Whole grain pancakes with macerated blackberries and Earl Grey whipped cream

I have a confession to make. There was a time when I didn't really like brunch food. When I'd go out to brunch with friends, I'd be the person ordering a turkey sandwich when everyone else was enjoying pancakes or omelettes. Happily though, I started to appreciate the merits of brunch food when I was in college. And now, nothing makes me happier than Eggs Benedict, or bagels with lox, or of course, pancakes.

I'm super excited to share this recipe with you. I don't have many breakfast/brunch recipes on the blog, but starting with this recipe, I'm going to change that. These pancakes are adapted from Heidi Swanson's wild rice pancakes in Super Natural Cooking - I always use buckwheat flour instead of wild rice flour, and I love how the pancakes taste. They have a more complex flavor than traditional white flour pancakes, and pair really well with the macerated blackberries and Earl Grey whipped cream. The idea of infusing whipped cream with tea was inspired by a recent issue of Bon Appetit, and I decided to use Earl Grey because I really enjoy the flavor of bergamot. When I told Andrew about the Earl Grey idea, he suggested that blackberries would be a good pairing, and he was absolutely right. The three components of this dish blend together beautifully to make an elegant dish that would be a great choice for a Mother's Day brunch.

Corn and tomato gratin

I was over at Pinch My Salt recently, where I learned about a cool blog event called Summer Fest, which celebrates a different summer vegetable or fruit each week. Obviously, this fits in really well with the focus of my blog, and I'm excited about cooking and posting with the Summer Fest themes in mind. This week's theme is corn - corn is at its seasonal peak right now, and I've been cooking a lot with it (as you might have noticed).

Of all the corn recipes I've posted so far, this one really stands out. With corn, tomatoes, and basil all baked together into a bubbly gratin, this is the perfect taste of summer. I found this recipe in Gourmet Today, which is probably the best cookbook I own. Whatever kind of recipe I'm looking for, I can always count on finding something good in this book.

This is not a heavy gratin - the vegetables really shine here, and aren't at all overpowered by the milk and cream. The amount of cheese is enough to contribute good flavor but not so much that you feel like taking a nap after eating it. We ate this for dinner with a green salad on the side, but it would also be a nice accompaniment to any grilled meat.

Quiche with summer greens

I buy a lot of vegetables that have greens attached, like turnips, beets, radishes...these greens are all edible and have interesting flavors, and I try hard not to waste them. But I'm really not that good at cooking greens and often struggle with finding ways to use them. Well, I have officially found one really, really good (albeit time-consuming) way - I ended up using last week's turnip and radish greens in a variation of Julia Child's spinach quiche recipe, and it was so good. This preparation took the bitter edge off the greens, embedding them in a creamy custard baked in buttery pastry - it's hard to go wrong when cheese, cream, and butter are involved.

I'm pretty new to Julia Child's recipes, and to French cooking in general. I received Mastering the Art of French Cooking as a wedding gift a few months ago and so far have only made the quiche recipe. That recipe alone is enough to convince me that this book will be a great addition to my cookbook collection - not so much for everyday cooking, but definitely for guests and weekend cooking projects. I made the blue cheese quiche a couple months ago, and had made some extra pastry dough which I stored in the freezer. I thawed it in the fridge for this quiche, and it tasted every bit as good as the freshly made version. I also used 50% whole wheat pastry flour for this dough, which worked really well. This pastry dough requires blind baking (pre-baking, weighted down with dried beans, so that it doesn't get too soggy when you add the filling), which is a bit of a pain - make sure you budget enough time for everything.