Keeping Breakfast Fresh: Indoor Herb Garden

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One of the easiest ways to brighten up a recipe is with fresh herbs. Purchasing them at the grocery store can add up quickly, especially if you're using them regularly. Starting your own garden is a great way to always have delicious fresh herbs and is inexpensive to start.

(Please excuse my filthy window.)

I recently planted a windowsill herb garden. It all started when I saw some small planters and watering cans for a dollar a piece. I am unfortunately not blessed with a green thumb, so I bought the already sprouted plants along with some potting soil. That was all it took and I had an herb garden ready to go! For my herbs I chose basil, thyme, rosemary, and chives. Since my window isn’t especially sunny, I’ll try to set my plants outside in the sun about once a week.

I neglected to look over my dollar containers before buying them. They turned out to not have drainage holes. I drilled some myself, but the plastic cracked midway through. I was eventually able to create two tiny holes in each container, but if I were to start over, I would just purchase containers with pre-drilled holes.

Here’s the breakdown of what I used to start my windowsill herb garden:

• Containers – 4 x $1 ea. (I’ve seen small terra cotta pots for less than a dollar—drainage holes included!)
• Potting soil (20 qts) - $7
• Herbs – 4 x $2.50 ea.
  
  Total: $21

Are you thinking of starting your own herb garden? Let us know what you’re planting!

Congrats to the Winning Breakfast Tournament Dish!

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Food lovers have voted in the second annual Best B&B Breakfast Tournament, and Lemon Soufflé Pancakes with Blueberry Compote from the 1851 Historic Maple Hill Manor Bed and Breakfast in Springfield, Kentucky came out on top. For two weeks, our Facebook fans voted on 16 breakfast dishes submitted by innkeepers in a bracket-style competition until one dish won the title of the Best B&B Breakfast Recipe. Congrats to the innkeepers who came up with such a tasty, popular dish!

Ready to try something new for breakfast? See the recipe and try it for yourself!

Submit Your Best Dish for Our Breakfast Tournament

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It’s time to get ready for our second annual Best Breakfast Tournament! This Facebook contest launches on March 25 and works in brackets, just like college basketball’s March Madness.

How does it work?
Submit your best breakfast recipe, and our Facebook fans will vote on their favorite. They will be narrowed down in a bracket of sweet vs. savory until we have one winning recipe. The recipe must be for one dish, like a French toast dish--not a full plate with multiple dishes. Recipes will be judged on uniqueness, creativity, and appeal; we will factor in the recipe itself in addition to a photo of the dish.

Pictured is last year's winning dish, bittersweet chocolate waffles topped with mint buttercream and strawberry sauce from Lyttleton Inn in Littleton, MA.

What is the prize?
One lucky voter will win a $500 BedandBreakfast.com gift card, and the winning B&B will win bragging rights and publicity! Last year, we scored our winner and runner-up stories in several publications, including USA Today and Budget Travel.

This year’s guest judges are Anne Banas with Smarter Travel, Adrien Glover with Travel + Leisure, and Susannah Chen with YumSugar (and possibly another writer from a large publication), so we expect that the winner and possibly runner-up will also get great publicity this year.

How do you enter?

1)      Add your recipe on BedandBreakfast.com. To do this, first log in to your Home Base.

2)      Under the ‘Listing’ tab, select ‘Recipes.’ Then click ‘Add New Recipe.’

3)      Add the ingredients and steps. Our system currently only allows for five steps, so if your recipe has more steps than this, please combine some of them (we hope to have a better system next year!). It may not appear on the site immediately, so don’t worry if it takes a little time.

4)      Once added, please email Emily Gerson at EGerson@BedandBreakfast.com with this information to enter:     

a.       Your inn’s name and location

b.      The name of your recipe

c.       Whether your recipe is classified as sweet or savory

d.      At least one great photo of the dish; it must be well-lit and high-resolution since it will be presented on our Facebook page

The entry deadline is January 31, 2013. The BedandBreakfast.com marketing team will narrow the entries down to 32 finalists, and a group of guest judges will narrow it down to 16. Starting on March 25, our Facebook fans will vote on each bracket until we have a winner! We hope you will participate.

By Emily Starbuck Crone

How to Cook Efficiently for a Large Group

An article by Admin 5 Comments

The following guest post is by Andrea Hundley, a B&B owner and blogger at bedandbreakfastbusiness.org.

If you are like me, there are several weekends a year that I know I’m going to have a big crowd for breakfast.  The trick on these days is to make something that is:  1) delicious, 2) easy, 3) can be prepared mostly ahead of time and 4) inexpensive.

Inexpensive
I’m going to start with the last criteria first: inexpensive.  Unlike a lot of B&Bs, I almost never serve a continental breakfast.  I have found that when I do, people ALWAYS put more on their plate than they will eat, and I end up having to prepare twice as much food.  I also find that more is wasted because you don’t want your serving table to look empty.  I serve a plated breakfast.  I always offer seconds, but I have found over the years that there is much less food thrown in the trash with a plated meal. 

I’ve also found that the more choices people have on a continental breakfast, the more people I get who ask, “Do you have any of this?” which is always something that I don’t have. For example, I serve a continental breakfast with four choices including scones, yogurt, homemade granola, fresh fruit.  Inevitably when I do this I have someone ask for something they don’t see, like bagels. They are much less likely to ask this if they see you passing out plates of french toast, bacon, and fresh fruit where everyone is getting the same thing.   

Easy
For large groups, it is even more important to make something that is pretty easy to prepare, because you will almost always have an audience (unless your kitchen is off limits).  You will want to make it something that you can prepare without thinking and something that is well-tested in your kitchen. Have you ever made something that turned out just so-so?  You don’t want this to happen when you have ten potential reviewers sitting at the table. 

Can Be Made Ahead
I like to prepare main dishes that can be made ahead of time. This gives me time to spend the morning of setting up the coffee, cutting fresh fruit, and cooking the meat. I normally use one of my go-to stratas or baked French toast recipes. I have four to five that I have made countless times, and I know they are good because people have asked for the recipe. These can be made the night before and baked in the morning. This takes a lot of the pressure off of cooking for a large group and gives you time to visit with guests without feeling the stress of getting the food out. 

Delicious
Last but not least, it has to be something delicious enough that it has mass appeal.  This is a matter of opinion, BUT these are the breakfasts that have worked for me:

•    Crème Brulee French toast, bacon, broiled grape fruit (which is a surprising hit every time).
•    Mexican strata with roasted turkey, corn, green chili and cheese.  I serve this with cinnamon rolls and fruit
•    Stuffed french toast (stuffed with cream cheese and marmalade), sausage and fruit
•    Quiche. I like caramelized onions and cheese. I usually serve this with a sweet bread like pumpkin or lemon bread and a meat.  Quiche is nice because it can be held well in a warm oven.

I have not had as much luck with serving pancakes to large groups, but a baked French toast is ideal. 

If you have ideas about how to serve a big group, we would love to hear them!

Featured Recipe: Baked Herb Eggs

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The following recipe for baked herb eggs comes from the innkeepers at Black Bear Lodge in South Lake Tahoe, California. The small luxury lodge has five guest rooms, plus three cabins. This recipe is easy to make, but offers a tasty dish that you won't easily find elsewhere. Enjoy!

Servings: 6
Prep time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 9-10 slices thin slices good deli ham
• 12 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons whole seed pub mustard
• 1 tablespoon roasted garlic mustard
• 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1 cup Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1/2 tablespoon pepper
• 1/2 cup green onion, chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
• dash of oregano
• dash of thyme

Step 1:
Preheat oven to 350. Spray 6 ramekins with Pam. (I use shallow, oval ramekins that are about 5 inches long.) Pull the ham slices into small pieces and place in ramekins.

Step 2:
In a medium bowl, beat eggs. Add mustard, sun-dried tomatoes, cheeses, pepper, green onion and herbs. Stir well, then spoon into prepared ramekins. Use a fork to push ingredients below egg mixture.

Step 3:
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden and set.

What is your favorite egg dish?

By Emily Starbuck Crone

Survey Results: Traveler Breakfast Preferences

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We were already on a roll with our Breakfast Recipe Challenge, so we decided to survey travelers to learn about their breakfast preferences. Nearly 1,100 travelers completed our survey. Here are the takeaways that you may enjoy learning about!

• There was a near tie for the favorite meal of the day. We found that 45% of travelers enjoy breakfast the most, while a close 44% selected dinner as their favorite. Only 11% say lunch is their favorite meal.

• A whopping 72% of travelers prefer their breakfasts to be savory, while 28% prefer theirs sweet.

• When it came to specifics, we found the All-American (bacon and eggs) breakfast was the unquestioned favorite, with 47% of the votes. Carb loaders (pancakes, waffles, bagels) and Health Fanatics (fruit, yogurt, granola) were near ties for next-favorite breakfast, with each representing approximately 24% of responses. Just Like A Kid (hot or cold cereals) and Fit Foodies (protein shakes or smoothies) represent only 2-3% of responses.
  

• In regards to the size of the meal, 63% like a breakfast that will keep them satisfied, while 30% count on a breakfast large enough that they can skip lunch if necessary. We were happy to learn that only 7% usually skip breakfast!

• On the weekends, 59% of travelers prefer eating brunch rather than a regular early breakfast.
  

• Only 29% of travelers want their coffee black. The rest want milk or cream.

• If offered a choice of juice or milk, 76% prefer juice.
  

• When asked their favorite way to eat eggs, 33% said baked in an omelet or casserole, 30% said over easy or sunny side up, 25% go for scrambled, and a mere 12% opt for poached.
  

• If eating toast, 55% of travelers say they want butter on it, while 45% said they want jam.

• We asked if they would consider eating fish, such as lox, for breakfast, and 63% said no.

 Here is the infographic we submitted to the media:

Do any of these findings surprise you?

By Emily Starbuck Crone

Featured Recipe: Blueberry Cream Cheese Stuffed Baked French Toast

An article by Admin 2 Comments

The following recipe is from White Lace Inn, a BedandBreakfast.com Diamond Collection property located in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The inn features 18 guest rooms in four turn-of-the-century neighboring homes furnished in antiques, oversize whirlpool tubs, and fireplaces. Enjoy this tasty breakfast creation!

Ingredients:

• 

  1 loaf white bread (no crusts)
• 1/2 loaf french bread
• 6 cups fresh/frozen blueberries (rinsed)
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 7 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 1/2 cups half & half
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Steps:

1. Cut bread into cubes and place into the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle blueberries evenly over bread.

2. Microwave cream cheese in bowl for 2 minutes. Stir carefully and add 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup sour cream, and 1 tsp. vanilla. Spread over blueberries.

3. Cut french bread into ten-1" thick slices, place over cream cheese.

4. Beat eggs, milk, half & half, cinnamon and nutmeg and pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 min. covered, then uncovered for approximately 15 min. Let set before slicing. Sift powdered sugar over before serving.

By Emily Starbuck Crone

The Breakfast Recipe Challenge Winner Has Been Crowned!

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Yesterday, the votes were tallied and the winner of our first annual Breakfast Recipe Challenge was announced. The victorious dish was bittersweet chocolate waffles topped with mint buttercream and strawberry sauce from the Lyttleton Inn in Littleton, MA. The dish is pictured below, along with a photo of innkeeper Mary Dugan in her kitchen. You can view the recipe here. Congrats Mary!

Overall, we received nearly 100 recipes from innkeepers all over the world. A team of BedandBreakfast.com employees, along with the help of guest judges Danielle Contray of Budget Travel and Helen Anders of The Austin American-Statesman, narrowed them down to The Savory Sixteen. The contest took place on Facebook, where our 34,000+ Facebook fans saw our posts about it each day. Our fans voted on the recipes, which went head-to-head in match-ups until one winner remained.

We loved seeing our innkeepers getting excited and participating, and we're thrilled that we were able to show consumers one of the best benefits of staying at a B&B--the delicious homemade breakfast! It was fun, and we thank every innkeeper who participated.

The runner-up recipe was for pumpkin pancakes with carmelized pecans, whipped cream, and ginger syrup. It came in a very close second, so we want to give some kudos to the innkeeper, Kathleen A. Janke, of Gracehill, a bed and breakfast in Townshend, TN. Her recipe was very popular. You can see a photo of Kathleen Below menu-planning in her kitchen, plus a photo of her dish. Congrats to Kathleen for coming in a strong second!

What's your favorite dish that you serve for breakfast? Share in the comments section below!

By Emily Starbuck Crone

The Breakfast Recipe Challenge is Live--Vote Now!

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Our much-anticipated Breakfast Recipe Challenge launched on Monday. We received nearly 100 entries. With the help of guest judges Danielle Contray of Budget Travel and Helen Anders of The Austin American-Statesman (our local paper), we pared these down to 16 creative breakfast dishes.

You can see the 16 finalists in our Facebook album. To the right is one of the finalists; it's Duck Confit Hash & Egg (aka Quackin Good Hash & Egg) from Casa Laguna Inn & Spa in Laguna Beach, CA.

From March 19-26, the top 16 will be paired head-to-head, with one pair going up for vote at noon each day. On March 27, we'll announce the top eight, and that bracket will begin. The final vote takes place on April 2.

You can vote once a day. One lucky voter will randomly be selected to win a $500 BedandBreakfast.com gift card. Yes, innkeepers are eligible to win the gift card!

Vote here!

By Emily Starbuck Crone