Fall Brunch for 12 — 27 September

YKGrub · 7 dishes · One descending oven tonight · 1 hour in the morning

Seven things, built on what is in the house plus a short shop. Almost all of it happens tonight, in one long descending oven — 425 down to 325, so you never wait for it to cool.

Printable menu card for the table →

The spread

1. Quiche — yours. It is the egg dish, so the hash drops its eggs.

2. Potato & butternut hash, no eggs — two trays of crisp potato, squash and onion. Use the russets; they crisp better than waxy.

3. Maple-glazed carrots with feta — roasted tonight, served at room temperature, feta and herbs added at the last minute.

4. Celery salad with dates, chickpeas & Parmesan — the sharp, substantial salad. Replaces the apple-cucumber crunch one.

5. Whipped labneh with warm apple compote — warm compote on cold labneh.

6. Fall granola + chia pudding — jars of chia, the compote, granola in a bowl with a spoon. People build their own.

7. Apple oat muffins and spiced cider — a gallon warmed with 3 cinnamon sticks and cracked cardamom.

Tonight ~2h15, about 45 min hands-on

One oven, walked down in temperature. Nothing here waits on anything else except the oven itself.

0:00	425°	Carrots: peel, slice ¼-inch, toss with oil and maple, salt and pepper. Two parchment-lined pans. 40–45 min. Use the parchment — maple on a bare pan is a miserable clean-up.
0:10	stove	Apple compote: 6 apples diced, cinnamon stick, cracked cardamom, lemon, splash of water. Covered, low, 12–15 min. Baby’s plain spoonfuls out before any sweetener.
0:25	—	Whip the labneh with olive oil, lemon and salt. Cube the potatoes, squash and onions for the hash and toss with oil, smoked paprika and cumin.
0:45	400°	Carrots out, leave them on the pans. Hash trays in, 25 min — cooked through but still pale. The browning happens tomorrow.
0:50	—	Muffin batter (grate and squeeze the apples). Mix the granola in a second bowl.
1:10	350°	Hash out to cool. Muffins in, 20–24 min.
1:15	—	Chia pudding: whisk the batch, wait ten minutes, whisk again, into jars. That second whisk is the whole technique.
1:35	325°	Muffins out. Granola in: press it into one flat slab and do not stir it. 35–40 min, rotate once.
1:40	—	Celery salad: slice the celery on the bias, keep the leaves, thin-slice the onion, dice the dates. Toss with chickpeas and half the dressing, fridge. Leave the apple out — that goes in tomorrow.
2:15	—	Granola out. Cool completely on the pan, undisturbed, at least 45 min, then break it up by hand and fold in the dried fruit.

Two things must cool untouched or they fail: the granola (it crisps as it cools, and stirring costs you the clusters) and the hash (warm trays into the fridge means soggy trays in the morning).

Tomorrow morning ~1 hour, 15 min hands-on

0:00	375°	Quiche in, 35–45 min, until the centre is just set with a slight wobble.
0:05	stove	Cider on low with the cinnamon sticks and cardamom. Coffee on.
0:10	—	Labneh across a wide platter in a thick swoosh, warm compote spooned over the middle, olive oil, sumac, sesame, herbs.
0:20	—	Feta and chopped herbs over the carrots. Granola into a bowl, chia jars out.
0:40	—	Quiche out onto a rack. It wants 15–20 minutes of rest — quiche served hot slumps.
0:42	425°	Hash trays straight in from the fridge, 15–18 min. Swap shelves halfway or the top pan wins.
0:45	—	Slice the apples into the celery salad, toss, top with almonds, Parmesan and parsley.
0:55	—	Bread in alongside the hash for the last 5 min. Muffins onto a board.
1:00	—	Hash out, sumac and parsley over it. Quiche slices cleanly now. Everything hits the table together.

Baby portions

Plain roasted potato and squash cubes, lifted out before the salt
Plain carrot slices, before the maple and salt — soft enough to gum
Unsweetened apple compote, set aside before the maple
Plain labneh, no salt or sumac; plain chickpeas and a little soft date from the salad
An unsweetened chia jar, and mini muffins
No granola and no almonds. Chopped nuts are a choking risk at ten months — bake her a small tray of oats and spice with no nuts and half the maple if you want her to have some

Shopping

Need

24 carrots, about 3 lb
2 bunches celery, leaves on
10 Medjool dates
2 cans chickpeas
1 red onion, 3 yellow onions
Pecans or walnuts, 1½ cups · sliced almonds · pumpkin seeds
Parmesan · feta
Maple syrup — the carrots, the granola and the dressing all pull from it, get the big bottle
Rolled oats, 4 cups · chia seeds · dried apple or cranberries
Apple cider, 1 gallon · 2 loaves bread or pita
Parsley, mint, chives · 4 lemons
Eggs for the quiche, ~8–10
Ground cinnamon — a real buy, you only have sticks

Check

Labneh — the platter wants about 2 lb
Butternut — one is enough
Potatoes — the 6 russets plus whatever else
Apples — 6 compote, 3 salad, 4 muffins
Dijon, olive oil, vanilla, milk for the chia

On the shelf

Smoked paprika, cumin, sumac, cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, allspice, sesame seeds, salt, pepper. Nothing to buy there.

No za’atar in the house. Sumac plus sesame plus a pinch of dried oregano is close enough.

If tonight is too much

Drop the muffins — the granola, compote and cider already cover sweet, and it takes 35 minutes off the evening. The granola is the one I would keep: it is the only thing here that is better made a day ahead.