june 12, 2012 dinner

we've got ham, what to do with it? i found this recipe online, and it was actually pretty easy to pull off. in the casserole are a couple of eggs baked atop a sauce of tomatoes, red onion, garlic, jalapeno, salt, pepper, and fresh basil from my apartment balcony. under that, ham, torn into pieces and quickly pan-fried before going into the casserole. more pepper on top and into the oven with it for 12 minutes or so at 350 degrees, then topped with even more basil. (my poor plant has been nearly picked clean, but hey, it encourages new growth!) to the side is a purple artichoke, steamed, with a side of melted grass-fed butter and lemon juice. this dinner earned not one, but TWO high fives from matt, my fellow eater in crime.
and yes, the backdrop is my leopard-print snuggie.

june 12, 2012 breakfast

another wednesday, another slice of spanish tortilla for breakfast. there has been a lot of ham lately, as we are trying to get through a big ol' hunk of it. we were happy to find a non-nitratey brand (applegate farms), but it came in just one (big) size, so we are working it into a lot of meals currently.

june 11, 2012 breakfast

the spanish tortilla was well-received last week, so i made another. the little green guy approves.

june 9, 2012 breakfast

saturday morning scramble of eggs, ham, zucchini, red bell pepper, tomato, onions, green onions, and garlic, topped with avocado and cholula. i like to scramble the eggs separately after all the veggies have finished cooking, then add them back in. i used to just do everything together, but then the egg tended to get lost, just turning into a kind of soggy, eggy coating for the veggies. eggs are deceptively easy to screw up!

june 8, 2012 breakfast

should a garlic and jalapeno double-stuffed olive be the first thing you eat in the morning? how about 4 of them? plus a cold wedge of spanish tortilla? friday morning is all about tapas. because if i'm eating tapas, i can't possibly be at work. next time i just need some squid cooked in olive oil and paprika, and i could be in spain..

june 7, 2012 dinner

it's a meatza! crust is grass-fed beef with italian seasoning, fennel, garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper, prepped by baking in a 400 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes. instead of red sauce, i made arugula pesto in the food processor, whirring up arugula, garlic, walnuts, olive oil, and a wee pinch of kosher salt. after saucing up the crust, i layered it with cooked bacon, cracked an egg on top, and slid it back into the oven for about 10 more minutes. topped it all off with super fancy french-cut green onions (every once in awhile, you gotta let the super fancy out), drizzled it with olive oil, and ground just a little black pepper on top. it was crispy and crunchy and chewy, with good flavor. not bad for my first meatza attempt! next time, i'm going to take it out a little sooner, because i like a little more liquid gold in my egg yolk, but overall, no complaints.

the side dish was an experiment turned revelation. there was leftover bacon grease in the pan (can't let that go to waste!), so i tossed in a cubed parsnip and carrot, let them brown for awhile, added a handful of green onions and a half pinch of kosher salt and black pepper, and just let it keep browning and cooking. the parsnip and carrots ended up creamy, and the bits of green onion frizzled in the pan, creating an interesting texture and smoky oniony flavor. the ingredients sound a little odd, but some kinda alchemy happened in that pan, i swear!

june 7, 2012 breakfast

thursday breakfast was a cold slice of leftover spanish tortilla. nothing like a little breakfast tapas.

june 6, 2012 breakfast

this is my take on the spanish tortilla - with the humble rutabaga standing in for the traditional tater. sounds odd, but it works in an insanely delicious way. i cooked this up last night, and had a wedge of this for breakfast, served cold.

making it was pretty darn easy too. first, i carmelized a whole vidalia onion, sliced in rounds.

then i added a jar of drained roasted bell peppers.

i set all that off to the side, and sauteed a couple of rutabagas, thinly sliced, in some olive oil.

after they were nice and soft and starting to brown a bit, i added back in the peppers and onions, plus some cubed ham and a few sliced green onions.

finally, i poured ten beaten eggs over the whole thing, added a pinch of salt and pepper, gave it a stir, and let it set. you are supposed to slide it onto a plate and flip it, but i just covered it, and it cooked through on its own. keep it on low heat, though, and run a rubber spatula around the edges from time to time. you don't want the bottom to burn before the rest of it is done..

totally adaptable too - you could do this with chorizo, baby shrimp, regular potatoes, drizzle with a nice garlicky aioli, the possibilities are endless!

june 5, 2012 breakfast

weird to have a breakfast without eggs! but leftovers call, so it's baba ghanouj and carrots plus isernio's chicken sausage and chard scramble. hey, if i call it a scramble, is it breakfast?

june 4, 2012 lunch

another salad with greens, tomato, cucumber, red onion, kalamata and vinaigrette. matt asks me if i noticed anything different about this vinaigrette. i didn't. turns out it's the brine that the olives came in mixed with olive oil and herbs. pair that with the best homemade coleslaw ever, and a lazy scramble of isernio's chicken sausage with red chard, onion and garlic. good stuff.

june 3, 2012 breakfast

breakfast, much the same as yesterday, except with scallion and green bell pepper instead of red. matt likes to chop green onions more widely than i, but who's to say that's a bad thing? i photograph this on a bed of moss, much nicer than the laminate desk backdrop of my usual work breakfast shots..

june 2, 2012 breakfast

i admit, i started to dig into this, and then realized i was supposed to document it. this is saturday morning camping breakfast, south whidbey state park. breakfast is a hash with butternut squash, bacon, red bell pepper, onion, garlic, moroccan spice mix, salt, pepper, etc. topped with eggs over medium and half an avocado. oh yeah, and the requisite cholula dunk tank. 

may 31, 2012 breakfast

today's breakfast is just a little more gussied up than yesterday's. i had an avocado that was on its way out, so i took it to work with me. it turned out to be perfect, so half of it topped my standard egg loaf. add cholula and chow down!

may 30, 2012 lunch

and here's lunch! very veggie-dominant today. awesome salad with red leaf lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, kalamatas, orange bell peppers, and red onion, topped with a homemade vinaigrette. then there are obviously a bunch of carrots, next to homemade baba ghanouj. up top, the soot sprite is perched on a bowl of roasted red pepper and spinach chicken sausages (casual gourmet brand - very clean, no nitrates, msg or gluten for those with allergies, like my husband. i found them at costco) sauteed with a mess of rainbow chard, onions and garlic.

also, i should mention that this lunch was prepared by the husband and not me. credit given!

may 30, 2012 breakfast

breakfast at work: egg loaf w/ nitrate-free bacon, zucchini, spinach, roasted red peppers, green onions, garlic, spices (basically the egg cupcakes from everyday paleo except done in a casserole instead of muffin tins - easier to clean) generouly doused with cholula.

susuwatari (soot sprite) looks on tentatively.