Freezer-friendly breakfast tacos or breakfast burritos
I really want to find a recipe for a breakfast taco or breakfast burrito that I can make in advance and freeze, then pull out on rushed mornings. I love the idea but I just never seem to get around to trying any recipes. But finally today I tried these vegetarian breakfast burritos from Cookie and Kate. I wanted to have enough to freeze so I bought ingredients for two whole batches. (Enough for 12 8″ tortillas.) We made the first batch for breakfast, but unfortunately, they weren’t a hit, and we didn’t bother to make the second batch. So I’m still on the hunt for a good freezable breakfast taco. Maybe next time I’ll try this Love and Lemons breakfast burrito recipe. Or if anyone has a recipe they love and can recommend, please post a comment! Read the rest of this entry »
Smoky cauliflower frittata
This is yet another Ottolenghi recipe from Plenty. We make a broccoli feta frittata pretty often, and everyone likes it, so I figured it made sense to try this cauliflower frittata.
I found the recipe instructions a bit odd. It has you first simmer the cauliflower for 4 to 5 minutes, then fry it in a frying pan for 5 minutes, or until brown. I was worried that the cauliflower would be way too soft at that point. Plus, is it really necessary to use another whole pot to simmer the cauliflower? Can’t you just add a little water to the frying pan and steam it in the pan? Despite my reservations, I followed the recipe.
It calls for 1 small cauliflower, and I think my florets weighed 1 pound after removing the leaves and tough stem. The egg mixture includes 6 eggs, 4 Tbs. creme fraiche, 2 Tbs. dijon mustard, 2 tsp. paprika, and 3 Tbs. chopped chives. In addition, the recipe calls for 2 oz. of mature cheddar (grated) and 5 oz. smoked scamorza, grated (including the skin for extra flavor). So it’s a pretty cheesy recipe. You put 3/4 of the cheese in with the eggs and scatter the remaining 1/4 on top.
The final frittata was quite cheesy and smoky tasting. I liked it but found it quite intense. I think I would have preferred to have just a small piece with a big salad, rather than the frittata comprising our entire brunch. Alma didn’t like it at all. Derek liked it quite a bit, more than me. I’d probably give this 2.5 out of 4 stars, and Derek would give it maybe 3 out of 4?
If I make this dish again I will just cook the cauliflower in one pan (not simmer it first) and I will serve it with a salad or some plain green bitter vegetable.
Banana egg blueberry pancakes
Apparently these two-ingredient pancakes have been floating around on the Internet for several years, but I first came across them on parenting blogs, where they are popular because they’re toddler friendly and not too unhealthy. Although they can be made with just two ingredients (banana and egg), I usually add a few other ingredients as well. Below is our most common version. For other variations, see this excellent writeup on thekitchen.com. Read the rest of this entry »
Chickpea Stew with Saffron, Yogurt, and Egg
This is another recipe featured on Food52’s Genius Recipes page. It’s from Heidi Swanson’s cookbook Super Natural Every Day. I chose it because I had some chickpeas and homemade vegetable broth to use up, and a student of mine from Iran got me a boatload of saffron as a gift. Also, it looked pretty easy, and I needed to make a quick lunch that was suitable for both Alma and me. Read the rest of this entry »
California barley bowl with arugula, avocado, seeds, and feta
This was another pantry-cleaning-inspired selection. I wanted to use up some whole (unhulled) barley, and Derek and I chose this refreshing-sounding recipe for a barley salad from the 101 cookbooks website. Read the rest of this entry »
Pumpkin risotto with sage and arugula
I’m doing an end-of-the-year pantry cleaning, and wanted to use up some risotto rice. Derek and I looked at a couple of different recipes and finally decided on this pumpkin risotto recipe from the Union Square Cookbook. The recipe first has you make a pumpkin broth using standard vegetable broth ingredients (onion, leek, celery, carrots, etc.) as well as 2 cups canned pumpkin puree, maple syrup, and sweet spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. Once the broth is made, you make the risotto, adding diced winter squash along with the rice, and then tossing in fresh sage, arugula, and mozzarella right before serving. Read the rest of this entry »
Saucy Italian baked eggs
I came across this recipe for saucy Italian baked eggs on a random blog, and immediately started drooling. I’ve been craving tomato sauce lately and this recipe is basically an egg baked in a big ramekin of marinara sauce with a little mozzarella and basil for garnish. It even looked easy enough that Derek could make it himself. Read the rest of this entry »
Homemade paneer
I’ve tried making paneer before using lemon juice as the curdling agent, and both times my cheese turned out rather crumbly and a bit gritty. (But maybe I just didn’t drain it under a weight long enough.) An Indian friend said I should try making it with buttermilk instead. Then in September Cook’s Illustrated published a paneer recipe that calls for buttermilk, and I finally got around to trying it over the break. Read the rest of this entry »
Baked escarole with onions and gruyere
As you can see, I’m on an escarole kick. I’m so excited to have found it after four years, that I’m trying every escarole recipe I can find. This one is from the autumn section of Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast. It’s actually called baked eggs with escarole but the dish seemed more escarole-y than eggy to me, so I’ve renamed it. Read the rest of this entry »
Not-quite Paleo Banana Muffins
A friend sent me an email with a recipe for paleo (i.e., flour-less) banana muffins. (I’m not sure where the recipe originally comes from.) I tried them a while ago and thought they weren’t bad, but Derek wouldn’t eat them. He said the texture was odd and they weren’t sweet enough. But this week I had some very ripe bananas I wanted to use up, and decided to try something similar again. Read the rest of this entry »
American pancake recipe
On a hike recently I met someone here in Germany who was reminiscing about American-style pancakes, and I suggested that she come over sometime for a pancake brunch. I haven’t made pancakes in a few years, but back in Pittsburgh Derek and I used to make oatmeal walnut pancakes pretty often. But for this brunch I wanted to make something more like what you’d get in an American diner. I asked Derek to pick two recipes and he picked an Alton Brown recipe and one from 101cookbooks.
Rice and sesame pancakes
I had a three-grain pilaf that I needed to use up, and was looking for recipes that call for leftover grain, when I found this rice and sesame pancake recipe from 101cookbooks. Read the rest of this entry »
Winter lasagne with spinach, shiitakes, and fromage fort
Derek rented a car this weekend (to see Chick Corea in Luxembourg), and so we decided to check out the Cora across the border in Forbach, France. It was enormous and packed, and (strangely) I heard tons of people speaking American English. Why were there so many Americans in Forbach? Could they be coming all the way from the military base in Kaiserslautern just to shop in France? We explored the store a bit, but didn’t find much of interest. Derek got some cheap Leffe Belgian beer, and picked out a few cheeses. It turned out, however, that most of the cheeses were not very good. He wanted to toss them but I hated to throw them away. I found Alton Brown’s recipe for “fromage fort” online, and made it with half of the (quite sour) Little Billy goat cheese and half of a (quite stinky and sharp) Camembert. I added quite a bit more garlic and parsley than the recipe calls for. After pureeing everything together the cheese was more like a cheese sauce than something you could spread on crackers. It tasted a little odd, but not bad. Kind of like a very strong, stinky Boursin. I decided to use it in a lasagne. Read the rest of this entry »
Mexican quiche
When I was in high school I used to love going to parties at my best friend’s house. Her mom (Diane) would always cook up a huge amount of delicious finger foods, most of which I’d never had before. Three of my favorites were spanakopita, stuffed grape leaves, and what she called “mexican quiche”. Last summer I finally asked Diane for the recipe for the quiche. It’s surprisingly simple. Read the rest of this entry »
Cherry clafoutis
It’s cherry season here in Germany, and wow are they good. I don’t know if this year is unusual, but almost all the cherries I’ve bought have been big, juicy, and extremely flavorful. Martha Rose Shulman recently did a whole set of recipes featuring the cherry, including a recipe for a cherry soup (which I’d like to try), one for a cherry smoothie (which I blogged about on my smoothies post), and one for a cherry clafouti made with yogurt and no butter or cream. Many years ago in Pittsburgh Derek and I used to make a cherry clafoutis recipe, which was also from the New York Times (posted below). For reasons best left unexplained, he had dubbed it “floor cake”. But we decided to try neither of these recipes. Instead we ended up making Julia Child’s recipe for cherry clafoutis. Read the rest of this entry »
Chard and leek crustless quiche
Derek chose the chard, celery, and leek tortino recipe from Union Square Cafe, and I bought all the ingredients, but when it came down to it I just couldn’t do it. The recipe had so much cheese, cream, butter, and eggs in it, and last time I made a chard and celery recipe from that cookbook we weren’t so thrilled with it. So I chickened out and used the ricotta to make the savory zucchini cheesecake that I just posted about. I used the chard, leeks, and cream to make a crustless version of this leek and swiss chard tart from Smitten Kitchen, originally from Bon Appetit. Read the rest of this entry »
Savory zucchini dill cheesecake
I bought a ton of ricotta to make a recipe (I no longer remember which one), then changed my mind and needed to do something with all the ricotta. I thought about making lasagna but wanted something a little less time-consuming, and Derek found this recipe for a savory zucchini ricotta cheesecake on 101 cookbooks. Read the rest of this entry »
Chard and potato terrine
I had some chard and potatoes that needed to get eaten, and found this recipe in Georgeanne Brennan’s cookbook France: The Vegetarian Table. It looked pretty decadent (lots of butter plus cheese and a bit of heavy cream), but Derek liked how the picture looked and encouraged me to try it. Read the rest of this entry »
Green goddess lasagna with white bean sauce
I cooked up a bit pot of white beans for the (not so successful) white bean salad. I froze what I didn’t need for the salad, and then defrosted them this weekend. For some reason I felt like eating lasagna, so I dug up this recipe for a vegetarian white lasagna with bean sauce. It’s pretty similar to a traditional lasagna except it doesn’t have any tomato sauce and the white sauce is made from blended white beans, milk, and nutritional yeast. Read the rest of this entry »
Provençal garlic and herb broth
This recipe makes up the second half of winter menu number five from Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast. Last January in Segovia, Spain I had a bowl of garlic soup that was quite satisfying. It was a rich garlic broth with olive oil and little tiny tendrils of egg. I was hoping that this provençal garlic and herb broth would be similar. Berley’s head notes say this pungent broth (made from plenty of garlic and herbs) is a traditional hangover cure in southern France and Spain. He seems to imply that it doesn’t normally have egg in it, because he says “to make it more substantial I enrich it with egg and serve it over croutons with grated parmesan cheese.” I think it’s funny that he added more cheese to a menu that was already swimming in smoked mozzarella (from the bean salad). But, nonetheless, I followed his instructions to a T. Read the rest of this entry »
Warm white bean salad with sun-dried tomatoes and smoked mozzarella
Derek chose this recipe from the winter section of Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast. I had a white bean and smoked cheese dish years ago at a friend’s place in Chicago. It was excellent. I was hoping that this dish would bring some of the same flavors together. The technique is pretty simple. You saute up carrots, celery, onions, garlic, rosemary, and red pepper flakes, then add a little water and let the vegetables steam briefly. Then the white beans, sun dried tomatoes, mozzarella, and red wine vinegar are stirred in. Finally you toss the whole thing with arugula and chopped parsley. Read the rest of this entry »
Light, fruited noodle kugel
When I was a kid my mom used to make my grandmother’s noodle kugel recipe on special occasions. It was a savory, not a sweet kugel, and I think it had about a pound each of butter, sour cream, cottage cheese, and eggs. It was tasty, but super rich. So when I saw a similar looking–but lighter–recipe in the AMA cookbook, I was curious to try it. Read the rest of this entry »
Light cranberry orange muffins
I have a recipe for pumpkin cranberry bread that I just adore. I wanted to try making it into muffins, but I couldn’t find any more fresh cranberries. So instead I found this recipe in Cook’s Illustrated’s The Best Light Recipe. The basic recipe is for blueberry muffins, and then they offer variations for bran muffins, corn muffins, raspberry almond muffins, and cranberry orange muffins (which call for dried not fresh cranberries). Alex and I made the cranberry orange muffins for breakfast last Sunday, along with these two ginger muffins. Read the rest of this entry »
Broccoli Pie a la Grecque
This is another new recipe from the AMA Family Health Cookbook. I had a bunch of fresh mint and dill to use up, and went searching for a recipe. This one, which combines broccoli, eggs, and cheese with fresh herbs and cubed bread, looked perfect. Read the rest of this entry »
Roasted vegetable tamale pie
Unlike the typical tamale pie recipe, this recipe from Rancho la Puerta does not call for beans. Instead, sliced potatoes are layered on the bottom of a casserole dish, and veggies are mixed with egg whites, cornmeal, pureed corn kernels, yogurt, and a little cheese. Read the rest of this entry »
Sticky toffee pudding
Derek has been raving about sticky toffee pudding for a little over a year now. I finally got to try it when we went to Scotland last September. I tried a number of different restaurant versions, and although I don’t know exactly what it’s supposed to taste like most of them seemed to miss the mark a little. Derek wanted to try to make it at home, and I said fine–next time we have company. Well, a few weeks ago, right before leaving for Spain, we ended up with 5 guests over for dinner. The menu was mostly Italian (salad with roasted winter veggies and walnuts, white bean soup with fennel and rosemary, and cacio e pepe pasta). But our dessert was Scottish.
Derek looked around online to try to find a recipe for the kind of moist sticky toffee pudding that he prefers, and ended up selecting a sticky date toffee pudding recipe that had excellent reviews on epicurious.com. I printed out the recipe, but unfortunately didn’t read the reviews myself. If I had, I would have been more prepared for what followed. Read the rest of this entry »
Cacio e Pepe
Derek had had a really excellent version of cacio e pepe in one of Mario Batali’s restaurants, and was very excited about trying it. Mario Batali’s version has quite a bit of olive oil and some butter, but the Cook’s Illustrated recipe looked unusually light for a cream pasta. They cook the pasta in very little water so that the water ends up very starchy, and can be used to help make the sauce more cohesive. We decided to give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »
Saffron Risotto
My friend Alex and I took a walk along the river Saar this evening. Despite the cold, the damp, the dark, and the mist, I had a lovely walk. In the course of our conversation, we started talking about saffron, and I realized I’d never posted one of our favorite risotto’s to my blog: saffron risotto. This dish is plain, but very satisfying. The daisy-yellow color and creamy consistency make me feel like I’m eating macaroni and cheese. There’s just something about saffron that tastes like comfort food to me, even though I never had it growing up. I can’t actually remember the first time I ever ate saffron, but it very well might have been the first time we made this saffron risotto!
The recipe we typically use is based on a recipe from Jack Bishop’s Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. The saffron flavor is maximized by dissolving it in a little hot stock then adding it to the rice toward the end of the cooking time. Bishop’s recipe is good, but quite rich. We usually cut down on the butter quite a bit.
Below I’ve compared Jack Bishop’s recipe to the saffron risotto recipe in Cook’s Illustrated’s The Best Light Recipe. I believe Jack Bishop works for Cook’s Illustrated, so it’s a bit odd that the recipe aren’t more similar. Read the rest of this entry »
The captious vegetarian 