Broccoli Breakfast Blogaversery

Wow. It's hard to believe that it has only been a year since we decided to start sharing our kitchen adventures with the rest of the world. It seems as if most people who celebrate their first year cook something extravagent to share and celebrate. But instead of sharing the wonderful leg of lamb and buttermilk polenta meal we shared on our actual blogging anniversary, instead I opted for a throwback of some of our first pictures. In other words, giving you something completely unidentifiable, and highly questionable. At least this is slightly more focused than our first blogging attempts.The picture above is of a green egg salad by the way, just in case you were dying of curiosity.

 
Although the questionable picture is a small reminder of how far (some) of our pictures and hopefully our writing has come since the early days, the recipes really signify the beauty of the blogging world. Like so many of the recipes we've tried on our adventures, even something as simple as a scrambeled egg salad has bits and pieces of inspiration and techniques picked up from browsing the blogging world. One of the first factoids we came across when we started blogging was that you could actually use those huge stems of broccoli once you get done with the florets. All you have to do is peel them, and voila! This was somewhat of a revelation to us at the time, and maybe there's someone out there who is unaware of this now.

Over the last year we've gone on many adventures, from our Ohio Wine Dinner and Buitoni Dinner, to Daniel's two months of non-stop bread baking, and to the many culinary adventures we've been glad to pursue but haven't had the camera or time to turn into a post to share with you. Even when we don't share our posts with everyone, the feedback and encouragement we've received from you all has given us even more ambition and an ever growing desire to share our new adventures with you. So thanks!

Broccoli Pancakes (makes 4)
 2 Broccoli Stems, peeled and shredded, divided
2 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 egg
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
Additional oil for pan
Additional salt and pepper to taste

1. In food processor, puree all but 1/4 cup cup shredded broccoli with garlic cloves, and olive oil. Remove from processor and combine with one egg.
2. In a separate bowl, sift together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt and pepper. Combine with broccoli and egg mixture. Add buttermilk slowly to achieve right consistency.
3. Heat skillet over medium high heat with additional olive oil. When pan is hot, add half of reserved broccoli and divide in half. Quickly saute. When broccoli begins to brown , spread each pile into a thin layer and top each with 1/4 of the pancake batter. When batter begins to bubble, flip.
4. Repeat with remaining broccoli and pancake batter.

Green Egg Broccoli Salad

5 Eggs
2 Broccoli Stems, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove
2 tbsp buttermilk
salt and pepper to taste
1 medium sized carrot, peeled and shredded
1 tbsp soy sauce

1. In food processor, puree broccoli stems, olive oil, and garlic.Combine broccoli, eggs, and buttermilk and whisk quickly.
2. Heat skilled over medium heat. Add eggs and scramble, adding salt and pepper to taste.
3. When eggs are finished (they will be a different texture than regular scramble eggs because of the extra moisture from the broccoli), plate and top with a handful a carrots and a splash of soy sauce.

So, thanks for a great year!!! Let us know if there's anything you'd like to see on our blog in the next year so we can continue to grow and improve. Who knows where the next year will take us!

A Different Approach

It's been very warm outside the last few days, and due to some prior overindulgent eating, salad sounded like the appropriate replacement. I don't like giving up rich food even in a salad, but still this salad screams fresh vibrant colors and tastes. The salad and side are meatless, yet satisfying with a variety of textures that always makes the palate jump up and down for joy.

It was only last year that I first ate arugula. I know, I know--how could I have made it so long without that natural peppery goodness? The alchemic interaction of sweet cucumber vinaigrette along with the peppery arugula and crunchy carrot strings. Oh and I forgot to add, the rich creaminess of the poached egg resting there rounds out the whole bit.

I have also been thinking about sweet potatoes and weird or unorthodox uses for them lately. Along with the joy brought by going home in July come thoughts of foods I love the most. Hush puppies are usually beaming crispy salty balls of goodness. The onion chunks studded beneath the surface punctuate the orbs, except I was wondering what would happen if you added sweet potato. Donald Link has some fascinating recipes in his "Real Cajun" cookbook, and I used a skeleton of his "Cast-Iron Hush Puppies" recipe to form my Honey Sweet Potato Hush puppies loaded with herbs giving them flashy colors as invigorating as the taste.

Sunny Carrot Arugula Salad

1 carrot, julienned

2 eggs, poached

2 C arugula

2 C baby spinach

Dressing:

1 cucumber peeled and deseeded

1/2 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp sea salt

3 grinds black pepper

 Heat 1 quart canola oil in a heavy bottom skillet until it reaches 325 degrees. Drop a handful of julienned carrot into the oil and cook for about a minute, stirring so that it does not tangle into a ball. Remove when the carrot becomes crisp and just golden.

Place cucumber, mustard, oil, salt, and pepper in a food processor and pulse until it is a smooth puree. Pour into a fine tipped squirt bottle.

Arrange arugula and spinach in bowls gently placing poached eggs on top and then carrot strings. Drizzle a few stripes of cucumber vinaigrette on top and enjoy.

Honey Sweet Potato Hush puppies

9 green onions

1 jalapeno, deseeded

1/4 C fresh parsley

1/4 C fresh thyme

1 small sweet potato peeled and grated

1 1/4 C yellow cornmeal

1/2 C all-purpose flour

2 T light amber honey

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 C half and half or buttermilk

1 egg

Use oil that is still hot from frying the carrot strings, just heat up to 350 degrees.

Combine first five ingredients and egg in food processor and pulse until ingredients are a bright shamrock green. Stir dry ingredients together in a large bowl and then incorporate green ingredients, adding honey and sweet potato.

Drop large metal tablespoonfuls of mix in hot oil and cook about 3 minutes and flip cooking about 3 more minutes on the other side. Hush puppies should be milk chocolate brown and vibrant green with cheddar yellow specks inside. Enjoy while still warm, alongside salad.

We're Back!!!!

Immense apologies for the prolonged silence and with that thought come the memory of a familiar Winston Churchill story that happens to tie well to the fact that Dawn and I have just returned from England. What a long thought but oh well. I am not positive the story is true but it is comical nonetheless. The story goes that Mr. Churchill was attending a party at which he was rather intoxicated and swaying from the libations and a woman approached him and said, “Mr. Churchill, you are extremely inebriated,” to which he replied looking her in the face, “Yes ma’am, but in the morning I will be sober and you will remain ugly.” However, that has nothing to do with plump oven baked eggs in tomato sauce or tender oatmeal bread that Dawn and I cooked just before we crossed the big pond.

The weather is cold in Columbus now and was just as frigid before we left, so a nice loaf of bread just out of the oven sounded warming. With recipes aplenty for amazing bread from James Beard himself, eating anything from the store seems blasphemous. And yes, every one I have tried has been splendid—especially when toasted and buttered as he often suggests. We instead chose to dip the warm bread into the zesty tomato sauce Dawn prepared with the eggs. Each recipe was a simple respite from the bone chilling cold that is sweeping the U.S. all the way down to Atlanta (that surprisingly had tufts of snow on the ground when we flew in from London). As with any bread recipe, patience and good ingredients are as inherently essential as proper measurements.

The bread has a medium crumb with many oats that melt into the loaf adding earthy goodness and substance. The eggs are comfort food in a way that surprises the senses and can be served with angel hair pasta or fresh bread, whichever you prefer.

Oatmeal Bread
Adapted from "Beard on Bread"
1 C. rolled oats

1 C boiling water

2 packages active dry yeast (4 1/2 tsp.)

1 tsp. sugar

1/2 C. warm milk

1/2 C. warm water

1 T. salt

1/4 C. dark brown sugar

4-5 C. bread flour, approximately

Add oats to glass bowl with boiling water and stir until cooked for three minutes. Pour into a large mixing bowl and allow to cool to lukewarm. Stir the yeast into the warm water and sugar and allow to proof about six minutes. Add the warm milk, salt, brown sugar, and yeast mixture to the oats and stir well, then stir in four cups of sifted flour into the oats one cup at a time. Turn onto a floured surface and knead (ten minutes) into a smooth elastic ball using more flour if necessary. Roll dough in a buttered bowl until covered and allow to rise for an hour and a half in a warm draft free area, covering the bowl with a damp towel. Ball should be doubled in size.

Punch the dough down and tuck sides under to form loaf, scoring diagonally four times on top. Place in large nine by five by three buttered loaf pan and bake in 375 degree preheated oven for forty to fifty minutes or until loaf sounds hollow. Flip onto cooling rack and allow to cool for eight minutes. Toasted with jam or preserves also makes a delectable breakfast snack.

Zesty Oven Baked Eggs

6 free range brown eggs

2 C. homemade tomato sauce

¼ C. fresh grated white cheddar (optional)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Pour tomato sauce in oval earthenware dish and gently crack eggs into tomato sauce. Bake in 400 degree oven for approximately fifteen minutes or until eggs just begin to set. Make sure not to over cook as eggs will go from plump and juicy to rubbery very quickly. Top with cheddar, salt, and black pepper after removing from oven.  

Cherries to Cheer

So for the last week or so, I have to admit that I've felt completely unoriginal and unmotivated in the kitchen. I'm not sure if its the stress of school that's hitting me early this quarter or what precisely, but it seems as if for the last week Daniel and I have had other commitments or obligations so that we haven't been able to cook, or when we could we were having camera issues, or when it was my turn I opted for something unoriginal and un-blog worthy. Finally though, I was able to break out of my cooking apathy with this bright pizza.

 

Daniel had visited his favorite Asian grocery store earlier in the week and had brought home some quail eggs for us to try. Lack of motivation however, meant that they were not used right away, so I had to come up with something to do with them. For some reason, breakfast food always makes me feel better. I don't know why exactly, because I'm not a huge fan of big breakfast, but there is something extremely comforting about a simple omelet for breakfast. Unfortunately, it would take a lot of quail eggs to make an omelet for us, so I had to go another route, leading to this lovely creation, a quail egg pizza with a cherry ginger balsamic sauce, goat cheese, and of course, bacon.  

Once I decided on this, I wasn't sure quite what to do with the eggs. I opted to try for a very light over easy egg to place on the pizza before going into the oven. This was somewhat difficult because I'm not an expert egg cook, and they are quite tiny. Suffice to say of the dozen, a few eggs ended up somewhat scrambled and maybe not so lightly cooked in the process. I do think lightly cooked is the way to go, since there was one or two eggs on the pizza that were a little more than over-easy going onto the pizza, and they did come out a little on the tough side. I may try in the future breaking them on the pizza once all the other toppings are on and have cooked a minute so the pizza is hot, but we will see.

The sauce I put together had a very mild cherry flavor, but complimented the salted egg and goat cheese quite well. Although I've heard its unhealthy to use food to brighten your mood, I have to say that this pizza was a nice mix of comforting flavors and bright cheery colors that it just might do the trick. Enjoy!

 

 Cheery Quail Egg & Cherry Pizza

Pizza Dough, recipe available here or use your own.

For the sauce:

1/2 Bag of Frozen Cherries

1/2 Tsp Ginger

1 Tbsp Sugar

1/4 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
Salt & Pepper to taste
Toppings:

1/4-1/2 Cup Crumbled Goat Cheese

1/4-1/2 Cup Crumbled Bacon

8-10 Quail Eggs lightly cooked over easy and well seasoned (be sure to salt them well!!!)

1. Place pizza stone in oven and preheat to 475. 

2. Prepare dough as needed and place on corn meal coated pizza peel. While dough is resting, prepare eggs and bacon. 

3. Prepare the sauce by placing cherries and sugar in heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring often. Once skin begins to give, press with spoon to rupture cherries. Add balsamic and ginger stirring quickly. Reduce to low heat and reduce liquid until reaching desired consistency. Salt & pepper to taste. 

4. Assemble pizza by spooning liquid onto dough and spreading thin. Gently add lightly cooked quail eggs, cheese, and bacon. Corn meal pizza stone carefully and add pizza to oven. Cook for approx 8 minutes until crust is golden brown. Enjoy!

Breakfast for Supper

To spurn social norms, last night I decided to cooks a savory fritatta- and to go with the grain a focaccia, if you will excuse the pun. I had a ball of pizza dough in the fridge, that Dawn had made about a week ago, and some cubanelle peppers from the farmer's market ranging from a granny smith apple green shade to almost a terra cotta red hue. They looked perfect for a simple focaccia with their realm of colors. My pizza stone was already in the oven so I turned the oven to broil and charred the peppers on all sides them threw them in a paper bag to steam for about 12 minutes. After they had steamed, the peppers were so delicate and slick as oysters. They were marvelous when wedded with crisp tangy parmesan and romano studded focaccia.

With bacon and eggs handy in the fridge and some slivers of roasted cubanelle left over from the focaccia, a fritatta seemed to be a fitting accompaniment. The textual spectrum of soft peppers, crunchy bacon, and fluffy eggs says comfort food as only breakfast can. But why eat it only at breakfast?

Roasted Pepper and Bacon Fritatta
5 eggs

4 slices bacon

1 C roasted cubanelle peppers- as explained earlier

1/4 C fresh grated armesan and romano cheese

 Preheat oven to broil. Dice bacon finely and cook until crisp in oven proof skillet. Spread bacon and roasted peppers evenly in skillet. Beat eggs in bowl until frothy and add to skillet and cook until eggs are half cooked. Place eggs in oven and cook until top begins to firm, approximately five minutes. 

Cubanelle and Parmesan Focaccia

Pizza crust recipe here.

2 roasted cubanelle peppers

1/3 C. parmesan and roman cheese blend- needed into crust

 Coat pizza peel liberally with corn meal and slide focaccia rolled out to 1/2 inch thickness onto corn mealed pizza stone. Bake for approximately 12 minutes or until focaccia is golden.