During my early adolescents, my family lived on a farm in rural Southwestern Colorado, just outside the small town of Dove Creek. Food trucks selling Navajo Fry Bread, either savory as tacos or sweet with honey and butter, were a fixture at all community events. The food of the Southwest blends the culinary cultures of its peoples: Native American, Mexican, and European-heritage. This dynamic cultural mixing has produced bold flavored dishes that can be made on a shoestring budget. My favorite dish from this tradition is Sonoran Beef Fry Bread Tacos. The delicate crispy fry bread, topped with rich spicy meat and tangy fresh salsa is a winning combination. We've made it for Thanksgiving gatherings and informal evenings with friends, and it has been a crowd favorite every time. This dish requires some planning ahead for the meat to reach perfection.  The Fry Bread will require suspending deep-frying phobias. When fried properly (maintaining high cooking temperature throughout), you will be rewarded with an addictive light and crispy flat bread without any greasiness. Our take on this Southwest classic is inspired by Fernando and Marlene Divina's outstanding cookbook Foods of the Americas. 

These Blue Corn Blueberry Griddle Cakes with Lime Butter are a fresh and flavorful take on a breakfast classic and a healthy way to use the ripe blueberries bursting from farm stands and fields. These Griddle Cakes are bursting with blueberry flavor and the subtle earthy sweetness of blue corn. Using a high quality fresh blue cornmeal (we prefer Bob's Red Mill) and a light overnight sourdough technique brings out a gentle nutty sweet corn flavor and a surprisingly crunchy (not gritty) texture. A perfect accompaniment to Blue Corn Blueberry Griddle Cakes is a fresh whipped Lime Butter. The Lime Butter, which is also delicious in its own right, accents the fresh blueberry flavor to take these Blue Corn Blueberry Griddle Cakes to the next level. 

Before I discovered overnight sourdough yeast waffles, I was a frustrated maker of second-rate waffles, with little hope for my waffle making prospects.    I had whipped whites, creamed yokes, experimented with pearl sugar, brown sugar, sourdough, bananas, bacon and buttermilk.   I had made waffles laced with rosemary, chocolate, cornmeal and cookie dough, all with fairly humdrum results.   Finally, after mediocre experiments with funky flavor profiles and new techniques, waffle greatness came to our household by way of Fannie Farmer.   It was a winter evening when I first came across this odd sounding waffle process in the highly-regarded retro classic, “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.”   I was intrigued by the unusual, and rather unseemly instructions for the cook to leave, a batter of milk and butter, out overnight.  Suspending my disbelief,  I whisked up the batter, and the next day will forever be remembered as the day we achieved waffle supremacy! 

I am a second generation scone obsessive.  My mother, the queen of scones, has always had an uncanny sense for sleuthing out the best local scones. From fruited to cheesed, griddled to dropped, from sweet to savory, buttermilk to biscuit-like, we have left no scone unturned in our quest for perfection!  This Roasted Strawberry Cream Scone recipe makes a buttery, moist and creamy tasting scone that is so rich and sumptuous you might even forgo the clotted cream, butter and curd in order to gobble up each morsel while they are still warm. 

Breakfasts during the week are often a rushed and dreary affair. Weekend breakfasts, on the other hand, give us the opportunity to go all out, try new things, and enjoy more substantial fare. Breakfast Sandwiches with Spelt English Muffins are one of my favorites. Think of this as a more refined, healthy and delicious version of the drive-through staple. For meat, I like to use home-cured corned beef, but you can also use bacon or skip the meat altogether. For a sauce, I find a light lemon aioli brings a bright contrast. What makes this dish unique, however, is the Spelt English Muffin adapted from Alton Brown.  Why spelt?  Spelt brings a mild sweet nuttiness which compliments the sandwich well. It also packs a healthy dose of fiber, nutrients, and protein. Using a 1/2 cup of whole spelt flour in this recipe provides the same amount of fiber as if we had made the recipe with 100% whole wheat. And...to put it politely...this version tastes much, much better than a 100% whole wheat version ever could!  The spelt and all-purpose flour ratio keeps these Spelt English Muffins light, chewy, and sweet. They are great for a breakfast sandwich, and lovely on their own. These Spelt English Muffins can also be individually frozen (for up to 3 months), and reheated in the toaster for a quick breakfast during the week.

Last year I began the quest for the perfect Reuben sandwich. It was inspired by a visit to Lucky's Cafe in Cleveland. The first aspect to master was a sourdough rye -- hearty yet yielding, sour but with a grainy sweetness, earthy and clean, chewy and light. After over a year of tweaking, I've developed this no-knead continuous-ferment sourdough rye.  It builds on the sage sourdough advice of Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice and no-knead approach of Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois's  Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Here's how I do it...