Chocolate panini: breakfast, snack or
dessert. Photo courtesy Vosges Haut
Chocoalt.

Our favorite breakfast bread is pain au chocolat. Literally “chocolate bread,” pain au chocolat is an oblong breakfast roll made of the same light, flaky, yeast-leavened laminated pastry dough as a croissant,* and filled with pieces of dark chocolate;

*Pain au chocolat is often called a chocolate croissant in the U.S., but this is incorrect; Croissant means crescent, and pain au chocolat is not crescent-shaped.

Katrina Markoff, founder of Vosges Haut Chocolat, was inspired to port the concept to Italian panini. From her large repertoire of chocolate bars, she selected her Oaxaca chocolate bar, 75% cacao bittersweet chocolate with guajillo and pasilla chiles. (Oaxaca [wuh-HAH-kuh] is a state in Southern Mexico thought to be the birthplace of chocolate cultivation.)

Adding raisins evokes Mexicao’s mole sauces. If you want to get even more creative, consider adding other mole sauce ingredients such as cinnamon, peanuts or pepitas.

CHOCOLATE RAISIN PANINI

Ingredients For One Serving

 
†Spiced chocolate bars return to the roots of chocolate, first served as a spicy drink by the Olmec and Maya. Vosges also makes a Red Fire bar: dark chocolate with ancho and chipotle Chiles and cinnamon.

Cottage cheese makes pancakes soufflé-like.
Photo courtesy Friendship Dairies.

Whether or not you’re a cottage cheese lover, give these cottage cheese pancakes a chance. They’re a favorite brunch food at THE NIBBLE.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but when cottage cheese is used in pancake batter, it lends a soufflé-like fluffiness that is truly special. And you can sneak in the calcium-rich cottage cheese with no one the wiser.

We enjoy cottage cheese pancakes for both breakfast and lunch. We’ll look for any excuse to make a batch.

If you don’t like cooking from scratch, you can buy Heidi’s Cottage Cheese Pancake Mix, one of our favorites from a whopping 99 whole grain and multigrain mixes sampled (read the full article).

Friendship is largely an East Coast brand. If it isn’t sold near you, substitute your favorite cottage cheese.

COTTAGE CHEESE PANCAKES RECIPE

Ingredients

If you’re watching your diet, use egg whites, nonfat cottage cheese and sugar substitute.

Preparation

1. Combine all ingredients in blender on low speed until blended.
2. Mix in optional fruit or chocolate.
3. Lightly coat hot griddle with cooking oil.
4. Pour batter to desired size. Cook until golden; flip once. The pancakes take a bit longer to cook than conventional recipes because of the added heft of the cottage cheese.
5. Serve immediately with syrup, jam, sour cream or creme fraiche. (Actually, we like them just as they are—no condiments necessary!)

Friendship makes nine different varieties of cottage cheese—something for everyone. If you don’t like one variety, try another:

 
Find more delicious cottage cheese recipes at FriendshipDairies.com.

You can also download a coupon to use on any Friendship product.

Who needs maple syrup? Grab the jam jar. Photo by Daniel Gilbey | IST.

Want pancakes but are out of syrup?

Grab a jar of jam, jelly or preserves.

Scoop jam into a bowl and whisk with enough hot water to create the consistency you want.

If it’s an adults-only event, add a teaspoon or more of Grand Marnier or fruit liqueur. You can combine flavors; for example, orange liqueur with strawberry jam.

Or, you can use the jam for stuffed pancakes. Make large, thin pancakes or crepes that can be filled with jam and folded in half, as in the photo.

Recipes for pancakes, waffles and French Toast.

Whole grain pancakes are nutritious and good for you. See our reviews of the best whole grain pancake brands.

When we make pancakes, we make twice as much as we need.

Who wants leftover pancakes? We do!

We reheat them by toasting them in the toaster oven. The outsides get nice and crispy. In our book, they’re even better than the original batch.

July 4th Recipes

 
TIP: If you’re going to make pancakes, get a delicious whole wheat pancake mix. The pancakes will count toward your daily recommended 48 grams of whole grain.

Add blueberries for a red, white and blue
July 4th treat. Photo by Simone van den Berg
| IST.

First made by Native Americans, grits are an ubiquitous menu item in the American South. The area from Virginia to Texas is even called the “Grits Belt,” where grits are served for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and that sounds great to us!).

Grits are the hard part of the corn kernel (the endosperm), cut into uniform small pieces. They are related to polenta, which is made from a different type of corn and is usually a finer grind. Another related product, farina, known in the U.S. as cream of wheat, is made from semolina flour.

For the record, corn is classified by the type of starch in its kernels. Dent corn, the premier corn in the South, has a relatively soft, starchy center that makes the best grits. Flint corn, used for polenta, has a hard, starchy endosperm and produces a more granular cornmeal with a better texture (mouthfeel).

Learn all about grits and get the recipe for creamy cheese grits.

You don’t have to be from the South to
enjoy a breakfast of bacon, eggs and
grits. Photo by Sasha Fatcat | Wikimedia.

If your only exposure to hot cereal is instant packages of oatmeal, you’re depriving yourself of a real treat. For us, Cream Of Wheat, Cream Of Rice, grits, polenta and cornmeal mush are some of life’s great comfort foods.

Today’s shout-out is to grits (hominy grits), a versatile hot cereal or side dish to other breakfast foods, lunch or dinner or as a main dish (shrimp and grits are a match made in heaven).

If you don’t like grits, you’ve never had the real deal. Anson Mills’ honest-to-the-core organic-certified antebellum sweet Carolina corn grits have no relation to the gluey, pallid, tasteless grits served up at so many diners.

They’re cold-milled grits, handmade from certified organic whole heirloom seed corn. To our knowledge, they’re the best grits that money can buy. They’re not instant, but they’re terrific: true grits, indeed.

Enjoy cheesy grits or plain grits for
breakfast, lunch or dinner. Photo courtesy
AnsonMills.com.

 
Try them and fall in love with the full-flavor taste of these organic heirloom grains: fresh corn flavor, texture, nutrients and richness with the additional floral flavors from fresh corn germ. This style of grits was popular before the Civil War and was still available until World War II, fresh-ground every Saturday morning in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Fresh-milled hominy grist, right out of the mill, is a food lover’s delight.

Here’s a basic grits recipe from Anson Mills. Add 1 tablespoon of grated cheese (we use Parmesan) to make cheesy grits/cheese grits.

You can purchase grits at your local supermarket, too. They’re fine—we use them all the time. But for a special treat, get the artisan version from AnsonMills.com.

Say what?

KAMUT® (kah-MOOT) is the manufacturer and brand name of a Khorasan wheat that is available in the US. Khorasan is an ancient wheat, the grain of which is two times larger than modern wheat. It has a rich, nutty flavor. As produced by Kamut, it’s organic and whole grain—just as it was in the time of the Pharaohs.

And it’s better for you than modern wheat: higher in protein and many minerals, especially magnesium, selenium and zinc. It has a higher percentage of lipids, which produce more energy in the body than wheat’s carbohydrates. Think of it as high energy wheat, better for athletes and anyone looking for high energy food. Learn more at Kamut.com.

While we haven’t loved every whole grain pasta we’ve tried, pasta made from Kamut/Khorasan wheat merits your attention. We’ve been serving it up and no one has noticed that it isn’t conventional pasta—whereas we did get complaints from picky eaters about whole other wheat pasta.

Pasta made from the ancient wheat,
Khorasan. Organic and whole grain, it’s
become our daily pasta.

 
So we stocked up on lots of Kamut/Khorosan elbow macaroni, spaghetti, rigatoni and spirals from Eden Organic, and have been feeling good about eating more pasta (after all, we must have three servings of whole grain daily!).

The ancient grain of the Pharaohs was einkorn (a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week).

But at some point, Khorasan wheat was introduced into Egypt (the modern name is balady durum, or native durum), possibly by invading armies of Greeks, Romans, or the later Byzantines.

Khorasan is the Pahlavi (Persian) word for “the land of sunrise.“ The ancient land of Khorasan included territories that presently are part of Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The wheat can still be found growing in small plots in Turkey, the home of Mount Ararat and Noah’s Ark. Legend says that Khorasan wheat, which is also called Camel’s Tooth or the Prophet’s Wheat, was the grain Noah brought on the ark.

So, have a taste.

Kamut sells its Khorasan wheat to different manufacturers, who turn it into hot cereal, cold cereal puffs and corn flakes, pancakes and much more, from puffed corn cakes (similar to rice cakes) to baking flour.

A parfait for breakfast or for dessert.
Photo courtesy Whole Foods Market.

Just when we’d turned the last of our panettone into French toast for New Year’s Day breakfast, another panettone arrived.

Oh no, we thought: What do we do with this panettone vis-à-vis our New Year’s resolution to give up the sugar group for January?

Fortunately, Whole Foods Market came to the rescue with this recipe for a yogurt and fruit parfait with cubes of panettone—just a touch. We’re not breaking the resolution—just bending it.

Ingredients

Preparation

1. Spray-oil a large skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add panettone cubes and cook, tossing occasionally until just toasted, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside to let cool.
2. Add almonds to skillet and cook, tossing occasionally until toasted, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and set aside. NOTE: If you’re in a hurry, you can make the parfait with untoasted panettone and almonds.
3. Drizzle panettone with any juice that collected when you cut the oranges; then layer in four tall glasses or large wine goblets along with the oranges and yogurt.
4. Top with almonds, garnish with mint and serve.

Nutrition Per Serving: 420 calories (80 from fat), 9g total fat, 3.5g saturated fat, 45mg cholesterol, 210mg sodium, 73g total carbohydrate (6g dietary fiber, 52g sugar), 16g protein.

Don’t like yogurt? Here are recipes for Panettone Bread Pudding, Panettone French Toast and Panettone Nutella Sandwich.

Get Up & Go! with Smucker’s Snack’n Waffles.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and Smucker’s makes it easy not to miss it. Their Snack’n Waffles microwave in just 15 seconds and are available in four tasty flavors.

Five additional winners will each receive a product coupon to try the delicious breakfast waffles.

Gingerbread may be the best known Christmas “bread” in the U.S. Hopefully you’ll enjoy a few bites before the season ends (and send someone an adorable Gingerista gingerbread family that mirrors his or her household).

But don’t let the holidays pass you by without trying pandoro, panettone, panforte and/or stollen.

All are delicious with spiced tea like Constant Comment, which is also available in decaf and green tea versions. You can substitute an unflavored black tea.

If you want to put some spirit into your snack, dessert or tea time, serve the Christmas bread with mulled wine (warm spiced wine) or with a sweet dessert wine, such as Spumante or Moscato.

Gather the goods and invite friends to a special Christmas tea party.

Stollen, the traditional German christmas
cake or “bread.” Photo courtesy The London
Hotel, New York City.

 
If you’re in New York City for the holidays, you can stop by The London Bar by Gordon Ramsay at The London Hotel, 151 West 54th Street, not far from Carnegie Hall, Tiffany’s, the Time Warner Center/Columbus Circle and Times Square. Through the holidays, you can enjoy a slice of fresh-made stollen with spiced wine and a side of rum. It’s served daily from 3 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. If you prefer tea, they’ll gladly oblige.