(and Chrissy Teigen’s Everything Bagel Breakfast Bake)

Its Monday and we are not quite ready for the weekend to be over! We had a fun-filled, food-filled Father’s Day weekend and wanted to share all the details with you. 

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Friday night we celebrated Juneteenth with Edouardo Jordon’s Red Punch (recipe here), red velvet cupcakes and cookies, watermelon, our favorite almost homemade Trader Joe’s cornbread, and Fried Chicken Friday takeout complete with mac and cheese, coleslaw and fries from The Counter at Old Ballard Catering Co.. Only $28.00 for an 8-piece chicken dinner with your choice of three sides (add $3 if you choose mac and cheese as one of your options), The Counter takeout was not only a fantastic deal but also really good. Fried chicken is only available on Fridays, so order early from their user-friendly online takeout menu. This was our second time ordering takeout from @thecounterobcc. The first time we had their Greek Grub gyros with their house made Strawberry Cardamon Margaritas. We cannot recommend it enough!

The Juneteenth Red Punch also received rave reviews; Sam and Emma loved decorating these red velvet cupcakes with marshmallow frosting (they tasted great, but if you want truly red cake add more than the ½ teaspoon of food coloring the recipe calls for); and we loved these red velvet cookies that I will definitely be making again. 

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Saturday, we headed over to our parents’ house for an early Father’s Day celebration. The kids hosted their own demolition derby in the fleet of electric cars that our parents keep charged for just these kinds of occasions followed by a cooldown in the hot tub with Ryan and Chris. Our brother Michael grilled dinner with hamburgers and sausages from a butcher called Beast and Cleaver (so good!), accompanied by our favorite Pagliaccio Salad, and homemade banana cream pie a la Michael as well. 

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Sunday morning we surprised Ryan and Chris with mimosas and Chrissy Teigen’s Everything Bagel Cream Cheese Breakfast Bake (recipe below). We had this breakfast egg casserole for the first time at our sister-in-law Betsy’s Lake Chelan bachelorette party when one of her awesome girlfriends made it for the group. It was so good that we had to remake it for our families (and ourselves)! Highly recommend that you make this one for your next large brunch gathering – all the prep work is done the night before.

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Since Ryan’s favorite dessert is mint chocolate chip ice cream, we capped off our Father’s Day weekend with homemade ice cream cupcakes loosely based on this recipe. The chocolate whip cream was amazing, and the kids loved dipping the cupcakes in homemade magic shell!

We hope everyone else had wonderful, celebration-filled weekends! If you need to find us, we will be hiding from Monday with our leftover breakfast bake and cupcakes (maybe in the reverse order). 

 

CHRISSY TEIGEN’S EVERYTHING BAGEL CREAM CHEESE BREAKFAST BAKE

Ingredients:

• 1 pound breakfast sausage links
• 2 tablespoons butter, plus more for the baking dish
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 1 (10-ounce) package frozen spinach, thawed
• 3 day-old everything bagels, halved and cut into big chunks
• 2 large tomatoes, cut into chunks
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 1 and 1/2 cups grated Gruyère or Swiss cheese
• 1 and 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 8 eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 (8-ounce) brick cream cheese, cold, cut into 14 cubes
  

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in the skillet over medium-low heat, then add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly golden and translucent, about 9 minutes.
2. While the onion is cooking, pile the thawed spinach into the center of a big clean kitchen towel and roll up the towel. Over a bowl or the sink, twist the ends toward each other and keep twisting until you wring out as much liquid as humanly possible. 
3. Transfer the spinach to the bowl with the sausage and add the onion, bagel chunks, tomatoes, basil, Parmesan cheese, 1 cup each of the Gruyère and cheddar, 1 teaspoon of the salt, and ½ teaspoon of the pepper. Toss it all together with your hands or a spoon.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, half-and-half, mustard, cayenne, and the remaining 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper.
5. Grease a 9 × 13-inch baking dish (I would recommend sizing up in pan size to a 15×10) with butter and arrange the bagel mixture in the dish. Pour the egg mixture over the top, pressing down on the bagels so they soak up the liquid.
6. Nestle the cream cheese chunks in all around the pan (they can be peeking out).
7. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1½ hours and up to 12 hours. (The longer you soak, the moister the inside will be.)
8. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
9. Uncover the dish and sprinkle with the remaining ½ cup each Gruyère and cheddar.
10. Bake for 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake until the top is golden and the center is set, 50 minutes to 1 hour.

 

Recipe Credit: “Cravings: Hungry for More” by Chrissy Teigen reprinted by Good Morning America here.