The holidays have a way of bringing us all together and food is usually involved.

It could be a cocktail party, a cookie exchange, a potluck, or maybe a holiday brunch.

That clever combination of breakfast and lunch opens up endless menu possibilities, both savory and sweet.

It also opens up the schedule.

Brunch is a leisurely affair, giving us plenty of time to visit with family and friends.

And after all, that's what the holidays are all about.

I'm Charity Nebbe.

On this special episode of Iowa Ingredient , we are cooking up some festive holiday brunch dishes with a few of our favorite chefs as we get into the holiday spirit together.

It's all next on a special holiday brunch episode of Iowa Ingredient .

NARRATOR: Funding for Iowa Ingredient is provided by the W.T.

& Edna M. Dahl Trust, Chef Lisa LaValle of Trellis Café and the River Center, and Chef Michael LaValle of the Des Moines Embassy Club.

For more than 100 years, the Des Moines Embassy Club has provided a place to dine, celebrate, and do business, located in downtown Des Moines and in West Des Moines.

And the Friends of Iowa Public Television Foundation.

[♪♪♪] Brunch became popular in the 1930s and over the decades, people have gotten very creative with this unique mealtime, both when it comes to items on the menu and that special brunch atmosphere.

And there's a little added pressure to be creative during the holiday season.

But at the same time, it is such a busy time of year and finding the energy to dig deep and come up with a fabulous brunch menu can be a little overwhelming.

So we are to help.

We have recruited some of our most resourceful chefs and we're going to spend the entire show in the studio kitchen making holiday brunch.

So you decide to have friends and family over for a holiday brunch, but the very last thing you wanna do on a holiday is spend all morning in the kitchen, right?

So, Chef Julie Schoenherr from SoHo American Kitchen in Sioux City is here to give us an idea to have a wonderful brunch without all that work in the morning.

So tell us what we're gonna make.

We are gonna make a breakfast lasagna.

Nice!

Lovely!

Alright, and we've already started a little bit, but tell us what's going on.

We have gotten started.

I find that it's best to get everything laid out, so before assemble, we get everything ready to go.

So we brown a pound of sausage.

We've taken the sausage and set it aside and what we've left in the pan is the drippings and the little bits from the sausage.

CHARITY: Nice.

Very important.

- It's very important.

- And great flavor.

We don't have very much fat left, so we're gonna add just a little bit more.

CHARITY: Alright.

JULIE: We're gonna melt that, and that's gonna get our base.

We're gonna make what's called a blonde rue, which is the beginning of our gravy.

CHARITY: The flour is gonna thicken things up a little bit.

JULIE: It is, and we're gonna cook the flour a little bit, so it doesn't taste pasty.

Okay.

And we're gonna switch over to the whisk, to make sure that it's nice and smooth.

I'm gonna add a little bit more flour here so we get a nice little paste.

Now we've got a couple of quarts of half and half on hand.

We're gonna start with a little.

CHARITY: Love that.

Stir it in?

JULIE: Yup, stir it in.

And you're gonna see it thicken right away.

It's starting to go.

Now there is a little tip when we're cooking with flour.

It doesn't reach its full thickness until it actually comes to a bubble.

Okay.

So a lot of times, you go on and wonder why the gravy didn't get thickened, it's because we gotta get it to a bubble.

A little bit more in.

Let that go.

We're gonna add a little bit of pepper to it, add a little kick, and a little bit of salt in there.

We're gonna continue to stir, we're gonna bring it to a bubble, and we've got just a little bit of half and half saved aside in case we need to thin it a little bit more.

When we add it to the pasta, it's going to absorb, so it's okay if it's a little bit loose.

CHARITY: Alright, we've got a thick sauce.

It's bubbling, smells great.

Are we ready?

JULIE: We're ready!

We got a 9x13 pre-sprayed casserole dish here.

We're gonna start with laying some sauce in the bottom.

And as you see, it's not overly thick because what's gonna happen is this pasta is not pre-boiled, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna put a nice layer of sauce in the bottom and as this bakes, it's going to cook the pasta for us.

It saves us a step.

CHARITY: Nice!

Saves us a pan.

Saves us some time.

So we'll put that in and then we're gonna lay four pieces of pasta across here and that's gonna be our base.

Hold it together, just as easy as that, and then you can choose which direction you'd like to go with your layers, but I'm gonna start on the bottom with some meat.

This is the pre-cooked sausage that we cooked a little bit earlier, break that into nice brown-- you can see it's nice and brown and crumbly.

I'm gonna reserve a little bit for the top.

And then we're gonna put a little bit of cheeses to stick it together.

We're gonna drizzle just a tiny bit of sauce on the layer, gotta be kind of gentle with how much you put in because you want this to stick together and too much sauce will make it a little bit soupy.

So we're gonna put another layer of pasta in here.

And I'm gonna put the eggs in now.

We've got eight scrambled eggs that we pre-scrambled and we scrambled them soft because they're gonna cook a little bit more in this casserole.

So we didn't overcook them, we just cooked 'em enough to kind of set 'em.

And then again, we're gonna put a little bit of cheese in there and that's gonna help to stick that together.

On this layer, we're gonna skip that sauce.

We don't really need it.

The eggs are creamy enough.

And you can really use whatever vegetables your family likes, but I love this spinach, and there's no need to pre-cook this spinach because we want some moisture to soak into these noodles, into the pasta.

Have a little bit of green peppers in here, little bit of onion in here, and then we are gonna add some cheese to this layer because we want it to stick together.

So put a little more cheese.

And this one can take a little bit of sauce on it.

Mm-hmm.

Put on just a little drizzle.

And it really is, the hardest part of this really is, is just getting your little dishes ready to go, doing your prep work.

That's the most time consuming, otherwise it's just as easy as can be.

Got our last four pieces of pasta.

This we can just give a liberal pour because we do want it to really get on there and coat it.

And I like to cover the top with a little bit of this meat to kind of decorate it up a little bit, then you kind of know what's in it.

CHARITY: Right.

JULIE: A few of the peppers.

Some people say, "Oh, I wonder if there's onions and peppers in this."

Yup.

There sure is.

- [both laugh] We're gonna show 'em, right on top!

We put the last of the cheese on top.

CHARITY: Alright.

And now-- we're not gonna put it in the fridge right now, but if you did put it in the fridge overnight and you wanted to bake it in the morning, how long, how hot?

Alright.

I like to set it on the counter for about 30 minutes, kinda let it come up to temperature a little bit, take a little of the chill off.

It goes for 30 minutes and then-- covered, then it goes for about 5 minutes uncovered.

Now if you're cooking it cold right from the fridge, you just wanna stick it in and forget it, you don't wanna come back to it, go for about 45 minutes covered, and then another 5 minutes uncovered just to get the cheese a little brown.

We're gonna put this in a 400-degree oven for 30 minutes.

CHARITY: Alright, this looks amazing, smells amazing!

JULIE: Alright, here we go.

CHARITY: Wonderful.

All ready for your holiday guests.

Happy Holidays, Julie.

Happy Holidays, Charity.

And what would holiday brunch be without something delicious to drink?

Jason Garnett from Juniper Moon is here with us now.

We're gonna make, what, a mocktail and a cocktail today?

We are.

We're gonna make a non-alcoholic drink first, then we'll do one with alcohol.

We've decided to do something a little tropical.

Transport us from the wintery Iowa.

- Yes, a little vacation.

So we're gonna start with a banana macadamia syrup.

We have a pineapple shrub, so this is pineapple juice, sugar, and coconut vinegar.

CHARITY: Alright.

So shrub is anything that has, it has fruit, sugar, and vinegar in it.

Fresh squeezed lime juice.

And then we have coconut water which you can get anywhere these days.

Yeah.

So now, we're gonna shake it.

Just set that here, and we'll fill these with ice.

And then we're going to double strain.

So this is just getting the chunks of ice out, really giving you a fine pour, so we're using two strainers here, the mesh one.

Just tap it to get everything through.

And then we're gonna top it with ginger beer.

- Alright.

- And we'll be set.

Make it sparkle and give it some zing.

That's right.

Non-alcoholic ginger beer.

And the carbonation should start to mix this up.

Nice and frothy.

- Mm-hmm.

- Cheers.

- Alright.

Hmm.

Like I'm transported to some place warm.

- Yeah.

We're on a beach.

Absolutely.

- It's perfect.

- What a lovely way to enjoy the holidays.

JASON: Very much.

CHARITY: Alright, we've made our non-alcoholic beverage.

- Yes.

Now we're gonna make a cocktail.

What do you have in mind?

So we've got something with alcohol, a little something to take the edge off, maybe of the in-laws.

Unnecessary.

It depends who your in-laws are, I suppose.

So we're gonna do something very holiday themed.

It's named "She's A Beaut, Clark" and it is obviously named after a very popular Christmas film.

So we have a cranberry rosemary ginger syrup that we're gonna start with.

Which makes it certainly a festive color.

Absolutely.

Fresh squeezed lemon juice.

Our base spirit in this is gonna be a London Dry Gin and of course, on the website, we'll list all of the ingredients out specifically so you can make this at home.

This is a French liqueur, kind of an herbaceous liqueur dating back to the 1500s.

And then this is a French apple brandy.

CHARITY: Okay.

JASON: Now we'll add our ice.

Alright, while you do that, I'll put some ice in the glasses.

That'd be great.

CHARITY: It is a lovely color.

Mother-in-laws everywhere love this.

I have it on good authority.

[Charity laughs] JASON: We're going to top this with a dry cider.

And we're almost there.

And I garnished with rosemary.

CHARITY: Oh, nice.

JASON: And then we're gonna finish with some crystallized ginger.

CHARITY: Wow, that's beautiful!

- So... - Alright.

Wonderful.

- Happy Holidays.

Cheers.

- Yeah, Happy Holidays to you.

That's delicious.

JASON: It's lovely.

CHARITY: It is.

Thank you so much.

JASON: You're welcome.

Thank you.

Now we are here in the kitchen with Chef David.

We're getting ready for our holiday brunch.

What are you gonna make?

Well, we gonna do a little brunch type of quiche with comté and little bit of cream and onions.

It's gonna be great, lovely, perfect for a good, cold breakfast morning.

Alright and I don't know what comté is.

What is that?

- So comté is a cheese that comes from the mountain The Vosges in France.

It's like a cow's milk and it comes from the region called Franche-Comté, and it's aged in cave for about 16 months so it's got a great nutty flavor.

Oh, nice.

Alright, well, let's get started!

Awesome.

To be honest, this is a recipe that my grandmother used to do for me when I was kid, except the region where I'm from in Alsace, you know, we wouldn't use comté.

We'll use a gruyere or something like that.

Alright.

But I like comté more because when it melts, when it cooks, it doesn't lose so much fat.

CHARITY: Okay, alright.

And, yeah, with gruyere there's that challenge of trying to keep it creamy.

DAVID: Right.

Correct.

So very simple, you know, we gonna rough slice some onions, you know.

Get a good knife, sharp, you know, preferably kind of a thicker edge, you know, we don't want the onions to be too thin 'cause we want that texture and that flavor in there.

So what we do, little bit of butter, you know, you don't wanna have your pan too hot in the beginning because otherwise, the butter is gonna burn.

Right.

Put the onions in there.

CHARITY: Medium heat, and let them do their thing.

DAVID: Right.

Let them, you know, cook down slowly.

CHARITY: And they become so sweet and delicious.

DAVID: Right.

So a little bit of freshly ground pepper, not too much.

We're not gonna put much seasoning in the beginning because we gonna cook it down and we don't want the result to be over salty because we gonna salt out the quiche batter at the end to get that perfect seasoning.

So I got some fresh thyme, just a touch, you know, a few leaves here and there.

Brings a great-- great aromatic, you know.

Thyme goes with really everything.

You can't get wrong with that.

So here we let the magic and the nature do its job and we let that go for a little while.

CHARITY: Alright!

And so, we're not making just one quiche.

- Right.

- We're making... - Correct.

- ...individual quiches.

We're making individual quiches just for the-- it's nice, you know, you make, everybody gets his little portion.

I decided to go with the puff pastry.

CHARITY: Okay.

DAVID: For two reason.

Number one reason, you know, you're a little lazy, it's the holiday, right?

But the main reason is you get that croissant feel, you know, that flakiness, that butteriness?

CHARITY: And it feels special.

DAVID: It is special.

It's buttery.

It smells great.

You take something a little bigger than your actually, mold itself.

Go around, see, fairly easy.

CHARITY: Yeah.

DAVID: Voila!

What we do, you don't need to butter it.

You don't need to do anything.

If you have a non-stick tin... Mm-hmm.

All you do, you put it in there because it's so rich in butter already.

- Right.

- It's a little bit floured.

You just gonna... It's not gonna stick to anything.

It's not gonna stick to anything.

Don't be worried about going above the edge of your mould because you want that and it's gonna shrink a little bit while it's cooking, you know?

CHARITY: Mm-hmm.

DAVID: So let's fill up the rest of the moulds.

CHARITY: Alright.

DAVID: So we gonna put this in the refrigerator, then just put it on the side until we're ready with the rest.

CHARITY: Alright!

DAVID: Now the onions are ready.

See we got that nice, shiny kind of color, a little brown, not too much, you know?

Yeah.

They're nice and soft and tender.

And so, I think we're ready for the next step and we'll finish up the batter.

CHARITY: Great.

Alright.

DAVID: Little bit of cream and the idea of the cream is, I wanna cool down a little bit, the onions.

You know, the cheese is gonna do all the work and put things together.

So we have the beautiful, shredded comté.

So people ask me, "how much cheese", you know?

"How much you want?"

You know, that's my answer.

[Charity laughs] CHARITY: Let's do a lot!

DAVID: Let's do a lot.

The more is the better, you know?

So we see the cheese is gonna melt a little bit.

So here we're gonna put a little bit of nutmeg.

Mm-hmm.

Just a touch, 'cause I think, you know, that goes very well when you do a quiche.

Mm-hmm.

And comté cheese is a cheese that is a little bit salted already by itself, so you wanna be very careful about that.

CHARITY: Okay.

It'd be easy to go too far with the salt.

DAVID: Right.

So you know when you do your regular quiche mix, the mix is always very liquid, right?

Here it is not gonna be liquid.

It is gonna be kind of like, nearly like a soft cookie dough.

CHARITY: Okay.

DAVID: Texture.

And just a little bit of whole eggs.

One.

Two.

Three eggs.

That's it.

CHARITY: Alright.

And for freshness what I do, I like to put in mine a little bit of spring onions.

- Okay.

- So it brings that crispiness, and it also brings a little bit, you know, a different texture and different color about the onions.

CHARITY: Right.

DAVID: Voilà, our batter is ready.

So we ready to now fill so we can put them in the oven.

- Okay.

- I will say about 375 degrees for about 20, 25 minutes.

- Perfect.

- Voilà!

CHARITY: This would make a stir at any holiday brunch, I think.

DAVID: Right.

Let's try it!

Look at how cheesy it is in the middle.

CHARITY: Oh, yeah, and it's so-- often with quiches, you find that... whatever you put in sinks or floats but the solution is perfect.

There you go.

Because it's so thick, that holds it together.

Wonderful.

Bon appétit.

- Yes.

- Enjoy Noel.

[laughs] Happy Holidays.

Thank you.

Now one of the great things about holiday brunch is you can have great savory dishes and delectable sweet dishes and Chef Terrie Kohl from Country Club Market in Clive is here to bring the sweet.

What are we gonna make today?

Oh, that's right, and this is so nummy!

It's an apple caramel with walnut bread pudding.

CHARITY: Oh, yum!

TERRIE: Yes.

CHARITY: Great!

TERRIE: So, very friendly, and so shall we get started?

CHARITY: Yeah, let's do it.

TERRIE: Okay.

These are the eggs that we're gonna whisk up.

Alright.

Actually gonna turn into a custard base.

CHARITY: Nice!

Sugar.

TERRIE: Oh, yes.

Every little thing with sugar takes a little pinch of salt that evens the ying and the yang.

Alright, just bring the flavors out.

TERRIE: We're using skim milk today.

CHARITY: Okay.

- You can use heavy cream, you can use evaporated milk.

My recipes are made to use what you have on hand, so.

CHARITY: Alright, wonderful!

Alright.

- And then bread.

Ready?

- Mm-hmm.

TERRIE: Okay.

CHARITY: And does it have to be a special kind of bread?

TERRIE: This happens to be Texas toast.

You can use whatever bread you have.

You have day old dinner rolls or hamburger buns, you can use them as well.

CHARITY: Right.

You just prefer white bread for this.

TERRIE: I do!

Yeah, so then, that just pours straight in.

Alright, and this is already greased up and ready to go.

- Yup.

We've prepared that.

Okay.

Alright.

TERRIE: And then we have apples.

CHARITY: Alright.

TERRIE: Ready?

CHARITY: Yeah!

And you've already of course, peeled and chunked these up.

Granny Smith apples are what we're cooking with today.

TERRIE: Yup!

And again, whatever apple you have.

Pears are lovely.

CHARITY: Alright.

TERRIE: How's that for fun?

CHARITY: Perfect.

TERRIE: Maybe the little ones like to spread them.

CHARITY: Yeah!

Yeah, I'm sure they can spread apples as well as I can.

[laughter] And some toasted walnuts.

Alright.

And of course, this is one of those dishes where you could mix and match and do whatever you want with it.

So if you want pecans, for example, you could do that, right?

TERRIE: Exactly.

CHARITY: Or no nuts.

Or no nuts with the allergies, you bet.

And then we have the caramel.

- Caramel on top.

This is just like the caramel that's used for the apple dip.

CHARITY: Alright!

TERRIE: If that makes sense, apple dip.

CHARITY: Yeah, so if you're making caramel apples or dipping apple slices in, it's that kind of caramel, right?

TERRIE: Yeah!

CHARITY: You wanna heat that up so that it spreads out.

TERRIE: It just spreads a little more easily that way.

Put dollops.

Okay, so we've got the last of the caramel going on, all every last bit because that's the numminess.

Right!

And it's ready to go into the oven.

Perfect.

For how long?

Let's do 325 for 45 minutes and I always check on it halfway and rotate it.

Okay, perfect.

If you grab the door, I'll put it in the oven.

I'd be happy to!

CHARITY: Alright, we've got the bread pudding out of the oven.

It looks amazing, but you're not done with it yet.

TERRIE: No, no, no!

So what else are we gonna do to it?

No, I know.

I know.

We have to make this fabulous brandy butter.

Brandy butter.

And it's gonna melt over the warmth of the bread pudding.

So we've got powdered sugar.

Okay.

And butter, softened.

CHARITY: Just at room temperature?

TERRIE: Ah-ha!

And so we'll just mash this in.

- Alright.

- Get that all incorporated.

Then we're gonna add the brandy.

Okay.

Important in brandy butter to have brandy.

TERRIE: [laughs] Yeah, and some vanilla.

CHARITY: Right.

And as we mentioned before, just a little pinch of salt, kinda highlights everything, and then adds to the moisture of whipping this up together.

It's all come together nicely.

Alright, and we wanna cut a nice piece of this.

Yes!

And then just let that melt over the top, right?

Right.

So this is where the brandy butter goes on and with the heat of the bread pudding itself, it'll begin to melt down over it.

CHARITY: Yes.

That's already happening.

And you also brought whipped cream.

[Terrie laughs] Ahhh!

Shall we put it on the side?

CHARITY: Yeah.

TERRIE: And just really dress it up.

Okay, wonderful.

CHARITY: Let's try this.

TERRIE: Ta-da.

CHARITY: And I definitely need some of this brandy butter on my piece.

TERRIE: Ah-ha!

And a little bit of whipped cream too.

TERRIE: Oh, yeah.

Oh, Terrie, this is so decadent.

Hmm.

- And it's so rich.

- Mm-hmm.

The walnuts are just a really, add a nice texture to that.

Don't they, though?

The apples are delicious.

What a delicious dish.

Oh, I'm glad you like it.

Terrie, thank you so much.

Have such a wonderful holiday season.

TERRIE: My pleasure, you too!

Happy holidays.

That's it for this special holiday episode.

I'm Charity Nebbe.

From all of us at Iowa Ingredient , we wish you a festive holiday season filled with family, friends, and delicious food.

[♪♪♪] NARRATOR: Funding for Iowa Ingredient is provided by the W.T.

& Edna M. Dahl Trust.

Chef Lisa LaValle of Trellis Café and the River Center, and Chef Michael LaValle of the Des Moines Embassy Club.

For more than 100 years, the Des Moines Embassy Club has provided a place to dine, celebrate, and do business, located in downtown Des Moines and in West Des Moines.

And the Friends of Iowa Public Television Foundation.