Breakfast Braid
A few weeks ago I saw a recipe on the Cooking community for a Raspberry Braid that I wanted to try. The recipe itself called for mixing a sweet dough, which I'm none too confident about so I haven't tried it yet. A couple of weeks ago I came across another recipe in one of my cooking newsletters for Chicken Broccoli Braid, but the braid portion of the recipe was comprised of canned crescent roll dough, but when I tried it, it didn't come out nearly as good as I thought it would. I could easily adapt the recipe into something more palatable, but haven't yet.
Clearly I have not yet satisfied my Braid yen. Earlier this week I was facing an Old Mother Hubbard dilemma and had to create a dinner out of ingredients that I already had on hand and came up with this:
Breakfast Braid
½ pkg. (1 sheet) Puff Pastry, rolled out
½ cup diced onion
½ cup diced green pepper
½ to 1 cup diced ham
1 cup shredded cheese
1-2 tbls butter
6 eggs
Splash of milk
Preparation: Preheat oven to 400
Bring puff pastry to room temperature, unfold and roll out. If the creases tear while unfolding, pinch together to mend then roll out. Now visualize the pastry sectioned into thirds, lengthwise. Take a fork and poke holes down the center section of the pastry. Slice the outer thirds into ¾ to 1 inch strips.
Break eggs into bowl, add splash of milk, beat together.
Melt butter into skillet over medium high heat. Add in ham, onion and green pepper and lightly sauté. Pour eggs into skillet and fold together until eggs are soft scrambled. You don’t want them runny, and you don’t want them hard scrambled either. Arrange half the scrambled mixture along the center of the pastry sprinkle half the cheese, repeat. Fold sectioned strips across the top of the filling in a criss-cross fashion to create the braid effect, lightly pinching the tips together to bind.
Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes until pastry is a light golden brown and cooked through.
Notes: Making one of these is NOT enough. I thought that one of these would feed four of us comfortably, but that was not the case.
Flavor variations: I would probably use a parmesan cheese for a veggie one, and even though I don’t eat mushrooms, I’d probably add mushrooms to a veggie variation. I’m going to try a bacon and cheddar one this weekend. When I prepared the one above, I used cheddar cheese, but when I do it next I think I’m going to try it with Swiss instead.
This was a resounding success and I have every intention of bringing this recipe into my regular rotation of breakfast items!!