Birthday Brunch

I made brunch for some friends a few weekends ago. (This is a delayed post because it took my lazy ass this long to pull the photos off my camera.)



That's eggs benedict, asparagus, potatoes, and bacon. By way of explanation (the eggs look funny), they're not on traditional English muffins, but spelt muffins with raisins. Oh, and that's prosciutto tucked under that.

Originally my plan called for stuffed French toast as well, but the Safeway ran out of Texas toast when I went to look for it. That sucked. Thankfully, there was so much food already that no one missed the French toast.

It took much longer than I thought it would. Here's a helpful hint: just watching cooking shows doesn't make you a speedy gourmet chef. And just because Sandra Lee can create an entire meal in half an hour, here's one word: editing.

In any event, the food did come out pretty well. It didn't hurt that we treated ourselves to mimosas too:



For dessert, a pudding parfait with bananas and raspberries:





Despite the fact that the rest of the meal took about an hour and a half to assemble, the pudding parfaits were the biggest hit. There was also a cinnamon crumb cake involved too.

It was also a slightly belated birthday gift to my friend L.:



See, if you make friends with me, you too could have a homemade breakfast on your birthday! (Provided you have a decent kitchen for me to work in.)