to the unadulterated peach.

This season especially, I’m coming to realize that ripe, fresh picked fruits and vegetables have so much more flavor than the produce you normally find in the grocery store year round. The latter has often been prematurely picked and is several days or a week old before it gets in your shopping bag, which means less flavor and less nutrients.

Fresh, local peaches are just now beginning to show up on market stands, and they’ll be with us through August. I couldn’t be happier. Their fragrance reminds me of home and when I used to help my grandfather sell South Carolina peaches at the local farmers’ market. Oh, and that’s a helpful tip for you when purchasing peaches — if you can’t easily smell their fragrance, then they’re probably not going to be the best pick. That I knew, but here are a few other tips: 

“Look for ones with a creamy to gold undercolor that indicates ripeness. The amount of red on peaches depends on the variety, it is not always a sign of ripeness. Look for fruit that has a well-defined crease and a good fragrance. Unripe peaches have a green undercolour and will never ripen.”

- The Fruit Pages

Originally from China (fascinating), peaches are high in potassium and contain vitamins C and A. They also contain fiber, are low in calories, have high water content, and are considered to be a natural diuretic. All good for you and your taste buds, so find yourself a good peach and indulge in the natural beauty of summer.

Crunchy, lightly sweet granola can be found prominently displayed in supermarket cereal aisles for about $3.99 to $5.99 a bag. The cheaper variety contains high fructose corn syrup and the more expensive variety is … well, more expensive! However, I’ve discovered that granola is very easy to make yourself at home.

Associated with hippies and health food stores, granola is a great food for anyone and goes well with yogurt and berries to make a parfait, with milk (cow’s milk, soy, almond, etc.) for a breakfast cereal or even on ice cream. Granola is also great to carry for a mid-morning or afternoon snack. 

The base ingredients for granola are rolled-oats and honey or maple syrup, usually nuts and some type or a combination of dried fruit. When it comes to nuts and dried fruits, the options are endless for what you can add to granola.

Nuts used often include pecans, almonds, cashews or peanuts. You will also find seeds used such as pumpkin or sunflower. Dried fruit options include raisins, cranberries, pineapple, grated coconut, apricots, dates, mango and apples. 

The recipe below is for a very simple granola with a toasty flavor. I’ve discovered that the key to making good granola is to be sure to stir it every 10 minutes or so as it’s baking. This allows for even cooking. Also, depending on how accurate your oven is, the granola might bake quicker than what the recipe states. If you start to smell a burnt smell, take it out – it’s done.

Toasty Homemade Granola
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not instant)
1 cup chopped nuts (such as pecans or almonds or a mixture)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup banana chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place the oats, nuts and salt in a large bowl and stir well. Add honey and stir well again (1 – 2 minutes) to combine and evenly incorporate all ingredients. On a non-stick baking sheet, spread the mixture evenly. If you’re not working with a good non-stick sheet, lightly spray the sheet with cooking spray before adding mixture or line with parchment paper.

Bake for 25 minutes stirring the mixture every 10 minutes to ensure even cooking. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes. Then transfer the toasty granola to a bowl and stir in the raisins and banana chips. Allow to cool completely.

Serve granola with yogurt and fruit to make a breakfast parfait or eat with milk as a breakfast cereal. Granola also goes well with ice cream or eaten alone as a snack.

Cookbook Review: During the last several weeks I hope you’ve had a joyful holiday season as well as time to try out some of the recipes I suggested from my last cookbook review on The Get ‘Em Girls Guide to the Power of Cuisine. Since then, I’ve picked up another cookbook by one of my favorite Food Network personalities – Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa.

I love watching Barefoot Contessa because Ina Garten’s food always seems simple, yet elegant and stylish. Also, I love her story of how she worked at the White House Office of Management and Budget, but then left to purchase a specialty food shop called Barefoot Contessa in the Hamptons. Over twenty years later she has built and sold a successful food store, written multiple cookbooks, and has her own cooking show and a line of food products.

Ina’s latest of six cookbooks, Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, is a gorgeous 272-page hardback full of recipes for cocktail hour, soups, lunch, dinner, vegetables, dessert, and breakfast. As Ina describes it, the cookbook is about “taking ordinary ingredients and cooking them – or pairing them – in a way that “unlocks” their true flavors.” The photography in the books is beautiful and inspiring, and most of the recipes have an accompanying photo.

One of the best aspects about this cookbook that I like is Ina’s informative and motivating introduction on cooking seasonally and cooking for flavor, along with her lists of tips on cooking and entertaining at the beginning of each chapter. For example, she share’s 10 No-Cook Things to Serve with Drinks, How to Arrange Flowers Like a Pro, and 10 Things Not to Serve at a Dinner Party.

Now while the book is called Back to Basics, some of the recipes are easy or simple to make and others require a little more time and patience, however, the rewards of an extremely flavorful dish await you. I tried several of the recipes and I’m looking forwarded to trying many more, including the Tuscan lemon chicken, baked shrimp scampi, mustard-roasted fish, wild mushroom risotto, French chocolate bark, and honey vanilla pound cake just to name a few. For those of you who eat red meat (in moderation of course), Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics also has recipes for an elegant pot roast and Niman Ranch burgers.

One of the recipes that I tried from the cookbook was chicken bouillabaisse, a stew of chicken, potatoes and French flavors including white wine and Pernod – a star anise flavored liquor. I also made Ina’s parmesan thyme crackers, which were delicious and would be great to serve as an appetizer or cocktail party hors d’ oeuvre. Other recipes I tested from the cookbook included roasted shrimp, maple-roasted butternut squash, county French omelets, roasted parsnips and carrots, and buttermilk cheddar biscuits.

The buttermilk cheddar biscuits were wonderful and are pretty easy to make as long as you have a stand mixer or food processor (which you should if you cook regularly, as I hope you do). Her recipe calls for making the biscuits using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Since, I’m still waiting to retire my hand-me-down mixer and purchase a new one with a paddle attachment, I tried out the recipe using my food processor and it worked like a charm (follow similar steps in a food processor recipe for scones or biscuits).

Ina includes this recipe in her chapter on breakfast, but I think the biscuits also go well with dishes for dinner or lunch such as soups and salads. Be sure to use quality ingredients such as organic dairy and unbleached all-purpose flour.

Buttermilk Cheddar Biscuits
By Ina Garten from Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics

Click here for the recipe.

By guest blogger, Norah Burton
Norah Burton, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, is a devout foodie. When she’s not working on her master’s in Food Studies from New York University, she’s creating new recipes and scouting out food and wine festivals.

Fall is absolutely my favorite time of the year. As colorful leaves float to the ground and the season transitions, so does my diet. The weather gets colder, and I move toward more bountiful and hearty dishes that evoke a warm cozy feeling. What better way to start off an autumn day than with a comforting breakfast bursting with the seasonal tastes of fall! 

Comfort foods such as pancakes are so nurturing and help relieve seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Taking trips to apple orchards and pumpkin patches bears wonderful fruits for fantastic culinary delights. On these trips, I’m always sure to pick up a jar of pumpkin butter, which yields terrific “from scratch” pumpkin pies and pancakes.

I have experimented with many variations of pumpkin pancakes and finally settled on the recipe below, which is perfect for the morning after Thanksgiving or any other weekend brunch. Using a blend of pumpkin purée and pumpkin butter lends for a nice flavor contrast of savory and sweet. And notice the minimal amount of refined sugar in the recipe. Instead of sugar, the sweetness comes from the pumpkin and the dried cranberries. 

The cardamom butter adds a nice twist to the recipe. Cardamom, a member of the ginger family, is one of the world’s oldest spices. It originates from the forests of Southern India. Ancient Egyptians cleaned their teeth with it, and Greeks and Romans used it as perfume. In modern times it is used as a sweet and peppery spice added to cakes, pastries, and breads, and is used in a savory fashion to flavor red meat and curry dishes. The butter is fantastic because you can freeze and save it to use in preparing various root or tuber vegetables. It adds a nouveau take on glazed carrots and spruces up a baked sweet potato. If you aren’t a vegetable lover, it’s delicious on a piece of cinnamon raisin toast, bagel or biscuit. 

Here are a few tips for making great pancakes:

• Consistency: The batter is the perfect consistency when it smoothly spreads out on the griddle.
   
• Texture: Baking powder stirred into the flour and egg whites folded in at the end of making the batter yield a light and fluffy pancake.
   
• Non-stick: Remember to lightly grease the skillet or griddle with butter or a non-stick cooking spray. 
   
• Flipping: When bubble holes appear on the upright side of the pancakes and the edges begin to dry and pull away from the skillet, they are ready to flip. Once flipped over, pancakes take half the time to cook on the other side.  
   
• Storing: Pancakes are best served right off the skillet but can be stored while you finish cooking the remaining batter. For holding, I normally stack them on top of each other and store them in the microwave.

Other variations of this recipe include adding diced apples or chopped pecans instead of cranberries. You can also omit the pumpkin purée and pumpkin butter to make plain pancakes, but the pumpkin recipe will be sure to get you into the spirit of fall and the upcoming giving season. Bon appétit!

Pumpkin Pancakes with Dried Cranberries and Cardamom Butter

Pancake Batter
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar (divided: 2 tbs, 1 tbs)
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon baking powder (aluminum-free, such as Rumford’s)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk
3 large eggs, yolks and whites separated
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup pumpkin butter
1/2 cup pumpkin purée (canned or made fresh)
Large handful of dried cranberries (about 1/2 cup)

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, ground cloves, cinnamon and salt. Add buttermilk, pumpkin butter, pumpkin purée, vanilla extract and three egg yolks. Stir quickly until smooth.

In a separate bowl, whip egg whites and 1 tablespoon sugar (electric hand mixer works best) until soft peaks form or mixture is white and frothy. Fold egg white mixture into the pumpkin batter. Fold in dried cranberries.

Heat a 10″ – 12” skillet (preferably non-stick) over medium heat. When skillet is hot, use a 1/3 measuring cup to spoon the batter into the skillet. Allow to cook on one side until bubble holes form and edges begin to dry and pull away from the skillet (about 6 – 8 minutes). Then, flip pancakes to cook on the other side for about 3 – 4 minutes more.  Remove pancakes from skillet and serve immediately with honey cardamom butter (recipe below).

Honey Cardamom Butter
1 stick of butter softened to room temperature (1/2 cup)
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds

Mix the honey and cardamom in a bowl, then fold in the butter. Use melon baller to scoop individual portions of butter on top of pancakes. Top pancakes off with 100 percent pure maple syrup or dust with powdered sugar (optional).

Growing up in the south, breakfast just wasn’t breakfast without some kind of meat included (a real breakfast anyway – cold cereal doesn’t count). I used to eat all kinds of stuff that today I don’t even touch – pork bacon, livermush, fried bologna, pork sausage patties or links, and my old favorite, corned beef hash.

Now that I rarely, if ever, eat pork (or beef for that matter), my breakfast is usually vegetarian and occasionally includes turkey bacon. Many times when I go out for breakfast, I look for a veggie or turkey sausage/bacon substitute; however, I’ve found that most places don’t even give you that option.

When it comes to cooking breakfast at home, I shop for turkey bacon, which is pretty easy to find. I also look for Morning Star veggie sausage patties (I’m not crazy about the links). Chicken sausages are tasty also, although they usually have a pork casing. But one thing I’ve noticed is that I don’t really see turkey sausage patties outside of the occasional restaurant. So this week when I was trying to decide what to do with some of the left over sage that I purchased to make Tuscan white bean soup, turkey sausage patties came to mind.

Before beginning, I looked at a variety of sausage recipes from a variety of sources to get an idea of how to go about making sausage at home (Joy of Cooking, The Gourmet Cookbook, RecipeZaar.com, AllRecipes.com). Different versions called for pork sausage and a few others used chicken or turkey. All used sage, but the other ingredients differed from recipe to recipe. My recipe uses fresh sage, dried thyme, paprika, nutmeg, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Other versions included eggs, allspice, fennel, cayenne pepper and ground cloves.

The recipe below is a good starting point for tasty turkey sausage patties that you can make for yourself, your family, and guests you invite over for brunch. I based my selection of ingredients on simplicity and what intuitively makes sense to me, but I will probably try other recipes and spice combinations to find the perfect taste according to my palette since I’m still searching for something (I can’t quite put my finger on it) to punch up the flavor a little bit. I recommend trying the recipe a few times and playing around with different amounts of spices and herbs to find the flavor that suits your taste.

No matter what, don’t over cook the patties or press them down making the juices flow out as you’re cooking. This will result in a dry patty.

Turkey Sausage Patties
Makes about 10 patties

1 pound ground turkey (don’t get “ground turkey breast” or the 99% fat-free ground turkey)
1 tbs fresh sage, finely chopped
3/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 – 3 dashes of freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp garlic powder

Place the ground turkey in a large bowl. Add all other ingredients and mix together well. Spoon out enough seasoned turkey to roll into a golf-ball sized ball. Then pat into a 1/2 inch thick patty. Continue until you have all of the meat divided and shaped into patties.

Heat a non-stick skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Place several patties into the skillet (do not overcrowd the pan) and cook on one side for about 4 minutes, then flip the patties and cook on the other side for an additional 4 minutes. Remove patties from the pan and set aside. Cook the remaining patties. Let cooked patties sit for a minute or two before eating in order to allow the juices inside to settle. Remember, don’t squeeze down on the patties as they are cooking. This will make the juices run out and leave you with a dry interior.

NOTE: You can freeze cooked patties and reheat in the microwave for about 1 minute per patty. You can also prepare the turkey mixture the night before and cook in the morning. The uncooked turkey mixture/patties can keep in the refrigerator for up to three days.