Breads

Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes

Sanura

Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes with Strawberry Puree

In addition to watching my sister and I during the day, our new babysitter initially promised Mom a good lunch for us. She didn’t know we were a pair of extreme picky kids, no fault of our own. Blame it on Dad who knew more about cooking, from a chef’s perspective, than most people who brought into the fast, processed food craze starting in the late 70’s. Good lunches meant a bologna and American single cheese sandwich with bleached white flour bread that never spoiled. If mayonnaise or mustard were added to my sandwich, I would rather starve. Hot dogs weren’t a good option, too. Most people served it with ketchup and mustard. Maybe a little pickled relish. After a few weeks of my sister and I refusing to eat, the sitter told Mom; we are too picky to feed. However, we would spend the next few years playing and growing side-by-side with her three lovely kids. She was tough love. Read more →

Blueberry Muffins with Almond Granola Topping

Sanura

Blueberry Muffins with Almond Granola Topping

Three adults and four children left the North for the Mason-Dixon Line. As the only adult female in the group, I made sure we had plenty of healthy food to nibble on towards our destination. As mentioned before, eating healthy on the road is easy, if well planned. For this trip, I packed toasted pumpkins seeds with dried apricots (try purchasing dried fruit without sulfur dioxide, a chemical preservative retaining color and flavor), Beet Leaf Pesto Tuna Wraps (I swear it’s good, for two out of the four kids love it!), and Blueberry Muffins with Almond Granola Topping. If you haven’t noticed, prices for berries have dropped significantly. This is the time of the year, in which berries are in season. In addition, they’re sugary sweet, tart and plump. Read more →

Whole Wheat Bread

Sanura

Whole Wheat Bread

Just a few minutes after seven in the morning, a yellow cab pulls to the curb outside the apartment building. Underneath a thick wool sweater, I shivered with a mix of anxious anticipation and from the cold. The door of the cab opens, and I relax into the warm embrace of a boyfriend not seen since January of this year. He traveled across the country for his career and has returned to home. We carry the luggage into the apartment. I’ve waited for this moment for months. Instantly, our habits around each other become a familiar pattern. Read more →

Orange French Toast with Pears and Cherries

Sanura

Orange French Toast with Fresh Pears and Cherries

This year’s commercial love weekend is a lonely feast. My love package of Chocolate Chip Yogurt Cookies, Cornmeal Lime Butter Cookies, and Roast Lemon-Thyme Almonds was shipped last week for the West coast. In the spirit of maintaining a busy mind, this declared romantic weekend is full of freelance work.

However, I’m treating myself to Orange French Toast topped with fresh Pears and Cherries. This version uses stale Honey Wheat Bread made from scratch in my kitchen. French toast is not a popular breakfast dish, because it’s made with soft, commercial bread that has a longer shelf life because of the preservatives. The result is a French toast with a soggy center. It’s actually a recipe at its best with thick slices of French or Italian loaves (since moving to New York, I’ve discovered Challah is a buttery option, too). Such bread is fresh for one day. It’s a great bread to include in a romantically planned menu. I recommend serving half a loaf as garlic bread to accompany a meal of lasagna and salad. By the next morning, the loaf is hard and stale (slice it the night before if making French Bread). Using the mantra, “no food goes to waste,” day-old bread slices are temporarily soaked in a milk and egg mixture, before it’s lightly fried in a skillet. Read more →

Breaking Bread

Sanura
Honey Wheat Bread
Honey Wheat Bread

In the past few months, there were three “Celebration of Life” ceremonies balanced by two baby showers, and most plans or ideas didn’t come into fruition. From December to the present, my personal life is emotionally chaotic. However, my faith remains strong for recognizing such erratic energy is temporary. Along with life’s mandatory priorities, the time spent working on My Life Runs On Food is a simple pleasure.

One of my personal goals this year is to learn the process of making bread from scratch. There’s a picture in Dad’s kitchen with his first loaves of homemade bread. I remember that day as a child, because the picture was taken by me. We all know the difference in taste of homemade versus commercial store bread. That’s a known fact. In New York, like other major cities, there are plenty of beautiful artisan bakeries of intense passion. It does seem contrite and unnecessary to spend a whole day baking bread. Read more →