My New Favorite Breakfast

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by anotherbigbite in From the Kitchen

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breakfast, cooking, eggs, siracha, sweet and spicy, tortilla, vegetarian

I am not one for New Years resolutions. For a few reasons. First of all, I feel like making promises to myself that inevitably fall to the wayside in a few short weeks aren’t in any way productive. Also, why should I wait until January 1st to make changes that should probably be made, oh, immediately?

And then I had kids. Aaaaaand realized that I am a pretentious prick.

Setting goals is a good thing. And being able to embrace the holiday season for what it is also is pretty realistic… Sugar. Chocolate. Butter. Cheese. Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.

Now that all that unhealthy eating is out of the way (Sure, I’ll snarf an entire two-pound Toblerone by myself… Because it’s Christmas, that’s why!), and the pallet of Diet Coke we bought for visiting relations is mercifully gone, it is time to get back into the grind of everyday life.

Nope, I’m not making the resolution to go to the gym more. But I am going back to eating things that didn’t greet my threshold in a can.

This is my just-unhealthy-ehough-to-be-good breakfast. Fruit, eggs, veggie juice, a tiny bit of cheese and an overtly large pat of butter make rolling out of bed a teentsy more bearable for me. Squeeze on some lime and squirt on some Siracha…. Yes. Heaven in a tortilla.

Actually cooking breakfast is normally something reserved for the weekends, but since this only takes a few minutes to make and it is hot, juciy, spicy and sweet? I’ll give it a go.

I have a little pan that I warm my tortillas on. I crank up the heat to high (8 out of 10) and heat a few tortillas up once it is good and hot… About 10-15 seconds on each side. The tortillas hang out in a clean dish towel while I cook the eggs.

Finn loves these too (without the lime and siracha); he calls them egg tacos. And I suppose that is fitting. We each get an egg. I mix it for a few seconds in a bowl with a fork. I get my spatula ready and grab a pat of butter – just a little tooooooo much butter – and get my game face on.

Since the pan is HOT, I have to move super fast. Drop in the butter, swirl it around and then pour the eggs right over the browning butter. I give it a few seconds before I pull the cooked eggs to the side of the pan to allow the raw eggs to run into the rest of the butter. I give it a flip and then plunk them onto my snuggly tortillas. The whole thing takes MAYBE 10 seconds.

Then I throw the windows open since I set off the smoke alarm (super hot pan + butter + eggs = smoke). After it goes off, I top my eggs with a crumbling of queso fresco, squeeze on some lime and add a dribble of Siracha.

My tummy was a-grumbling while I was diligently snapping away.

Mango Sorbet

28 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in From the Kitchen

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cooking, dessert, frozen, ice cream, mangos, recipe, sorbet, vegan, vegetarian

A week ago, there was a fire sale on mangos at Costco.

via

No, not that Mango.

The fruit. Two bucks for nine mangos? Sure, they looked a little rough, but they weren’t even ripe yet and otherwise seemed to be just peachy. I took the $4.00 gamble and bought two cases of them. Eighteen mangos and I headed home to see what the other was made of.

Good investment, Lisa. They were perfect, and so the fam and I set about eating mangos like it was going out of style. I thought that I would end up pulling out the dehydrator on the second case. Sure, there were three casualties. But mango sorbet was just aching to be made… So I made it.

After combing through my cookbooks, I realized that every sorbet recipe I had called for corn syrup, and lots of it. Those damn “it’s fine in moderation, just like sugar” commercials that the corn growers of America put on haven’t convinced me. Also, adding a cup of corn syrup to another cup of regular sugar is overkill in the sugar department at any rate, no matter how good or bad corn syrup is for you.

For this recipe, I cut the sugar way down. I also used raw sugar, which toned the color of the sorbet down quite a bit. If I had used refined sugar, those nice little scoops of mango-y goodness would be electric yellow. I thought of skipping the sugar completely, but adding sugar is part of what makes the sorbet scoopable. Skipping the sugar entirely would result in a slushie straight from the ice cream maker or a solid block of mango juice if you continued to freeze it in the freezer.

Since I didn’t want to go down the corn syrup road, I brought my sugar and water to a boil, simmering it until the sugar was fully dissolved. Then I dumped the mixture over my chopped mangos and lemon juice and let it steep for three or four hours – but I don’t think anything over an hour in the fridge – enough to cool it down – was necessary.

Mango Sorbet

4 cups ripe mangos, cubed (about 4 large)
1/4 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup water

In small saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil. Simmer until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat.

Combine mangos, lemon juice and sugar syrup. Allow to cool. Refrigerate at least one hour. Before freezing, blend mixture until smooth (I used my immersion blender, but a blender, food processor or potato masher would do the trick).

Freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions. For firmer sorbet, place in freezer-safe container and freeze for four hours. If the mixture gets too hard to scoop, allow to thaw slightly in the refrigerator for one hour or microwave on half power for 45 seconds.

The thought occurred to me to puree up some strawberries to pour over the top, but in the end, we were all too anxious to eat it.

Tomato Basil Polenta; I dare you not to love this.

23 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in From the Kitchen

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basil, cooking, eating, fried polenta, goat cheese, polenta, recipe, tomato, vegetarian

Before we hopped on the vegan bandwagon, I had never had polenta. How?

Once I started eating it, I couldn’t stop. We bought one of those little sausage-looking packages of pre-cooked polenta at Whole Foods and it sat in the pantry for a month. One afternoon, tummy a-grumbling and feeling slightly adventuresome, I cracked that puppy open and did the only thing I had ever seen anyone from the Food Network do with polenta. I sliced it up and fried it in a skillet in a little olive oil.

Oh. Heavenly. Total flavorgasm.

The preconceived notion that homemade polenta is a bicep-challenging endeavor – forever stirring and stirring and stirring – was blown outta the water when I came across a recipe on The Kitchn. It promised perfect polenta without a half-hour upper-arm workout. I loaded up on the polenta (or “corn grits” for you southern folks) from the bulk bin and gave it a shot. And for once, I didn’t fuck something up on the first batch.

As good as polenta is straight out of the pot, as soon as it is cooked, grilling or frying it makes it even better. It creates a crispy, salty crust that is akin to wrapping grits in freshly fried corn tortilla chips…

And now I am salivating.

To fry polenta, it must be cooled after being fully cooked. Polenta is much like plaster of paris; it takes the shape of the container it is cooled in. I make a double batch when I make it. Half gets eaten right away, and the rest gets poured into a square Tupperware container and sits in the fridge (for at least a few hours, but usually a few days later) and gets cubed before it is fried.

I have used the precooked polenta with the very same results, but making it myself is about a quarter of the price. Also, I put more butter in it than the precooked versions have; I can’t help it. And do not skip the garlic salt; seriously, it takes it to a whole ‘nother level. I promise.

Tomato Basil Polenta

For each serving:

1 cup Cooked Polenta – The Kitchn’s Recipe or Premade (Sliced or cubed)

3 Campari Tomatoes – quartered

Fresh Basil – finely julienned

1 oz Goat Cheese – crumbled

1 tsp Olive Oil

Garlic Salt

Preheat a large skillet on high. Add olive oil and immediately place polenta in the pan. Sprinkle with garlic salt. Cook until crust begins to form; about three minutes. Flip and cook three minutes longer. Remove from heat.

Combine basil and tomatoes (it is also good with a dab of olive oil and balsamic vinegar). Place on top of the polenta and sprinkle with goat cheese.

Now EAT. And then wish you would have made more.

Vegan Veggie Fajitas

05 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in From the Kitchen

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Tags

cooking, fajitas, food, healthy eating, mushrooms, recipies, vegan, vegetarian

Admittedly, life on the vegan front hasn’t been what you might call consistent. We still stick to eating vegan at home; however I can count how many times I’ve eaten dinner at home in the last week on one hand. It is pitiful. Alas, it is what it is. Although I’m trying to do better, I’m not going to beat myself up about it, either.

For the past few days, my inner voice has been nipping at my heels… Get thyself to Costco, Lisa! You are running out of food. This is why you are tempted to eat Jimmy Johns for lunch. (Let us not discount their killer tuna salad, though.)

A few nights ago, I found myself with a pair of portobello mushrooms on their last edible days, half a red pepper and an onion. My herb garden has been getting out of control in recent weeks; I’ve been picking the tips of the cilantro daily to try to keep it from going to seed. This when I realized I should get my ass back in the kitchen and make some veggie fajitas.

Why haven’t I been sautéing onions everyday? Lordy, it is an amazing smell. The onions, mushrooms and peppers had a hot and steamy party in a bit of olive oil while I whipped up some guac in my mini food processor (avocado, a couple of Campari tomatoes, a sprig of cilantro, juice of half a lemon and a healthy dash of garlic salt).

Sidebar; can I just express how it gets my goat when TV food personalities use tortillas that haven’t been heated up? They crack and split, taste like garbage and take fourteen and a half seconds in a hot skillet. Gordan Ramsay would never stand for such tomfoolery.

We ate our sizzling fajitas with plain old rice sprinkled with more chopped cilantro. My stepdad started doing this a few years ago, and it was a lightbulb moment when I got wind of it.

I’m telepathically beaming the smell to you at the moment; until we get Smell-O-Vision, you’ll have to trust me it is exactly the same as catching a whiff of someone else’s piping hot skillet of fajitas being whisked by your booth at Chili’s. (All while you’re salivating and pretending your chips and salsa are satisfying your hunger.)

Top it with even more chopped cilantro and raw onions and dig in.

Vegan Veggie Fajitas

2 Portobello Mushrooms, thickly sliced
1 Red Bell Pepper, sliced
1/2 Onion, thinly sliced
Garlic Salt
1 tsp Olive Oil
6 corn tortillas
Guacamole
Cilantro and onions, finely chopped for topping
Lime, to season

Saute onions, mushrooms, peppers and garlic salt in olive oil on high heat until tender (about 8 minutes).

Meanwhile, heat tortillas in a dry, hot skillet. Heat one at a time for 10 seconds, flip and heat 5 seconds longer. Place in a clean towel to keep warm.

Assemble fajitas – mushroom mixture, guacamole, chopped onions and cilantro. Squeeze fresh lime juice to taste and enjoy!

Another Big Bite

Tag Archives: vegetarian

My New Favorite Breakfast