Happy Sunday, you baking fools. If the day of rest has you hankering seasonally appropriate yeast breads and some light morning reading, you have come to the right place! I have your weekend round-up of things to eat, wear, and read, plus a blueberry brioche that just might be the baking challenge your week needs. Let’s get started!

Bon Appetit’s Take on The Bachelorette

You don’t have to be an avid viewer of “The Bachelorette” to know that these people rarely eat on camera. Do they over-imbibe? Yes. Do they engage in childish antics? For sure. Do they get way too dressed for a cocktail party in their living room? 100%. But I absolutely love this list of food not eaten during the last part of Becca’s season. And PS, I’m totally making eyes at the bundt cake on Colton’s dining room table.

A French Woman’s Guide to Success in Food

It’s no secret that I secretly want to be French. For the love, I wrote a whole post about it here. In my quest to become a little more like our European friends, I’m checking out this article from Food52 about how to have success in food and life. Along those lines, check out this list of essential French recipes that every cook needs to master. 

Hair Trends for 2018

I’m by no means a trend forecaster, but I love sporting a new haircut like the best of them. Check out this list from Southern Living to land a new look of your own. I’m personally leaning towards the deep side part or the wash and wear long. What do you think?

Eat Cookie Dough While You Meet Mickey Mouse

This just in: Walt Disney World is now serving cups of edible cookie dough. BRB, planning my trip ASAP. In the meantime, check out two of my favorite cookie dough recipes here and here. 

2018 World’s Best US Cities

Travel + Leisure just released their annual “World’s Best” lists, and I’m scoping them all out for the low-down on where to go, what to see, and what to look forward to in my upcoming travels. I was particularly interested in this list of best US cities and was tickled to see two of my favorites recognized. For more on travel, be sure to check out my guides to Charleston, Chicago, and Portland. 

What to Wear

Up until a month ago, I didn’t own a single jumpsuit, but I now have three to my name. I’m scoping out this little cutie from Madewell to be number four, and I might even pick up this apron dress while I’m at it. PS, if you’ve got the shopping fever right now, be sure to check out Nordstrom’s anniversary sale, happening right now! 

Blueberry Brioche

I think we’re tough- we don’t shy away from a baking challenge. We don’t get nervous or intimidated by kitchen terminology or techniques that are foreign to us. We strap on our aprons, get our hands dirty, and resolve to master new and delicious foods. Today’s recipe for blueberry brioche is the perfect challenge to tackle this week and the outcome is nothing short of fab. Let’s chat the ins and outs.

Brioche is a French pastry-like bread that is loaded with egg and butter. Whether knotted into rolls, folded into loaves, or rolled into buns, brioche is always light, fluffy, and melt-in-your-mouth tender. If bread could be dessert, brioche would be right up there with babka. It’s that decadent.

Although cinnamon bread has been the go-to breakfast treat in our house, I wanted a secondary recipe to use up the beautiful summer produce that has been landing in my farmer’s market baskets. This blueberry brioche is the answer to that desire and I am so thrilled to share it with you today.

To make loaves of blueberry brioche, we start in the bowl of our stand mixer. Yeast is dissolved in some lukewarm milk with a bit of sugar. Once the granules of yeast have liquified, we add in the remaining sugar, some cinnamon, salt, and flour. Paddle the mixture until it comes together into a wet dough and begin adding the butter.

Chunks of room temperature unsalted butter are added to the mix until it is well incorporated, and then the dough gets worked over for a few minutes. Once thick, stringy pieces of dough are snagging the beater, we gently add a cup and a half of fresh blueberries. Warning: this part is a little tricky. The blueberries may not want to incorporate and may even burst under the pressure of your stand mixer. Feel free to use your hands to barely mix them in and then dump the mixture into a large greased bowl to rise. I leave my blueberry brioche dough to rise in a warm spot of my kitchen, usually under a warm light or next to the oven. After about and hour and a half or two hours, the dough should have doubled and you’re ready to form your loaves. 

Split the blueberry brioche dough into two equal pieces and gently pat each one out into a rectangle on a floured surface. The short end of each dough piece should be about 8″ long before you fold each piece lengthwise as you would a letter. Simply fold the bottom third up and the top third down until you have another rectangle-shaped piece of dough. Repeat this process and then work the small rectangle into a roll of dough that will fit into your greased bread pan. Cover each loaf with a sheet of plastic wrap to rise a second time.

Just before baking you can sprinkle on some crumble topping if desired. I love the extra bit of sweet and salty crust this lends each loaf of blueberry brioche, but it’s totally optional. Bake the bread in to oven until puffed, golden brown, and the inside of each loaf registers at 190 degrees. Allow the loaves to cool briefly in the loaf pans before cooling completely on a rack.

This blueberry brioche, while somewhat of a task in the kitchen, is a delicious treat that is perfect for breakfast, snacking, or even dessert. I like to toast thick slices until golden and then slather it with butter and cinnamon sugar. Regardless of your preferences, bread making is a beautiful art that, given patience, attention, and love, is really rewarding and insanely delicious. I hope you’ll take a chance on this bread and enjoy every bit of it. Happy Sunday and happy baking!

 

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I've noticed an increase of toast offerings at local coffee shops. Avocado, vegetables, and fruit are all popular items but what caught my eye at the last coffee shop was the ricotta toast. Good ricotta is delicious (and better yet, it's actually quite simple to make at home). Add it to toast and you have one delicious breakfast. Take it sweet (peaches, pears, berries) or take it savory, like this ricotta toast with peppers.

So why peppers? This time of year is the best for peppers, especially my favorite: Jimmy Nardello. Most of the non-bell varieties have amazing flavor. I've given two options for this recipe: tame and spicy. If you're not a heat fan, find the Jimmy Nardello peppers (or in a pinch, bell peppers). If you like a kick, use the Fresno peppers- you won't be disappointed.

Read more and see the recipe.

The post Ricotta Toast with Butter-Fried Peppers appeared first on Naturally Ella.

A free 7-day flexible meal plan including breakfast, lunch and dinner and a shopping list. All recipes include calories and Weight Watchers Freestyle™ SmartPoints®.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend, if you have any suggestions for recipes you want to see next week, let me know! I included the famous Bagel Recipe and Chickpea Egg Salad to make ahead on Sunday so you’ll be ready for the week.

If you’re new to my meal plans, I’ve been sharing these free, 7-day flexible healthy meal plans (you can see my previous meal plans here) that are meant as a guide, with plenty of wiggle room for you to add more food, coffee, beverages, fruits, snacks, dessert, wine, etc or swap recipes out for meals you prefer, you can search for recipes by course in the index. You should aim for around 1500 calories* per day.

There’s also a precise, organized grocery list that will make grocery shopping so much easier and much less stressful. Save you money and time. You’ll dine out less often, waste less food and you’ll have everything you need on hand to help keep you on track.

Lastly, if you’re on Facebook join my Skinnytaste Facebook Community where everyone’s sharing photos of recipes they are making, you can join here. I’m loving all the ideas everyone’s sharing!

THE DETAILS:

Breakfast and lunch Monday-Friday, are designed to serve 1 while dinners and all meals on Saturday and Sunday are designed to serve a family of 4. Some recipes make enough leftovers for two nights or lunch the next day. While we truly believe there is no one size fits all meal plan, we did our best to come up with something that appeals to a wide range of individuals. Everything is Weight Watchers friendly, I included the updated Weight Watcher Freestyle Points for your convenience, feel free to swap out any recipes you wish or just use this for inspiration!

The grocery list is comprehensive and includes everything you need to make all meals on the plan. I’ve even included brand recommendations of products I love and use often. Cross check your cabinets because many condiments you’ll notice I use often, so you may already have a lot of them.

And last, but certainly not least, this meal plan is flexible and realistic. There’s plenty of wiggle room for cocktails, healthy snacks, dessert and dinner out. And if necessary, you can move some things around to make it work with your schedule. Please let me know if you’re using these plans, this will help me decide if I should continue sharing them! 

MONDAY (7/30)
B: Easy Bagel Recipe* (3) with 1 egg (0), 1 ounce avocado (1) and 2 slices tomato (0)
L: Chickpea Egg Salad* (2)
D: Veggie Lasagna Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms (6) with a green salad** (2)
Totals: Freestyle Points 14, Calories 950***

TUESDAY (7/31)
B: Easy Bagel Recipe (3) with 1 egg (0), 1 ounce avocado (1) and 2 slices tomato (0)
L: Chickpea Egg Salad (2)
D: Southwest Chicken Skillet (5)
Totals: Freestyle Points 11, Calories 957***

WEDNESDAY (8/1)
B: Easy Bagel Recipe (3) with 2 tablespoons light cream cheese (3), 2 slices each: tomato (0), red onion (0) and cucumber (0)
L: Chickpea Egg Salad (2)
D: Unstuffed Cabbage Bowls (8)
Totals: Freestyle Points 16, Calories 950***

THURSDAY (8/2)
B: Easy Bagel Recipe (3) with 2 tablespoons light cream cheese (3), 2 slices each: tomato (0), red onion (0) and cucumber (0)
L: Chickpea Egg Salad (2)
D: Bacon Topped Petite Turkey Meatloaf with BBQ Sauce (6) and corn on the cob (0)
Totals: Freestyle Points 14, Calories 969***

FRIDAY (8/3)
B: Skinny Green Monster Smoothie (7)
L: LEFTOVER Bacon Topped Petite Turkey Meatloaf with BBQ Sauce (6) and an apple (0)
D: Grilled Salmon Kebabs (0) with Corn Tomato Avocado Salad (3)
Totals: Freestyle Points 16, Calories 1,002***

SATURDAY (8/4)
B: Roasted Strawberry Banana Bread (3) with 1 cup fruit salad** (0)
L: Greek Nachos (5) (Recipe x 2)
D: DINNER OUT!
Totals: Freestyle Points 8, Calories 353***

SUNDAY (8/5)
B: LEFTOVER Roasted Strawberry Banana Bread (3) with 1 cup fruit salad** (0)
L: Lentil Bowls with Avocado, Eggs and Cholula (2) (Recipe x 2)
D: One Skillet Chicken with Bacon and Green Beans (2) with ¾ cup brown rice (5)
Totals: Freestyle Points 12, Calories 905***

*Make Easy Bagels and Chickpea Egg Salad on Sunday

**Green salad includes 4 cups romaine ½ cup each: tomatoes, cucumber and light vinaigrette. Fruit salad includes 2 peaches, 1 pound sliced strawberries, 2 mangos, 6-ounces blueberries

***This is just a guide, women should aim for around 1500 calories per day. Here’s a helpful calculator to estimate your calorie needs. I’ve left plenty of wiggle room for you to add more food such as coffee, beverages, fruits, snacks, dessert, wine, etc.

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Are you ready for another almost-no-cook summer dinner? Yeah, me too. I love these Spiced Chickpea Tostadas not only because they are they light, cool, and refreshing, but they are the perfect “sweep the kitchen” recipe. You can add whatever you want to your tostadas, based on what you have on hand, so get creative and use up those leftovers! I’ve got some great ideas for substitutions and add-ons below. And don’t worry, if trying to eat a tostada without having the whole thing crumble into a pile of toppings onto your plate sounds too obnoxious, you can totally just make these into tacos instead. ;) 

And a quick special note about the prices listed below. I bought almost all of the ingredients for these tostadas (everything except sour cream and radishes) at Aldi, and if you know Aldi, you know their prices are extremely low. If you can’t get prices like this, don’t fret. You can still make some super cheap tostadas by swapping out some of the more expensive ingredients that I used for some of the substitution ideas I have listed below.

Spiced Chickpea Tostadas

Swaps and Add-Ons

As I mentioned above, tostadas are a great way to use up leftovers in your fridge. Here are some other toppings that will go really well with these spiced chickpeas: refried beans, shredded lettuce, diced tomato or pico de gallo, cheese, jalapeños (pickled or fresh), pickled carrots, pickled red onions, roasted corn, grilled zucchini, or shredded cabbage.

Radish: I don’t buy radishes often because they’re not my favorite, but when they’re sliced paper thin they provide the PERFECT fresh crisp crunch on these tostadas. I only used three radishes for the whole batch of tostadas though, which presents the problem of the remaining 2/3 of the bunch. I plan to slice up more to add to salads throughout the week and then I plan to pickle the rest using the same method that I used for my pickled carrots. If you don’t want to use radish on your tostadas, I highly suggest using some other fresh crunchy vegetable in its place to lighten things up. I would either slice some carrots paper thin or add a layer of shredded lettuce or cabbage. Just as with the radish, you want whatever vegetable you use to be sliced or shredded very finely.

I don’t suggest skipping the lime crema, though. That stuff is magic and the tangy and creamy flavor is the PERFECT contrast to the spiced chickpeas. If you can’t have dairy, all I can suggest is trying to find a non-dairy sour cream substitute, although I can’t guarantee how that will taste.

Step by Step Photos

Make the lime crema first, so the flavors have a little time to blend. Zest one lime and squeeze the juice into a small bowl. Add about 1 tsp of the zest and 1 Tbsp of the juice to an 8 oz. container of sour cream, along with one small clove of minced garlic and 1/4 tsp salt. Stir to combine and set aside.

To make the spiced chickpeas, rinse and drain one 15oz. can of chickpeas. Add 1 Tbsp oil to a large skillet and heat over medium. Once hot, add the chickpeas and 1/2 Tbsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/8 tsp cayenne, 1/4 tsp oregano, 1/8 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp salt, and a little freshly cracked pepper. Stir and cook the chickpeas in the oil and spices for about five minutes, or until you begin to see and hear them gently pop. 

Wash and VERY THINLY slice three radishes. Pull a handful of cilantro leaves from their stems.

Now it’s just time to assemble! Smear a thin layer of guacamole on each tostada…

Add a scoop of the spiced chickpeas and a few slices of radish…

And finally, add a drizzle or dollop of lime crema and some of the fresh cilantro. Now EAT! :D

The post Spiced Chickpea Tostadas (or tacos) appeared first on Budget Bytes.