Sometimes I cook to raise money, but mostly I cook because I can’t imagine spending my time doing anything else. And while my partner is sadly still living 1,300 miles away in New Mexico, the need to cook often goes unfulfilled because sitting down to an entire pan of cinnamon rolls by myself seems, well, a little anticlimactic. Those of you who know me know that I’m much less interested in eating the food I make than I am in receiving constant affirmation and gratitude from those I feed. What? Is there another way to get those things without shoving food into people’s mouths? Liar. 

So when I woke up last Saturday wanting only to spend my morning in the kitchen, I knew I needed hungry reinforcements. Thank god for Shabbrunch. What is Shabbrunch, you ask? Well… allow me:

So, Jews celebrate Shabbat, right? A 25 hour period from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown where we are literally commanded not to do work, not to make anything, not to break anything. So what do we do? Well, it’s all highly personal, but I like to go to services, eat tons of food, sleep in,
read books, and just be in the moment without too many distractions. Pretty sweet, right? 

Some people definitely do not cook during Shabbat because of religious prohibitions on using electricity and “making fire” and working in general.  I definitely DO cook on Shabbat though, because cooking for me is a way to re-connect, which is what Shabbat is for in the first place. For me, cooking is the farthest thing away from the regular work week because I actually don’t do it very much at all Sunday-Thursday, and when I do, it’s really not very inspired. Plus, Shabbat food is necessarily special and different than the food I eat during the work week, making it even more fun to prepare. 

So for many of my Jewish friends, there is literally NOTHING else to do on Saturday mornings besides waking up laughably late, stumbling into someone’s kitchen, and spending the entire morning into the afternoon just hanging out, eating delicious food, and ultimately falling asleep again on the couch. Or at the table. Or in a park while they bake in the sun. This, my  friends, is Shabbrunch. Intentionally lazy, mindfully social, and consciously restorative. And carby. Definitely carby.  Last Saturday’s Shabbrunch was fantastic. Here is what I served:
 


Everything Spring Baked Eggs (check out the recipe here)
Onion, garlic, and poppy seed-stuffed bread (recipe to come)         
Fresh fruit salad
Fresh feta cheese and olives
Brown sugar and almond cake in the shape of a ridiculously ornate Jewish star (pictured below, recipe to come)
Mimosas  

So basically, what I'm trying to say is Shabbrunch is awesome for many reasons. And you don't have to be Jewish to institute it in your own home. Turn off your damn phone for a few hours, get your friends around a table, and luxuriate in each other's company and some really, really good food. Your Monday will thank you.

So this is actually a pretty perfect dish. Not to brag or anything. I just cannot imagine a better combination of flavors, textures, or aromas to celebrate the promise of Spring in the vortex of ice and chapped skin I call home. Everything in it is green. Or white. Or literally the symbol of fertility. It is fatty, yet clean, healthful, but not boring. And easy. Like, really, really easy. And crowd-friendly because you can make a shitload of these veggies ahead of time (up to 5 days in advance), crack in some eggs an hour before you want to serve it, and you are done. And the ice will melt. And you will believe in life again. 

Did I mention that this is also a versatile recipe? Don’t like asparagus? Substitute mushrooms. Don’t like leeks? Substitute tomatoes. Don’t like feta? Use any other cheese. The ingredients can change but the concept remains the same: Sautéed veggies thickened with cream and then baked with eggs until the whites are set and everyone is ready to eat. Serve it with bread and fruit, some strong beverages, and something sweet for dessert. Because dessert is totally a thing for breakfast on the weekends.  

Oil or butter for sautéing the veggies
2 gigantic leeks, cleaned and sliced thinly
6 cloves of fresh garlic, sliced thinly
2 bunches of fresh scallions, sliced
2 chilies (I like Fresno, but jalapenos work too), minced
2 bags of frozen greens (collards, spinach, etc)
1 bunch of asparagus
2 cups of heavy cream (just do it. Don’t think about it.)
Dried thyme
Salt & pepper
8-12 fresh eggs
¼ pound fresh feta cheese
Fresh parsley for garnish

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. Heat up some oil or butter in a very large sauté pan. Sautee the leeks until they get soft. Throw in the garlic, scallions, and chilies and let those cook until they become fragrant and a little browned. 
 
Throw in the greens and cook out ALL of the water that froze into them. I mean it. These veggies should appear dry by the time you are done cooking them. There should be no steam coming up from them and no residual liquid in the pan. Extra water will, well, water down your final dish and who needs that?

Chop the woody ends off the asparagus, and cut the stalks into thirds. Turn the heat off the pan and throw in the asparagus and the cream, a few big pinches of thyme, salt, and pepper. Mix all the ingredients together and spoon it out into a baking dish.
 
At this point, you can either refrigerate the veggies until you are ready to bake your eggs, or, you can use a spoon to dig out small wells into them. There should be one well for every egg you intend to crack into it. Crack your eggs into the wells, crumble some feta cheese over the top, hit the whole thing with a bit more salt and pepper and a few drizzles of oil. Cover the pan with tin foil and throw it CAREFULLY into the oven for about 30 minutes, or until the eggs have cooked all the way through to your liking. Garnish with fresh parsley and enjoy!

You know when you have cheese and fruit and bread and nuts with a glass of wine and you kind of want to say “screw the main course, this is all I need in the entire world”? Well this recipe is for you. It is a riff off of a really famous Brazilian dish called Pão de Queijo, which is a gloriously puffy, cheesy, ball of pastry that is sort of similar to gougères. And I turned it into a waffle. And it happens to be gluten-free. Win.

Allow me to paint the picture: Savory, light-as-air, cheddar-rosemary waffle. Served warm. With a crisp, apple, walnut, and cilantro relish. A dash of pomegranate molasses (or honey) to offset the bitterness. Cheesypuffyherbysweetandsalty ALL IN ONE BITE. I know. I know.

This dish is multi-functional. I venture to say that it would be appropriate to eat at any meal, and to serve for any crowd (as long as the crowd isn’t dairy-sensitive/avoidant, because holy shit there is a lot of dairy in these waffles). You can make a gigantic batch of the waffles ahead of time and keep them warm in a very low oven, and the relish can be made up to 3 days in advance.

I served my cocktail hour waffles for brunch just last weekend with a spring veggie frittata, a winter fruit salad (it is STILL winter here in Chicago. Shut up. I don't want to talk about it), and champagne (thanks for the champagne, Krista!), which complimented everything perfectly, if I do say so myself.

Also, if you don’t have a waffle iron, you can DEFINITELY still make these! Just pour out the batter onto a pan and make pancakes! Actually, that’s a really cute idea to make silver dollar-sized pancake versions for a cocktail hour… IT WAS MY IDEA FIRST!!

Relish:
2 large Granny Smith apples
1 1/4 cup of walnuts
½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 lemon
¼ cup pomegranate molasses (or honey)
salt & pepper

Waffle (makes 6-8 waffles or a shit ton of pancakes)
4 eggs
1 cup of whole milk 
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup melted butter
2 cups tapioca flour*
1 tsp salt
1  tablespoon black pepper
4 tablespoons of fresh rosemary, chopped
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
*Seriously, tapioca flour isn’t as hard to find as you think. I checked. All the grocery stores I have been to in the last month carry it. Sometimes it is called “cassava” flour and can be found in Asian or Latin sections of stores. 

Step 1: Make the relish:
Chop up the apples, skin and all, into small pieces. Squeeze the lemon over the apple to prevent them from turning brown. Throw the walnuts into a dry pan and toast them until they are warm to the touch and you can smell them. Chop the walnuts and the cilantro up and throw them into the bowl with the apples. Drizzle over the pomegranate molasses, add a few big pinches of salt and pepper, and taste it. Adjust the seasoning as needed, but it should taste clean, crisp, and not-to-sweet.

Steph 2: Make the waffle/pancake batter:
Break the eggs into a large bowl and beat them thoroughly. Throw in all of the other ingredients except for the cheese and mix until it is smooth. Might take a minute to get the tapioca flour incorporated, but it will get there. This is a pretty thin batter. Don’t be weirded out.

Step #3: Cook your waffle/pancakes:
Heat up your waffle iron and grease it up with a little melted butter or some non-stick spray. Ladle in a little less than a cup of the batter at a time and evenly sprinkle a big handful of cheese over the top. THIS IS IMPORTANT: Be  sure 1) NOT to over-fill the iron because this shit will puff up and 2) make sure each well of the iron gets the same amount of batter. Also, expect the puffiness to deflate once you remove the waffles from the iron. No biggs. They still taste awesome. 

Step #4: Top the waffles with the relish, and enjoy!