Craig and I have a routine we do on Mondays. He pours a glass of wine and asks, “Want some?” and I say: “I don’t drink on Mondays.”
It’s not that funny, but it happens almost every Monday. “I don’t drink on Mondays.” It’s basically my catchphrase. I say it because I do drink wine on weekends, and frequently on nights that aren’t Mondays, but on Mondays I give my body a break. That was until yesterday.
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My grandfather, who celebrated his birthday this week (Happy Birthday, Grandpa!), reads my blog on his Kindle only he can’t see anything past the jump. (We’ve tried to fix it; can’t figure it out.) So as a birthday treat for him, here’s a whole post in one paragraph. It’s a recipe I came up with last weekend because I had pork/fennel/garlic sausage in my fridge and I wanted to make tomato sauce with it and use that sauce to make something with eggs. I could’ve cracked eggs on top and baked it in the oven like this, but that sounded boring. So here’s what I did: I cut two sausages out of their skin, added them to a non-stick skillet with olive oil, and broke them up over medium heat until the pieces were brown all over. Then I added some chopped onion and a pinch of salt, allowed that to soften, then added 3 cloves of chopped garlic. Once that was fragrant, I added all the tomatoes out of a can of San Marzano tomatoes with a minimal amount of the liquid, plus some more salt. Then I cooked that down for a while, allowing the tomatoes to break down and the liquid to reduce, until there wasn’t any liquid at all in the pan. At that point, I added six eggs which I’d whisked together with more salt, turned the heat to high, and allowed the eggs to set, sprinkling in some grated Pecorino cheese. Gradually, I stirred the eggs around a bit and when they were just firm, I scooped everything on to a plate and served with thickly sliced bread which I’d broiled on both sides, rubbed with garlic, and drizzled with olive oil, sprinkling Pecorino on everything at the end. Voila. If you make this over the weekend, send some to my grandpa.
Our CSA continues to be a big boon to our diet, especially on Sunday mornings when the box arrives and I get to tear it open and make something right away for breakfast or lunch or a combination of those two meals (someone should come up with a name for that). Last week’s box contained some Boston lettuce, the box from the week before had golden beets that I hadn’t used yet. So, on Sunday at 11:30 AM, a vision slowly began to hatch in my brain: what if I roasted those golden beets and, at the same time, boiled a few eggs just so the whites firmed up and the yolks were runny. I could toss the lettuce with a mustardy dressing, using Dorie Greenspan’s mustard bottle technique and bring it all together like a golden vision.
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I didn’t experiment much in college (well, except in the ways of improvisational comedy and musical theater directing), but as an adult I’ve become a hardcore experimenter, specifically on weekend mornings when Craig’s out of town. That’s when I let my soul run free, tapping into my inner being, and cooking up whatever springs to mind. Sometimes, my ideas are pretty gross (see here); sometimes, though, I hit on something so good, it enters the repertoire. This breakfast, thankfully, falls into the latter category.
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As you probably know, by now, I’m a pasta-loving fool. My blog has 78 recipes for pasta and risotto in its archives, so you know I take my pasta-eating seriously.
Sadly, my pasta love is now at odds with my spring-time desire to get in shape. I’ve been sticking to my gym routine for two months now, and though I still eat pasta and pastries and all the other naughty P foods on weekends, I’m trying to focus on a healthier P-word during the week: protein. The challenge I made for myself was this: transform the kind of sauce you’d love to eat over pasta on a typical weeknight into a protein-rich dinner that’s every bit as satisfying but way better for your beach bod. The secret? Instead of pasta, use eggs.
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Picasso had his blue period; I’m having my “smoked trout, pickled onion and kale” period right now. You may recognize these ingredients from some earlier posts this week–Fun Times with Farro, the very popular Chicken Sausage with White Beans and Kale–and now they’re all reuniting, once again, for a breakfast that had Craig and I leaping from our chairs, we enjoyed it so much.
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Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Trout, Pickled Onions and KaleRead More »
Adam in the Bible was good at naming things, Adam the food blogger, not so much. I first called this “Caramelized Cauliflower Frittata with Onions, Cheddar and Nutmeg” then thought it was weird to emphasize the nutmeg, even though that gives you a clue as to the flavor profile. Next title was “Caramelized Cauliflower Frittata with Onions” which makes it sound very oniony though, actually, it is quite oniony: golden brown onions in with the eggs, pickled onions sprinkled on at the end. Finally I settled on “Caramelized Cauliflower Frittata” because that’s really what this is, a chance to use up leftover cauliflower on a weekend morning. And you know what? It’s one of the best breakfasts I’ve made in a long time.
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