Hard-Cooked Eggs with Dukkah

The phase has passed by now, but when I made this recipe a few weeks ago, I was eating hard boiled eggs almost every day as a snack.  The dukkah recipe from Super Natural Every Day seemed like a great way to spice it up (accidental pun!).  The fragrant mixture of nuts, seeds, and spices is not as strong in taste as it is in smell, but as I write this I find myself craving the flavor.  The dukkah could also be used to flavor dipping oil for bread, and I intend to try it crusted on salmon.  Hopefully I'll be reporting back on that soon.  I'm intending to post more - just need to get my ducks in a row over here...

Macaroon Tart

The Macaroon Tart from Super Natural Every Day is a simple sweet treat that will please anyone who loves coconut.  A buttery tart base packed with coconut flakes is topped with a layer of blackberries and snowy macaroon tufts that turn a delicious golden brown when baked.  Chopped pistachios provide a beautiful color contrast to the purple blackberries.

I made this for my grandma's birthday and then again for Mother's Day, and it was a huge hit both times.  The first time, I lazily opted not to halve the blackberries, instead scattering them over the tart.  This was a mistake because they should have been in a layer covering the entire tart base, to ensure that every bite contained some blackberry goodness.  I fixed this the second time around and I feel that it was worth the extra step.  Even with the tedious task of halving tons of tiny berries, this is still quite a quick dessert.  A few extra notes: the pistachios don't shine here in terms of flavor, but are visually crucial to the dish, and in place of a tart pan I used a medium bar pan (stoneware).  I may try coconut oil in place of the butter next time - it seems like an appropriate substitution.

2012 Whole Living Healthy Detox: Week 3

I would feel incomplete if I didn't post about week 3 of the detox (the FINAL week YAY!) but I don't have much to say.  By this point I was very tired of all the work I had to do to eat - I couldn't reach into my freezer to grab lunch for work, I couldn't eat anything in the cafeteria, I kept buying more veggies than I had time to actually cook.  It was getting stressful and I'm glad it's over.  During the final week, I was able to add back eggs and gluten free grains, so I sustained myself on scrambled eggs (extra whites), hardboiled eggs borrowed from a coworker, and oatmeal with chopped nuts and dried fruit mixed in.  Rice played a big role as well.  All in all, I managed to lose 4 pounds, which has really come in handy lately as I am squeezing into suits from 2009 for job interviews :)  But I'm so glad to be back to eating normal, trying to be mindful and incorporate some of the lessons learned about my relationship with food over the course of the detox.  It's clear to me that I rely heavily on grains in my diet, and that if I deprive myself of something it comes back to bite me later when I binge on 20 of that thing and 500 other things!

Would I do it again?  Maybe... but not for quite a while!  I feel that if I try to incorporate the lessons I learned and make a point to "be good" during the day at work, I can keep my weight in check without having to do an extreme diet like this one.

Swiss Chard and Smoked Gouda Frittata (Dark Days 5)

I am so behind on the Dark Days Challenge, but I think it's better than not doing it at all!

This week I made a local breakfast!  Using the technique I've picked up from the Frittata recipe in Super Natural Every Day, I made a local frittata.  I used potatoes and garlic I got several weeks ago at the Princeton Farmers' Market, onions labeled local from Whole Foods, Swiss chard (leaves and stems!) from Chickadee Creek farm, picked up at the most recent Princeton Farmers' Market, and a smoked gouda cheese that was labeled local at Whole Foods (I can't seem to remember the name of the farm now, but I believe it was in PA).  The eggs came from Lima Family Farms in Hillsborough via the Princeton Farmers' Market.  I had intended to crumble in some breakfast sausage from Cherry Grove Farm, but didn't remember to take it out of the freezer until after the frittata had been cooked.  The exceptions, as usual, were olive oil, salt and pepper.

The frittata was fabulous, and I especially enjoyed the smoked gouda, which gave the frittata a meaty flavor, probably a connection made due to the smokiness.  I enjoy making up frittatas using whatever I happen to have on hand.  This is a great go-to technique for a local meal that can be enjoyed for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Sausage and Cheese Omelette (Dark Days 1)

The Dark Days Challenge is a challenge to use sustainable, organic, local, and ethically produced ingredients in your meals in the "dark days" of winter, when fruits and veggies are not widely available.  (That's why it's a challenge!)  Since this is my first year participating, I'm using an approximately 200 mile radius and will probably be making plenty of exceptions as I go along.  For now, I'm counting as exceptions: olive oil, salt and pepper, spices, chocolate.

For my first meal, I went for an easy "breakfast for dinner" option.  I used eggs, breakfast sausage, and Herdsman cheese, all from Cherry Grove Farm in Lawrenceville.  I added in a bit of cilantro - it's surprisingly still good from our last CSA pickup in mid-November.  We went a little overboard on the sausage, as you can see from the picture.  It was pretty tasty and it actually gave me a few ideas for future meals.  As you can see, I'm set with meat, eggs, and cheese... it's the veggies that will be a challenge.

Mediterranean Baked Eggs

These Mediterranean Baked Eggs are in a blue box off to the side of another recipe.  While the recipe takes up a whole page, it's set off to the side, not a featured recipe.  The book is Ancient Grains for Modern Meals, and these baked eggs have no grains in them.  However, they've stuck in my mind since I got the book.  This is funny for a few reasons - one is the sheer number of recipes I see.  For any to stick in my mind means they must be something special.  The second reason?  I'm not big on eggs.  Specifically egg yolks.  But... these were delicious.  Granted, I did not eat my yolk (which cooked too much to be good, anyway), but I still enjoyed the eggs.  The tomato sauce was extremely flavorful, despite my forgetting to "season" it with red wine vinegar and brown sugar.  You can make the sauce ahead, so this makes a perfect brunch recipe - keep an eye on it in the oven, then take it out and let it finish cooking while you're finishing up everything else.  The toast is essential, but you can multitask in the oven and just lay the slices across the racks to toast.  What a great little weekend brunch this was for the two of us, and I expect to be adding it to my spread the next time I host a brunch for friends.

PS: note my Le Creuset Mini-Cocottes.  A birthday present that I absolutely adore.  :)

Swiss Chard and Onion Frittata

I made this Swiss Chard and Onion Frittata based on the Frittata recipe in Super Natural Every Day.  Chopping all the Swiss chard was time consuming, but the frittata is tasty!  We used 2 eggs and 3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon egg whites.  In addition to the Swiss chard and two smallish onions, I tossed in two tiny potatoes, sliced paper thin.  They were good, but not necessary.  We topped the frittata with crumbled feta.  I'm grateful that I found a way to use this week's Swiss chard - I've been throwing it away and I feel really guilty about it.

Frittata

This beautiful Frittata is from Super Natural Every Day.  I made it as part of a brunch for friends, along with the Baked Oatmeal from the book.  I've never made a frittata before, and it was a bit of work, but it worked out really well in the end and everyone enjoyed it!  Best of all, the recipe is endlessly adaptable - you can use whatever veggies are in season.

Asparagus Fried Rice

I knew I had asparagus, cooked rice, and a craving for hibachi, so we made fried rice for dinner last night.  Full disclosure: all I did was eat it :)

Peanut Butter Cookies

I haven't been cooking much lately.  Since school started right after we got back from vacation, I've been pretty busy reading, reading, sitting in class, and reading.  As I mentioned, though, not eating well makes me feel like crap, so I did my best to carve out some time to cook this week.  Last week, we cut up onions, red peppers, and broccoli on the weekend and used them in omelets and pita pizzas.  Not too bad for lazy cooking, but I want to do better!  Fortunately, I have a new fun cookbook to help me - Georgie's new book Fuel Up.  It's full of nutrition advice, even photos of how to stock your refrigerator!  And of course there are tons of recipes.  I wanted to make something from the book, but didn't feel like doing a lot of prep work or going to the store.  After flipping through for a while, near the very end, I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies.  The recipe has 4 ingredients and you bake the SIX cookies in the toaster oven.  Perfect!  It was exactly what I was looking for.

I had peanut butter, but I have an almost-done container of almond butter that needs to get used up pronto, so I decided to try out some Almond Butter Cookies first.  They were so easy to make.  The flavor was pretty good, but the cookies flattened out - nothing like the picture!  (And no, I did not forget the baking powder!)  They were more on the crisp side, like sugar cookies.  Ken asked me to make them again, and I decided to try it with peanut butter this time - I was determined to make them look like the picture!  I guess peanut butter is texturally fluffier or something, because they did puff up and look pretty like the picture in the book.  They were a little gooey in the middle, but tasty.  One of my favorite qualities of this cookie was that I didn't want to eat a lot of them - they were so rich!  What a great little snack to make when you're craving baked goods but don't want to end up eating a lot of junk.

Orzo Soup

We've been participating in Meatless Mondays with Georgie at AskGeorgie.com.  For Ken, it's a challenge not to eat meat all day - he'll eat whatever I make (or tell him to make!) for dinner, so that part's not hard, but lunch seems to be the big challenge for him.  For me, it's hard because I can't eat Sunday's leftovers, and because it's the beginning of the week - I start off strong with my meal planning, but then get sidetracked when I realize I have to plan meatless for Monday.

Choosing a meatless meal, however, is not a challenge at all.  I cook mostly vegetarian anyway (I don't like touching meat, ew) and most of the recipes I want to try are vegetarian.  My favorite site for vegetarian recipes is 101cookbooks.com.  I've been procrastinating on my studying for finals by going through the archives of the site, starting with the very first post back in 2003.  (I'm somewhere in 2009 now.)  I've come across some recipes I've never even seen before, and others I had forgotten about.

This Orzo Soup was one I had seen in my pre-soup days, and the pretty picture appealed to me.  When I scanned the recipe I realized it would be super quick and easy, which is necessary for my Monday night meals, especially at this time in the semester when I don't have time during the day to get started on dinner before class.  So on my way home from work I stopped at the grocery store, where I picked up a can of fire-roasted tomatoes and a bunch of spinach.  When I got home, I got started right away, and dinner was on the table in 20 minutes.  (I find that I can pressure myself into making meals quickly by starting the cooking process before I'm ready - I try to time it so that it doesn't backfire and end up overcooked, but you can't win them all...)

I decided to try to make my bowl look just like the one in the picture on 101 Cookbooks, and I think I got pretty close.  You can cut the calories here by excluding all mentions of olive oil and using just a tiny dusting of Parmesan (it's a bit boring if you exclude it altogether).  I also recommend starting off with half the red pepper flakes and working your way up - it's got quite a kick to it.  I'm sure I'll make this again since it was so easy - with whole wheat orzo or another whole grain pastina, if I can find it, because I've grown to prefer the flavor of whole grain pastas.  You can use any green you've got sitting around, though cook the heartier ones a bit longer.  In the future I might try the fire-roasted tomatoes with garlic - I picked up that can first (without realizing) but opted for the plain ones this time.  The "egg drop" was a great protein option, I might add one more egg white next time (I halved the recipe, so I used only one).

I'm hoping to be posting more often starting a week from yesterday - my finals will be over and I will finally be able to do something I like to do (COOK!!!) so there should be some fun stuff coming up.  I still haven't picked my cookie for the annual cookie exchange, which is also a week from yesterday, so stay tuned for that.

Roasted Corn Pudding in Acorn Squash

I saw this Roasted Corn Pudding in Acorn Squash recipe a long time ago.  At the time, it looked interesting, but not appealing enough to try.  Now that I have so much winter squash, it came up again and I decided to try it.

I didn't find it particularly exciting.  It could be adapted to be so.  The recipe notes suggest a variation with coconut milk and curry - that's what I should have done instead.  The aniseed was not for me - I should have known when I opened it and smelled it.  That being said, I found the pudding kind of bland.  The only thing that really made it worth eating was the melted cheese on top!

Healthy Crepes!

Georgie sent me a healthy crepe recipe to help re-create my creperie experience.  The recipe used egg whites, cottage cheese, oats, and vanilla to make a healthier version of the delicious crepe.  I liked that you just drop everything in the blender and out comes a batter!

Here is my first crepe.  Oops.

That's more like it!

Despite the somewhat unusual ingredients, the crepes were tasty.  I like dessert crepes, not savory ones, so next time I'll try adding a little natural sweetener to the batter - maybe some honey or agave nectar.

I filled my crepes with blueberries and topped them with powdered sugar.  With such a plain filling, I wished the crepes were sweeter, but they would have been perfect with Nutella and bananas!

Garlic Soup

I don't like soup. It might sound weird, but me craving soup usually means I am deathly ill. After much contemplation I have decided that I do not like chicken broth. I always eat the wontons but not the broth, and I prefer Campbell's Double Noodle over anything because it is basically entirely noodles.

For some reason, although I was not sick, I wanted to make soup. Not any soup in particular, but just soup. My big came over for a soup/study date and I wanted to max our working time and minimize our soup making time, so I picked a yummy sounding Garlic Soup from 101 Cookbooks.

Apparently everyone else was thinking, "Garlic soup? Just garlic? Could that actually be any good?" Um, yes. It can. And to have seen the bottom of a soup bowl for probably the first time in my life, I can tell you that this soup is worth the small amount of effort required to make it.

Probably the reason I like it so much is that it contains some things I like very much. Fresh herbs, a ridiculous amount of garlic, and freshly grated parmesan cheese. You make the broth using chopped garlic, thyme, bay leaf, and sage, then add a "binding pomade" of egg and cheese to thicken it up. It was a little complicated to physically do, so I'm glad I had an extra pair of hands, but I think I could do it myself if I had to (or just wanted to!) and I certainly plan to make this again. We are having an Indian Summer but the snow will come eventually and when it does I will be armed with this deliciousness.

There is not a thing to change about this recipe. I will make it again just as it is. The crusty bread is a must (though I prefer to dip rather than pour the soup over). It reheats just fine in the microwave. Due to my love for shortcuts and freezing things I am considering making the broth with the herbs and garlic and freezing it for a quicker soup. Hopefully it will work just as well.

Egg Wrap

This recipe was inspired by the Skinny Omelette from 101 Cookbooks. I was browsing over there for a quick and yummy breakfast recipe and came across the Skinny Omelette. Obviously, you can adjust fillings easily, so ideas started popping all over my head. While there were a number of things I wanted to try, I opted for leftovers from my Pineapple Rice recipe. I used arugula and the pineapple dressing, and added some feta.

This was pretty yummy. The pineapple dressing is a little spicy, so I think I used a little too much, but it was still good. The egg was nice and fluffy and spongy on the outside and made a good wrap. I am glad I could use a little of what I had left in the fridge. Next time I try this recipe, I might try to use a little less egg to make the wrap thinner. I would also try using whatever I have on hand and not sticking to a recipe!

Ingredients:
2 eggs
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp pineapple dressing (see Pineapple Rice recipe)
1 handful baby arugula
1 Tbsp feta

Directions:
1. Whisk the eggs together with a pinch of salt and pepper. Pour in a large pan (heated) and quickly swirl to help it reach the edges. Let it cook.
2. Meanwhile, toss the baby arugula with the pineapple dressing.
3. When the egg is cooked, use a spatula to help you slide onto a dinner plate.
4. Put the arugula onto the egg, trying to keep it in the lower half of the circle. Sprinkle some feta on top and roll, starting at the edge nearest you. Try to fold in one of the sides as you go so nothing falls out the bottom.
5. Eat.

Leftovers Fried Rice

Today, after having a reasonably bad day, I came home ready to make something yummy for dinner. I somehow ended up talking to my mom on the phone for over an hour and when we finally hung up it was well after 8pm already and I was ready to eat right then. It was time to come up with something quick and easy (and of course, tasty).

Last night I had takeout from my favorite Thai restaurant, and I had some white rice left over. I poked around the fridge and found some red onions already sliced. I grabbed an egg and some soy sauce. I found my tiniest pan which happened to be the only clean thing in the kitchen, and I made a quick omelette with the egg, adding just a little salt and pepper. I took it out of the pan and cut it up on a plate. Meanwhile, I put the onions in the pan with toasted sesame oil (I didn't mind using it for this since I discovered that "blend" means blended with canola oil, not different sesame oils) and let them cook on their own for a minute or two. Then I dumped in the rice and mixed it all around and let it fry up a bit. After a few minutes when it had very slightly changed color, I added two glugs of soy sauce, mixing in between, then added some salt and pepper (note for next time: the pepper was a good idea, the salt was not. soy sauce - duh!). At the very end, I turned the heat way down and put the cut up omelette back in just to heat up a bit.


And wow! Normally I wouldn't post some crap that I just tossed together to quiet my stomach, but this was surprisingly delicious. I'm not sure exactly what made it good - I suspect the oil had something to do with it, and that I actually let the rice fry up before sprinkling it with soy sauce instead of drenching it like I have in the past. The red onions were interesting, I would probably use white or yellow next time, and chopped smaller, but not bad for such an impromptu mix of ingredients.

The point of this is not to actually make it again - but as a reminder of what you can do to clean out your fridge. There is quite a bit of stuff I would have added had I wanted to spend more than ten minutes on this endeavor. If I had a little more time I probably would have found some vegetables in the freezer to add as well, and if I hadn't had the leftover white rice I would have used brown rice. And if I had more time I would have defrosted tofu and used that instead of egg. But these were the things I had easily accessible and all ready to go, so that's what I used - and it worked. Sometimes when I make some of the more complicated recipes, like on 101 Cookbooks, I end up with weird little bits of already chopped things that I throw away in tiny amounts. Something like this might be a fun and interesting way to use up those little chopped up bits instead of tossing them in the trash.

Final notes: the key was just letting the rice fry up and leaving it alone, just giving it a few splashes of soy sauce instead of cups and cups of the stuff, and possibly the toasted sesame oil. I might try a million variations, but I will definitely be having fried rice again soon.