How Did the Celebratory Church Breakfast Go?

Splendidly, that’s how. Remember the story of the plague of locusts that descended on Egypt in the Old Testament book of Exodus? Well, the nicest-possible locusts (we’ll say a swarm and not a plague) pretty much vacuumed up the food that I and my helpers made for yesterday’s before-church breakfast to celebrate our once again meeting as a full church. It was fabulous!

So here’s what I did, and here’s the one glitch I had (which I still haven’t figured out completely)—

1. My friend Marlene made three different kinds of muffins and prepared a fabulous fruit selection. As far as I know it all disappeared except for a tiny portion. As I say in my cookbook, I hate and despise prepping fruit. I was so, so grateful for her help.
2. I made the breakfast casserole from my cookbook (have you gotten your copy yet? Go here to buy a digital version from this site and here to buy a digital or paperback version from Amazon.) There were four pans of the ham-and-egg version and two of the sun-dried-tomato-pesto-cream cheese-Parmesan one. Guess which version got the rave reviews and disappeared almost completely? The vegetarian one that I thought would be everyone’s second choice. One guy said, “This would be really good for dinner with a glass of wine.” Well, I didn’t argue with him!
3. For some reason the ham-and-egg casseroles didn’t get done in the middle. I had allowed plenty of time for them to bake, but I think what happened was that the oven I used for three of them just wasn’t running hot enough. We persevered—a wonderful woman named Donna had misunderstood and thought the breakfast was a potluck, so she had brought—ta da!—an egg-and-sausage casserole. So we served that to the first wave while I cranked up the oven on mine. She suggested taking the well-done edges and putting them in a separate pan to serve, which we did. In the end I did have about one and a half panfuls left over, but c’est la vie. I won’t use that particular oven next time, and I won’t try to bake more than two in any one oven. (Our church kitchen has four ovens.)
4. I didn’t make the sign for the gluten-free muffins as clear as I should have. Marlene’s muffins were all eaten, but mine rather languished. I think people were put off by the “gluten free” sign, thinking that a) they were just for people who can’t eat gluten and b) they wouldn’t be very good. Neither was true! So I’ll try to make things clearer next time, and to make sure I include “dairy free” as well as “gluten free,” since they’re both. I made 4 dozen and had probably 2 dozen left over. They’re now reposing in the freezer and will be eaten up, believe me, for future breakfasts at this house. I made this recipe, Healthy Carrot Muffins, from the great, great cooking blog Pinch of Yum, and I didn’t mess with the recipe at all except to use chopped date bits instead of the regular dates. If you scroll down in the comments you’ll see that someone asked about that ingredient and was told to use ¾ cup. If you need to make a gluten-free item for something I’d highly recommend these. It’s unclear to me how they would have any structure at all, as their only flour is ground oatmeal. No xantham gum, no gluten-free baking blend, nothing of the sort. I made a test batch earlier in the week and was so pleased with them—they rose just like regular muffins. So I’m definitely keeping these in my repertoire. (You should definitely subscribe to this blog, by the way.)

I feel like the world is opening up. Don’t you? Everything’s not completely hunky-dory with the virus, of course, and as I type this Colorado is seeing somewhat of a surge in those pesky variants. But I feel like the worst is over. Parties are coming—and I can’t wait to cook for them.