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The family and I are celebrating the return of one of our favorite geeky shows tonight with fish fingers and custard! If you’re also a Doctor Who fan you know what’s up, if not you can get a little background here.

This is actually a surprise for the girls — they know I’ve been in the kitchen all morning baking but haven’t been allowed to come in and see what it is yet. And with that I have to admit that it’s not really fish fingers — we’re not that hardcore! These are actually shortbread cookies rolled in graham cracker crumbs, swiped from bakingdom.

We’re fairly new to the Doctor Who obsession — I want to say it’s only been a year or so — but it makes my little sci-fi heart happy, and fills a void left by Battlestar Galactica and Firefly and Star Trek: The Next Generation as a teen (it was not cool to be into sci-fi when I was a teenager so many hundreds of years ago, so it’s fun to get into it with the girls now, as evidenced by the TARDIS cake for the 14-year-old last November).

The custard (actually vanilla pudding) was also homemade because I’d already run out once to pick up forgotten graham crackers, and I couldn’t bring myself to run out again for a box of pudding. I put up with standing at the stove for what seemed like forever, but it was worth it. Homemade pudding is cool.

The fish fingers are delicious too, very light and crunchy. They’re really close to being too salty, though, so when I make them again I’ll go with just 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

If you’re a geek at heart and a fan of the Doctor, you can get the fish finger cookie recipe from bakingdom.com, and the homemade vanilla pudding recipe I used is below:

Homemade Vanilla Pudding
serves 6

3/4 c granulated sugar
3 Tb cornstarch
3 c cold milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 Tb butter
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In a heavy medium saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch. Add milk and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until bubbly. Lower heat and cook and stir for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat. Gradually stir 1 cup of the milk mixture into the beaten eggs.

Add the egg mixture to the saucepan with the rest of the milk mixture and bring almost to a bubble but do not boil. Reduce heat and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla extract.

Pour pudding into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least six hours before serving.

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie is French Apple Tart, and is hosted by Gaye, who has the recipe on her blog.

As others participating pointed out, this was a really labor-intensive recipe! It easily took half a day to complete, and while it was delicious I’m not quite sure it was worth it. The whole family loves apples and apple desserts, but I kind of wish I’d followed a few of the tips that pointed out you could just use a jar of apple sauce for the filling.

I actually left out the fresh white bread crumbs because I didn’t have any (just wheat, which probably would have been fine), but it worked just as well.

I also wish I’d stuck with my usual pie crust recipe since this one crumbled right up on me and I ended up having to just press it into the pie pan (no tart pan here — yet 😉 )

It really was delicious, and while I probably won’t make it again we’re all glad I gave it a shot!

One of my planned dinners for last week was Breakfast for Dinner, which is one of the girls’ favorites. Though I like it well enough, I hate babysitting the bacon, the eggs, and the griddle of hash browns. By accident I came upon a recipe for a crockpot egg bake and was thrilled to find that I had everything on hand because I was going to use them all for our regular meal.

But I have a confession: I’m not a fan of baked eggs. I’ll eat quiche or frittata but I prefer the quicker and less-drying methods of scrambled or over-easy.

I decided to give it a shot, and thankfully it was early enough in the day that I had plenty of time to get it going in the crockpot.

I ended up combining several different recipes, and all of them called for an overnight baking. Since ours was going to be for dinner, I started at around 10:30 AM, and it was perfect by about 6:00 PM on low. It turned out well enough that I’m going to use it overnight next week for Christmas breakfast.

I did have to fiddle with it a bit since I really wanted to make sure it turned out right. The basic recipe I went with is below, and my notes are under that:

Crockpot Breakfast Bake
makes 8 generous servings

12 eggs
1 cup of milk
1 tsp ground mustard
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper

1 28 oz bag Potatoes O’Brien
1 cup chopped onion
1 lb bacon, cooked and chopped
1-1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Mix eggs with the milk, ground mustard and garlic powder and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Spray your crockpot with nonstick cooking spray. Pour 1/3 of the bag of potatoes into the bottom. Layer 1/3 of the onion, 1/3 of the cooked bacon, and 1/3 of the cheese. Repeat these layers two more times.

Pour the eggs over top and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

~ I used the Ore Ida Potatoes O’Brien, with the potato chunks and not the shredded hash browns.

~ I baked my bacon in the oven instead of on the stove top. Cram the strips of bacon on a foil-lined baking sheet (make sure it has a lip so grease doesn’t go everywhere). Place the bacon in a cold oven, and start heating to 400 degrees and continue baking. Keep an eye on it and when it’s done, remove from the oven and place the bacon on paper towels to drain.

~ After about four hours I started to get a bit nervous because the center of the bake was still really watery. I got a big spoon and gently started lifting the liquid out and redistributing it around the top of the rest of the eggs. This created a crater in the middle, but I think that helped it cook that much more evenly.

~ It was also at this point that I realized the steam accumulating on the lid was falling back down onto the eggs, which were trying to bake. I draped a clean kitchen towel over the top of the crockpot, and nestled the lid on top of the towel. Any steam that accumulated on the lid now hit the towel instead of the food.

~ I used my beloved Slow Cooker Liners with this, just spray the liner with the nonstick spray.

~ I served these with a side of popovers — they were just as big of a hit.

~ I’m not a huge Cholula fan, but these were absolutely delicious with some on top.

~ My fall-back in case this wasn’t that great was to wrap it up in tortillas and make breakfast burritos out of it. We all liked it just fine on its own, so we did the breakfast burritos the next morning with the leftovers. They were delicious and by far the easiest I’ve ever made!