Arlene Makes a Big Family Brunch! 🥯🍳

Well, hello, welcome to At Home today. We’re so glad you could be with us. I hope that is a good day for you, and I hope that today we give you some ideas of some things to do for a brunch. You know what? I think that sometimes a brunch is one of the easiest ways to entertain because you kinda get it done early in the day, and then you have the rest of the day, and there’s just so many different things you can make for a brunch and everybody likes breakfast, but everybody hates to go to the trouble of making that really something special. Well, today we’re gonna give you some ideas on either making it all or just do a little bit of it, but I think you’re gonna find some new recipes. Let me share a couple of letters I got from you, the wonderful viewers who are watching at home. This first one is from Gail, who’s in Wando South Carolina, thanks Gail. She says, “dear Arlene, enjoyed your show last week, your fruit salad recipe was a complete hit at my women’s meeting, everyone enjoyed it, and of course they wanted the recipe. Thanks for bringing this cooking show to us. May God bless you and your staff, a Christian friend, Gail.” Thanks, Gail, I appreciate that. This one says, “dear Arlene, a while back, you made ice cream nut rolls. Now I thought it was silly to put ice cream into a nut roll. How could that work? You said something like if you ever make these, you’ll make no other. Yeah, right, ha ha. Well, I made them” I’m glad, it’s nice how you believe me when I tell you something. “Now I made them and you are a hundred percent correct. I shared them with some of my friends and only after seeing their approval, after the second cookie, did I say they were made with ice cream in the dough, one lady asked, where did I get the recipe? And I said, channel five Cornerstone Television and she said, oh, you mean Arlene? And I proudly said, yes, she’s made them this past Wednesday, my friend, and she had over 60 cookies and she had company coming, and when they left, there was only 12 left. So she says, I think that we really, really liked them. And she said, she’s making more for a graduation party.” And you know, that’s the kind of recipes that you’re gonna find on At Home, not like your usual ones, maybe, but simple and easy to do. Thank you so much for your comments when you write, we’re always glad to hear from you. Well, we’re gonna get started with brunch in just a minute. We’ll be right back, stay with us. Here’s today’s At Home hint. Here’s today’s at-home hint, for a quick breakfast, put leftover pancakes or waffles between small pieces of aluminum foil and freeze, on busy mornings, heat in a toaster oven or microwave. If you’ve got a helpful hint you’d like to share with us, we’d sure like to hear from you, send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499 Well, we’re in the kitchen today and we’re doing something unique because we’re making recipes for brunch. Now one of the first ones that we’re gonna get started with is it’s called the Best Ever Coffee Cake. I think it’s just nice to have that type of a dish to add to your brunch menu. And what I’ve done here is taken a couple of cups of sugar, sorry, one and a fourth cups of sugar, a stick of butter, an eight ounce package of cream cheese, and I did it ahead of time because that has to whip a while till it gets creamy and fluffy, and I hope you can see how nice and fluffy that is. You wanna scrape down the sides of your bowl to make sure that everything gets well incorporated. Now we’re gonna start to add some other ingredients. I’m gonna turn it off until we get them in. We’re gonna put a couple of eggs, I’m gonna crack them here first in a cup and two whole eggs, which is the yolk and the white, we’re gonna add those right in, along with some vanilla. Now let’s talk vanilla a little bit. I know you buy the imitation because it’s cheaper, but guess what? Again, you only get what you pay for because when you buy the imitation vanilla, it’s an imitation, it’s not real, I told you before how the kids from our church, when they go on mission trips to Haiti or to Mexico, they’ll always say, what can I bring back Arlene? And I’ll say, how about a nice bottle of vanilla? Because it’s very inexpensive there, and it’s pure vanilla by that it’s like 29% proof, which is a lot, I mean, that’s pretty pungent, but it does make all the difference in the world, in everything, especially in icings. Okay, now what we have now is we’re gonna put some baking soda, some baking powder, okay, and a little salt, and these are our dry ingredients, and I’m just gonna take a fork and fluff it because the flour is sifted but we wanna mix that well, and we have some milk about a third of a cup of milk. We’re gonna add these alternately to our batter, a little bit of that and a little bit of that, okay, and just let that mix. Sometimes the flower flies out, that’s why you don’t wanna turn on a high speed, but I usually give it a good whipping between, so you know that it’s incorporated, then we’ll give it some more flour and some more milk, just like so, take it slow at first. Basically what you’re doing is just mixing the batter. You wanna have a 13 by nine baking dish, and I like the glass baking dish for this, like to have it buttered and flowered, and that’s in preparation for the batter. Plus the oven needs to be preheated at 350 degrees. And I tell you, don’t put your cake in there and then turn the oven on, it’s not gonna work, you’re gonna have a bad product there. The last and final, oops, last and final addition, a nice light batter, it’s wonderful. Do a little maintenance here and I’m gonna stop this, scrape down the sides and then give it one more quick mix. I wanna make sure that all of that is incorporated because some of your batter, know when you go to put that in your prepared pan, guess what happens? You see that there’s part of it that did not get mixed in with the batter, and you don’t want that to be. So we beat it just a little bit more. Okay, that’s done. Now, what do you want to do is take off your paddle, scrape all of that off and to get that off because that’s somebody’s bite in that breakfast the best ever, I mean, that’s pretty proud to say the best ever coffee cake but we’ll see, you be the judge, you send for the recipes, you make it, you tell me, okay? I just think it’s I like brunch, particularly in the spring of the year, the summer of the year. If you have a deck that’s fun to do brunch out on the deck. If you don’t, it’s fun to do it in the kitchen, do it in the dining room. Just nice to have these kinds of foods that you can prepare for friends and your loved ones. All right now, put this in our prepared pan, like so, see how nice and creamy that is? That’s what you’re looking for. And you wanna stir it clear to the bottom just to make sure it’s evenly incorporated. Then just begin to pour it, almost looks like icing. What do you think, Andy? Andy’s not saying anything he’s just groaning over here, he’s not fully decided yet, when it bakes, he’ll be more talkative I can assure you, and you wanna scrape it clean, like so, and then just spread it evenly into the prepared pan like that. Now you say, okay, you put it in the oven? No, not yet. There’s more. And I’m gonna just scrape this off, ’cause there’s a lot of sticking to that paddle. Like so. All right now we need to put a topping on this cake and we’re gonna make that in this bowl with some flour, brown sugar and some soft butter and some cinnamon put that together. Something about a coffee cake and cinnamon, that just goes together. And I like cinnamon for breakfast anyway, I think it’s one of those tastes that you associate like bacon. I tell you when we’re here and we’re preparing for these shows, if we put a couple of slices of bacon in a pan, people come out of the woodwork, like we haven’t seen him for a long time and they’re like, okay, what are we making today? What’s going on? It’s just that smell, you know, smells so good. Okay, now we’re gonna add the butter and just make a crumb topping. It’s gonna go over the top of this batter and it will bake in that preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, and you want to schedule this so that it comes out and it sits 15, 20 minutes, you wanna serve it hot so you can prepare this earlier in the day or in the morning and then just serve it when its the right time. And I would cut this in not big pieces, I cut them in nice slivers. Okay, here we go, and we’re just gonna sprinkle this all over the top, just like so, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and flour, what else could you want right? Especially on top of a cake. All right, we’re putting this in the oven and we’re preheated. Here we go. 30 to 35 minutes. Okay, now for one of the other dishes that we’re going to be making, we need a salsa. So we’re gonna put together a salsa, this is so simple, so easy and something that you can use beside just for this breakfast, okay. Take a big bowl, and you’re gonna take one cup of the freshest, ripest tomatoes you can find, some red pepper, red bell pepper. Okay, some red, finely minced, finally chopped red onion. Look all the reds in there, cool. A bunch of cilantro, about a half a cup, that goes in next. Now there is a difference between cilantro and regular Italian parsley, there is a difference. And then these little babies are jalapenos and they will bite your tongue right off, they’re hot, have one minced, take the seeds out, the hot part is the seed. Okay, mix set up and some fresh lime juice, a little salt and pepper to taste. Okay and we’re just gonna mix that around and you have one of the easiest, most delicious of all, just simple, simple salsa. I would refrigerate this, this could be made even the day before, I would refrigerate it and bring it out when it’s time to use it, enjoyable and delicious. We’re gonna take a break. When we come back more brunch recipes just for you. Well, we’re continuing with our brunch menu today and I’ve got some cream cheese, our best ever coffee cakes in the oven. We’ve just made a salsa and now I’m gonna make, this is one of my all time favorites, I make this for Paul and me. This has a bagel, I’m really into bagels, I really like them, they’re very good for you. as long as they’re not filled with sugar, but I’m just creaming a package of cream cheese, and I’m gonna add a little bit of milk just to thin it down and some chives, fresh chives, I don’t think I’m gonna add all of them, but I’m gonna add enough to really pick up the color, and you just wanna blend this because this is gonna go on your toasted bagel. I know there’s a lot of noise here, but it’ll be done soon, okay, I think we’re there, now, and somebody just told me recently that they had eaten this many years ago in Florida and I said, I never heard of this, I thought it was my original, but you know, there’s nothing original anymore, somebody else has done it before you. So here’s what you do. You take your cream cheese and we have these wonderful bagels lightly toasted. Now, if you have a lot of people for a brunch, you say, man, here I am with a toaster popping up and down, popping up and down, you split them, put them on a cookie sheet, okay, and this is a really neat little gadget, you put your whole bagel, of course, these are all, this one isn’t, you put your bagel in there, like so, you put this right on the top and then this boom and you bring it up, it’s totally and completely cut in half. This is laughingly called a guillotine. Yeah, I don’t like that, but it works. Hey, who cares, it works, so I do all of them, put them on a cookie sheet, put them on the broiler 30 seconds, they brown right up for you. You can do a lot of them at one time. All right, we have one done here. Now what I’m gonna do is just spread cream cheese that you have your chives. Now, if you wanna add some other stuff to this cream cheese, you can, you say, what would I add? You could add some pineapple, drain pineapple, some cherries could go in there and I put a thin layer on each side, I’ll tell you why in a minute ’cause you’ll see. Okay and just a thin layer, you could use low fat, you could use the no fat, wouldn’t taste as good, but you could use it, all right, now what we’re gonna do, we have some bacon fried and you’re gonna take bacon and you’re gonna do a layer of bacon across just like so, now if you really like bacon, pile it on, if you don’t like it so much, just put a little bit on to give it some flavor okay? Like that covered. Then you can take a big slice of a beautiful red tomato like that, and then you’re gonna put the top on, and when you serve these, especially on a brunch buffet, you’ll cut it in fourths because if a person ate one of them, they won’t wanna eat anything else, ’cause it’s very filling so you cut it into portion sizes. That is a simple, that’s called Arlene’s bagel best because that’s my favorite bagel right here. Isn’t it beautiful? And the smell is incredible too, all right. So we’re gonna make a bunch of those at the end of the program, you’ll see. The next one is you have to have some kind of an egg dish when you have your brunch, I’m gonna turn the heat up on this, make sure I get it, there we go. Now this also has, you know, you can make plain scrambled eggs or you can make some eggs that are really kicking, like with some vegetables, and that’s what I thought we would do. We’re gonna do some green pepper, all right, some red pepper you’d have them left over from your salsa, which is good, you have some sliced mushrooms as another flavor, another dimension, and this time we’re using the green onion and lets use the green part too, because that part has a lot of flavor all the times we get rid of that part, really? That’s a real good part of it. We’re just gonna saute these for about two minutes okay? A little bit of oil. Meantime, while they’re cooking, just like that, we’re gonna get our eggs ready. We have six eggs here. We have bagels everywhere today too, by the way, we’re cracking six eggs into this bowl. You always want it, when we have any kind of recipes for Marsha, we always use a grade A large egg, you can use extra large if you want, you can use two mediums as place of it, whatever you wanna do but the recipe calls for an egg, it’s usually a large egg and you want the freshest eggs that you can get, really important, if they’ve been sitting there and you haven’t used any in a couple of weeks, know what don’t use them, get rid of them and get some fresh ones, ’cause everything else that you’re putting into this recipe, you know, you want something, you don’t want the eggs to spoil it. All right, now we’re gonna add a little bit of milk. I’m gonna start just whisking these, if you don’t have one of these whisks, go buy one, they’re only a couple bucks, not much, but they they’re wonderful. We’re gonna add a little bit of milk to that because that will fluff up the eggs, they won’t be so flat, do some salt and some pepper. Now again, you can add anything you want here, put some garlic in there if you want, put some fresh parsley in there, I mean, whatever turns your fancy, whatever spice, some dill was nice in this, I’ve done this a lot of times with dill, and you wanna beat them so that they’re nice and light and fluffy. You want we’ll keep an eye on the veggies, smell great. You don’t want these to like cook up until they’re brown, that’s not the idea, these veggies are gonna be a part of your scrambled eggs okay? Make sure you still have enough oil in the bottom. I think we’re doing good, all right. Time to pour. Here we go. Get rid of this, and we’re gonna just pour this right into the skillet, like so, ahh, smells good. Now we’re just gonna keep moving these around the skillet, that’s how you get them, this is not an omelet, this is scrambled eggs and this is how you get them to be nice and light and fluffy. I would turn down my heat just a little bit, ’cause you don’t want them to burn in there. This is a nice to have a nonstick skillet for this too, Parmesan cheese would be great, mix it in there, finally graded, that would be great. You could add cheese on top of these eggs, if you wanted to, use your imagination, there’s no rule, there’s no food policemen that’s gonna come and say, you’re allowed to do that, it’s yours, you can do whatever you want to, and so try out different things on for your own taste buds and for your friends and your family, I think you’ll be amazed. This is just, this looks like a Spanish omelet, doesn’t it? I mean all that beautiful color in there, and then we’re gonna put salsa on top with a little bite of a jalapeno, it’s gonna be something else. We’re gonna be right back in just a minute. We’ll let the eggs finish and we’ll be back at the final shot in the dining room. We’ll see it in there. And don’t forget you want to write and be sure to get today’s recipes in our Enjoy Newsletter either by snail mail or www.ctvn.org, okay. Well, here we are at the dining room table full of the brunch items that we’ve prepared today and this is, you know, this is a really a happy table, it is. Look at the color on this table, wonderful fruit, vegetables, bagels. Let’s start here with our best ever coffee cake that smell and aroma of cinnamon is incredible, you’re gonna love that. Okay, next, we have our delicious, good scrambled eggs with all the vegetables. We added some slices of fruit for those that maybe would enjoy some of that, and then there’s the salsa down there at the bottom. Here’s our Arlene’s, I mean, everybody’s we can hardly talk because we’re so hungry, the smell, Arlene’s Bagel Best here, isn’t that delicious looking? Oh boy, toasted bagel, tomato, bacon, cream cheese, oh. Then what we’ve added just to round out the menu and you can do this. We added just some small little sausages, just grilled them, you can do them in the oven and brown them off, they’re wonderful and we grilled some grapefruit, put that under the broiler with some brown sugar and cherries on top, we added some strawberry preserves, lemon curd for people that just want a plain toasted bagel, they go very nicely with that, all right. And then we did cranberry juice as a little appetizer before the brunch and good steaming, hot coffee, sugar and cream. What more could one want? This is a well rounded, beautiful brunch table. It can be prepared for four, it can be prepared for 24, whatever you just increase your amounts, and I think you’re gonna find that this is an easy way to entertain. Again, if you have a lot of invitations to kind of pay back, this is a wonderful way, and so people don’t tie up a whole day, ’cause a lot of people are busy now, they don’t have the luxury of here’s a night for this, and here’s a night for that and here’s, we’re all living in a really fast paced time. So maybe the brunch is the answer to your entertaining needs and if it’s summertime and you have a wonderful deck, this is a great way to do it. So think about it, make your list, plan it, check it twice and see who’s coming to brunch at your house, okay. Well, how about taking a little trip to church this Sunday? It’ll make you feel good all week long and it’ll make God feel good too, all right. So be sure to join us the next time, because without you it just wouldn’t be the same. We’ll see you then, bye-bye.

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