breakfast Archives - 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Posted by Keelin Hollenbeck on January 6, 2014

Stovetop Oatmeal

Before Thanksgiving, my mom visited me for a few days while Matt was on a business trip. I picked my mom up from the airport and surprised her by taking her to a cookbook signing for Giada’s new book Giada’s Feel Good Food. The signing was at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, which is beautiful, so that was a plus. We waited in line for 2 hours and finally we got to meet Giada.

I have never been to something like this and of course, I was so starstruck I couldn’t think of anything to say when it was our turn. While I was smiling awkwardly, my mom kept talking to Giada about how much she loves her shows and books while Giada signed our books. When we walked away, we had a really good laugh about how we reacted to seeing Giada! We went to the restaurant next door and sat outside for a great dinner. We even got to see Giada again when she left the book signing from our table at the restaurant.

Giada

When we got home that night, we decided to make one of the oatmeal recipes in her book that I happened to have all the ingredients for. We reheated the oatmeal for the next two mornings for breakfast and it was so delicious and filling. During the whole month of December I made this oatmeal on Sunday night to have for breakfast for the whole week . I put each serving of oatmeal in a lidded container and stored then in the refrigerator. When I got to work, I would reheat it for 1 -1 1/2 minutes in the microwave. I really enjoyed the oatmeal and found myself look forward to it. This breakfast gave me the energy during the holiday season and stopped me from feeling sluggish.

Now that it is January and things are back to normal around here, this oatmeal is definitely going to be a breakfast staple. I am back to Weight Watchers after last month’s cookies so this breakfast fits perfectly into my plan.

Stovetop Oatmeal

Ingredients

3½ cup almond milk
⅛ tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups old fashioned oats
2 tbsp. dried cranberries
1 tbsp. brown sugar
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp. granulated sugar

Instructions

Add almond milk, kosher salt, and vanilla extract to a sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Once the milk begins to boil, add in oats and cook for 6-7 minutes. Cook an additional 1-2 minutes if you prefer a thicker oatmeal.
Stir in dried cranberries and brown sugar. In a small bowl combine the ground cinnamon and sugar. Separate the oatmeal into four bowls and sprinkle each bowl with ¼th the cinnamon sugar mix.
To make ahead- Separate cooked oatmeal into 4 lidded containers and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Store in the refrigerator until needed. To reheat oatmeal remove lid and microwave for about 1-1½ minutes. Stir and enjoy!

Source- Adapted from Giada’s Feel Good Food (disclosure: this is an Amazon affiliate link)

sisterk (2)

Posted by Keelin Hollenbeck on June 6, 2013

Homemade Baked Doughnuts (from 2 Sisters 2 Cities)

Let’s talk about doughnuts. Do you love them or hate them? I (like most foods out there) love them! Certain foods in my life have memories associated with them. When I was little, I remember going to church and there would sometimes be doughnuts and juice in the church basement after the mass. This probably only happened a few times in reality, but I would always sit through the whole mass hoping they would have doughnuts at the end. On days I didn’t want to go to mass, I would try to use doughnuts as a plea bargain with my parents. “I’ll go, but can we go out for doughnuts after?” This is probably the reason why we started going to 4 PM mass so I would shut up about doughnuts. I can’t say that I have grown out of this now. I still correlate Sunday mornings to doughnuts every week. (However, I usually think about them in passing…I don’t actually have a doughnut every Sunday.)

For the majority of my life I thought the right way to spell doughnuts was “donuts” because of the beloved Dunkin’ Donuts. I love Dunkin’ Donuts, but the funny thing is that I rarely get donuts there. I do love their coffee and I also buy their coffee grounds to make coffee at home. There are no Dunkin Donuts where I live in California! I have to smuggle Dunkin’ Donut’s ground coffee in every time I travel someplace that has one. My friend from New York visited last week and asked me if there was anything I wanted her to bring. I was like “YES! Bring me Dunkin’ Donut’s Coffee!”

Powdered Sugar Doughnuts (from 2 Sisters 2 Cities)

The problem with doughnuts is that they have an “unhealthy” connotation to them because they are fried and filled with sugar. Well, I have some good news on one of those problems‐ this recipe for doughnuts calls for them to be baked! This morning I had my homemade baked donuts with a big mug of DD coffee. Thanks B!

Cinnamon Baked Doughnuts (from 2 Sisters 2 Cities)

These doughnuts are from Ina Garten’s newest cookbook Barefoot Contessa Foolproof. My boyfriend and I have sort of been on a Ina kick lately. All the dinners and desserts and now breakfast we have made this weekend have been from Ina. I recently bought two more of her cookbooks at Costco and have been obsessively looking through them for what I will make next. I assure you that I will eventually be sharing with you what I have made.

Baked Doughnuts with Powdered Sugar(from 2 Sisters 2 Cities)

I have made fried doughnuts at home before and they were really good. I do however try to avoid frying things at home for several reasons: it seems like a waste of oil to me, it creates a huge mess with splashed oil, and it makes my apartment stink like a fast food place for days. I am also an extremely clumsy person so being near splashing hot oil is just not a good idea for me. When I originally saw this recipe for baked doughnuts in Ina’s cookbook, I was so excited to try it. The only caveat was that I needed to buy a donut pan. I have this thing about buying pans that only serve one purpose. Anyone that lives in an apartment understands this because space is limited. I have the same conundrum with Madeleine pans too! I want to make them but I don’t want to own the pan. I finally saw a doughnut pan at Marshall’s the other week and it was priced pretty well so I decided to finally buy one. The cool thing about this pan is basically you can take any muffin recipe and make baked doughnuts with it. These doughnuts are easy to make and we even tried dipping half in cinnamon sugar and half in powdered sugar. I love that these are even better the next day after the butter soaks in and the toppings dry, making them the perfect make‐the‐night ahead breakfast.

Baked Doughnuts

Ingredients

2 cups AP flour
1½ cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
½ tsp. kosher salt
1 large egg
1¼ cup milk
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
2 tsp. vanilla extract

For toppings

½ cup butter (1 stick), melted
½ cup granulated sugar mixed with ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
OR
1 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar (powdered sugar)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray doughnut pan with non-stick cooking spray (I only have one 6-doughnut pan so I just had to make the doughnuts in batches)
In a large bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Then in a small bowl whisk together the egg, milk, melted butter and vanilla extract. Take the wet ingredients and add them to the dry ingredient bowl. Mix together until just combined.
Spoon the batter into prepared donut pans filling about ¾ths the way.
Bake for 15-17 minutes until doughnuts spring back when poked.
Let doughnuts cool for 5 minutes.
Prepare the cinnamon and sugar mixture or the confectioners’ sugar for the topping in a medium sized bowl. If you want both cinnamon sugar and powdered doughnuts half the ingredients and put in two different bowls
Dip both sides of doughnuts in melted butter and then sugar (either cinnamon sugar and confectioners.)

Source- Adapted from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Foolproof

Doughnut Breakfast (from 2 Sisters 2 Cities)
sisterk (2)

Posted by Meaghan Barry on April 4, 2013

chocolate peanut butter banana muffins

Ready for some non-Easter recipes yet? We’ve taken a brief hiatus this week after Easter to recuperate and to start getting into spring-mode! We have been brainstorming a lot of new recipes ideas and can’t wait to share them. In the meanwhile, I wanted to share the recipe for these chocolate peanut butter banana muffins that I made for the first time about six months ago and have made several times since. T loves them and I really don’t mind eating them myself ;)

chocolate peanut butter muffins

The original recipe is from Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook Deceptively Delicious. In her cookbook, she incorporates a lot of pureed fruits and vegetables into recipes so that kids (especially picky eaters) get more nutrients into their diet. The original recipe calls for a 1/2 cup of pureed carrots or cauliflower, but I haven’t yet tried making them with this. The recipe I have tried does incorporate a bananas, peanut butter, and applesauce- they are amazingly moist considering they only have one egg white and no oil or butter in them.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Ingredients

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar, divided
½ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
1 banana, mashed
1 egg white
1 cup all purpose flour (alternatively, you could use ½ cup whole wheat flour and ½ cup all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup cocoa powder
¼ cup chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, line a muffin tin with paper baking cups.
In a large mixing bowl, mix ½ cup of the brown sugar with the peanut butter, applesauce, mashed banana and egg white. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the flour(s), baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. Add the mixed dry ingredients with the peanut butter mixture and stir to combine. Add the chocolate chips until fully mixed. Add the remaining ½ of brown sugar and stir once or twice.
Use a spoon to pour the batter in 12 muffin cups (the batter may be a bit thicker than a regular muffin recipe.) Bake for 18-20 minutes or until tops of the muffins are set and a toothpick comes out clean.
Remove from oven and allow the muffins to cool in the muffin tin for a few minutes. Remove muffins from tin and cool on a wire rack.

Source: Adapted from Deceptively Delicious and Once a Month Mom

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on January 6, 2013

papaya smoothie

While we were celebrating Christmas and New Year’s, we couldn’t help but reflect back on our trip to Hawaii a year ago. I made a papaya smoothies almost everyday while we were there and I wanted to make this a new holiday tradition to remember our trip by. I didn’t get a chance to make the papaya smoothie during our busy holiday break, but I was finally able to procure a Hawaiian papaya from a specialty food store to make a papaya smoothie again this weekend.

While we were in Hawaii, we were encouraged to try papayas cut in half, seeded, and doused with plenty of local lime juice. The local produce was more than plentiful out there- I love this picture of all the produce that we had picked up at local markets or were picked from the fruit trees on the property.

hawaiian produce and flowers

If you decide to try this papaya smoothie, feel free to adjust or substitute the ingredients out. While we were in Hawaii, I had guava and pineapple juice on hand so I added a splash of each to the smoothie mixture.

papaya smoothie recipe

Hawaiian Papaya Smoothie

Author: 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Recipe type: smoothie

Cuisine: Hawaiian

Prep time: 5 mins

Total time: 5 mins

Serves: 2

Ingredients

1 papaya (peeled, seeded, and roughly chopped)
1 lime (juiced)
1 cup low-fat, plain Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon blue agave or honey
½ cup skim milk
½ banana
¼ cup orange, pineapple, or guava jioce
handful of ice

Instructions

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust ingredients as needed (ex: add more ice, juice, milk, etc.) Serve right away.

It was nice to have a taste of Hawaii on a cold January morning and reminisce about our trip from the prior year. What are some of your favorite foods to eats this January now that the holidays are over and we settle into winter-mode?

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on January 3, 2013

goals for 2013

It’s now an annual tradition to share my goals for the year on this blog (Here were my goals for 2010 and 2012…apparently having a newborn baby made me less goal-oriented in 2011.) Instead of drafting lofty resolutions, I always like to break it down into smaller goals that I’m more likely to accomplish throughout the year. I don’t always follow up on all of them, but it’s nice to sit down and prioritize how I want to focus my life. Here are some of my goals for 2013:

Read 26 books in 2013. Last year, I set 26 books as my Goodreads 2012 reading challenge number, but I fell short by 14 books…oops. I’m hoping to try to reach this challenge this year by skipping the tv more often each evening and reading instead.
Try yoga again. Since moving to the ‘burbs, I haven’t belonged to a gym or any kind of fitness studio. I recently bought a 10-pack of yoga classes through one of those group coupon deals and I’m hoping to incorporate more fitness into my weekly schedule.
Focus on eating more “real” breakfasts and lunches. I’m pretty good at making a “real” dinner each night for our family, but often I find myself just grabbing whatever throughout the day whenever I’m hungry. I made this Greek Veggie Wrap yesterday for lunch and it was so good (and healthy!) I’m hoping to try a lot more smoothie recipes for breakfast as well.
Keep organizing! Even though we have lived in our home for over a year now, I still find there are spots that I haven’t touched since I initially unpacked them. I’m planning on doing some major basement reorganizing this winter and some garage projects this spring when it starts to warm up a bit.
Grow 2 Sisters 2 Cities. While K and I are very proud how much our little blog has grown in the past few years, we want to keep growing and improving it every day. I want to try many new recipes this year and also continue to work on my food photography and editing skills.

What are you hoping to accomplish in this upcoming year?

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on November 29, 2012

Veggie Cream Cheese

When I first thought of this post for veggie cream cheese, I didn’t realize K was going to be writing about making homemade bagels this week. Sometimes things just work out like that! I got this recipe for veggie cream cheese from my husband’s Aunt N. It’s very easy to whip up a batch and serve it to company as an easy, but tasty breakfast. I served it to my family for the breakfast on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

You don’t need to follow this recipe exactly- just add more or less of the ingredients you enjoy. I usually make it with carrots, celery, and green onions, but radishes, peppers, or fresh herbs would all work nicely. I also tend to make it with a mix of regular cream cheese and light cream cheese or Neufchatel cheese. This cuts some of the fat and calories without a huge reduction to flavor.

Veggie Cream Cheese

Author: 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Recipe type: Breakfast

Prep time: 10 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Serves: 12

Ingredients

8 oz. regular cream cheese, at room temperature
8 oz. light or Neufchatel cream cheese, at room temperature
3 tablespoons green onions, finely chopped
3 tablespoons carrots, finely chopped (rainbow carrots add some fun color, but regular carrots work as well)
3 tablespoons celery, finely chopped
kosher salt, to taste
ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

Place all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on low speed with a paddle attachment until blended. Serve with toasted bagels.

Source: Adapted from Barefoot Contessa

What’s your favorite way to enjoy a bagel?

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on September 14, 2012

I tried Nutella for the first time earlier this year (when my mom made these awesome Nutella cookies) and I have been stocking our cupboards with it ever since. My husband lived in Europe when he was a small child and remembered having Nutella all the time. His mother must have told him it at some point that it was a special delicacy because until just recently, he thought Nutella cost over $50 a jar. Fortunately for us, it’s much more affordable than this and is something we can enjoy everyday.

We have started incorporating Nutella into our breakfast routine recently as well. My husband loves to have it spread on graham crackers with some fruit on top and I like to make it into a smoothie. I’ve been experimenting with different ingredients and ratios, and I think I have finally found the best combination. I’ve also tried making these mini Nutella Banana Pizzas for breakfast.

Nutella Banana Pizzas

Author: m

Recipe type: Breakfast

Serves: 2

Ingredients

2 6-inch corn or flour tortillas
1 banana, sliced vertically
4 tablespoons Nutella

Instructions

Spread 2 tablespoons of Nutella onto each tortilla. Place sliced bananas on top and cut each tortilla into mini pizza slices using a pizza slicer.

Bostonians- be sure to visit the Nutella Breakfast Tour from September 21st through 27th. While visiting the Nutella® Breakfast Tour, join the City Challenge for a chance to have Boston win a visit from the Nutella Truck filled with 5,000 jars of free Nutella®. RSVP to the event through the widget in the upper right-hand column or follow Nutella on Facebook for more information:

Or tweet your favorite way to enjoy Nutella in the morning using the hashtag #nutellaboston. For official rules, visit nutellusa.com/officialrules.

If you don’t live in the Boston area, check out below when the Nutella Breakfast Tour will be in your city!

Boston 9/21-9/27
New York 9/29-10/5
Philladelphia 10/8-10/13
Washington DC 10/16-10/20
Atlanta 10/24-10/27
Orlando 10/30-11/3
New Orleans 11/7-11/11
Dallas 11/15-11/19
Phoenix 11/24-11/27
San Diego 11/30-12/2
Los Angeles 12/5-12/8
San Francisco 12/11-12/15

This blog post is part of a paid SocialMoms and Nutella blogging program. The opinions and ideas expressed here are my own. To read more posts on this topic, click here.

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on May 8, 2012

As you can tell from my last two posts, I love muffins. They are one of those things that are so easy to put together and so good right out of the oven. Whenever I see blueberries for less than 3 dollars, I have the urge to make either blueberry muffins or blueberry pancakes. It was a close call this time but I ended up making buttermilk pancakes and then blueberry muffins the next day. I happily sat in my new chaise lounge I bought on impulse at IKEA and drank my morning coffee with a fresh hot blueberry muffin, while reading through the blogs I follow. Now that is what I call my kind of morning.

Blueberry Muffins

Author: K

Recipe type: Breakfast

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Serves: 12

Ingredients

1½ cup flour
½ cup white sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
⅓ cup vegetable oil
1 egg
⅓ cup of milk
1 6 oz package of fresh blueberries
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup AP flour
¼ cup(1/2 stick) of butter, cold and cut into small pieces
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk together flour, sugars, salt and baking powder in a large bowl.
In a separate medium bowl mix oil, egg, and milk.
Rinse blueberries and make sure there are no stems. Dry berries on a paper towel and place into dry mixture. Stir gently to not crush the blueberries.
Next gently combine the wet ingredients into the dry until just incorporated. Folding the batter helps to make sure that you are not crushing the berries.
To make topping- Combine the last 5 ingredients from ¼ cup sugar to the cinnamon in a small bowl. Mix together with hands until all the mixture clumps together is pea size pieces.
Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
With a ¼ cup spoon batter into tin until about ¾th filled. Top with crumble topping, pressing slightly into batter. Use up all the topping on the muffins.
Place in the oven and cook for 18-20 minutes until golden brown.

Source– Adapted from Not without Salt

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on April 24, 2012

My boyfriend was told last-minute by his work that he was going to have to go to Costa Rica on and off for the next few months and that he was leaving on Monday! Our weekend was a blur of laundry, shopping, and packing to get him ready for the trip. We ate most of our meals out that weekend because of the lack of time, so on Sunday morning I felt like I needed to make him sometimes special. I didn’t want to go out to the store, so it basically had to come from ingredients I already had on hand. I found this recipe while looking through blogs and knew it was perfect. These muffins were so moist and very much like a glazed doughnut . My boyfriend loved them and so did I! It was the perfect sending-off treat.

Glazed Doughnut Muffins

Author: K

Recipe type: Breakfast

Serves: 12

Ingredients

¼ cup butter
¼ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup sugar
⅓ cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
2 tsp. cinnamon
¾ tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2⅔ cup flour
1 cup Skim milk
Glaze:
3 tbsp. melted butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. hot water

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a muffin pan with cooking spray.
In the bowl of a mixer combine butter, oil and sugars until smooth. Add in eggs and beat until fluffy about 2-3 minutes. Next add in baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, vanilla, milk and flour. Mix well.
With a muffin scoop or ¼ cup measuring cup, scoop batter into muffin tin. Place muffin pan in oven and let bake for 15-17 until golden. Allow muffins to cool in tin for 5 minutes, then take out of pan and let cool for an additional 5 minutes.
Prepare glaze by combining all the ingredients. Mixing until smooth. After the muffins have cooled for the 10 minutes, dip top of the muffins into the glaze. Let first layer of glaze dry and then dip in glaze a second time. Allow glaze to dry and serve.

Source– adapted from Lil’ Luna

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on March 25, 2012

I love to bake. It is a stress reliever for me to bake something up and to be able to share it with my friends, family and co-workers. There is only one problem to this though: I love desserts way too much. I was about to say I love dessert like a fat kid likes cake… but think about the end result of that saying! Don’t worry I am not calling myself fat, but I do have to control what I eat and how much dessert I make because it could easily lead to that. So you can see why I get excited to find desserts that are somewhat healthier.

I found this recipe on the blog Skinnytaste and was so excited to make them. Gina calls these “Skinny Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Scones,” but somewhere along the line my family and coworkers just starting calling them skinny scones. I have made them twice already, once for a meeting at work and then another time to bring with me when I visited my parents over the weekend. They are really easy to whip up so you have to try to make them.

Chocolate-Chip “Skinny Scones”
Ingredients
3/4 cup reduced fat buttermilk
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup AP flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. chilled butter
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips
Cooking spray
1 egg white
1 tbsp. sugar

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine first four ingredients with a whisk in a medium-sized bowl. Set aside. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray or like a baking sheet with a silicone non-stick mat.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt with a whisk. Take cold butter and cut up into small pieces and put into flour mixture and cut into flour with pastry blender, until mixture resembles coarse meal. Fold in chocolate chips and then add in wet mixture. Stir gently until combined.

Place dough on a floured surface and knead lightly four times. Form the dough into a 9 inch circle that is 3/4” thick and place on baking sheet. Cut into 12 triangles all the way through. Take an egg white and whisk lightly. Brush the egg white on top of the dough and sprinkle with sugar. Place in the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden. Serve warm.

Source– Adapted slightly from Skinnytaste.

Weight Watchers PointsPlus- 5 pointsplus per scone.