A Little Roasted Tomatoes And Zucchini For Breakfast

With the remaining cherry tomatoes, I woke up this morning thinking about roasting them. I love roasted tomatoes and cherry tomatoes are perfect because they don't take to long to roast and the roasting adds another depth of flavor to their perfect sweetness. I cut them in half and quarters and put them in a 400 degree oven, on a foil lined pan,  somewhere between 15-20 minutes until they get nice and soft and a little brown on top. While the tomatoes roasted I sauteed the two zucchini in a little olive oil and one slivered garlic clove until they had a nice tan color. Setting the veggies aside, I scrambled the eggs and then added the zucchini and tomatoes to the eggs when they were just about done. An easy filling breakfast.

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A Birthday Beach Quiche

 We were going to celebrate my mom's birthday in an early evening beach picnic and I wanted to make something that would travel well, could sit at room temperature for a while, and would be easy to eat at the beach. I also wanted to use collard greens because nothing says birthday beach picnic like collard greens.

 Looking through collard green recipes, a common pairing is collards with bacon. I've been avoiding this combo just because I wanted something else to make that was a  little bit more exciting. Then  I found a recipe on Food52 for a Beloved Greens Quiche.
Quiche might just be the perfect food. It can be eaten for any meal, it is good warm or at room temperature, and just about anything can be put into a quiche. Quiche is actually pretty easy to make as well, the most time consuming process is letting the dough chill.

I followed the recipe pretty closely, making my dough early in the day and then assembling the rest later. This recipe calls for 2 cups of cooked collard greens but I added an extra cup just because I wanted to use all of the greens. In the ingredients it lists cheddar cheese but I didn't add it. When I pulled the quiche out of the oven it was big giant egg poof. It looked really cool. This tasted great, no wonder collards and bacon are paired together so much.

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Salad Week # 3 - Egg Salad with Kale and Spring Onion

Egg Salad Sandwich

This is just a fast little post to continue with the salad week theme. Perhaps it was all the talk about the royal wedding, but I have been craving egg salad. I find egg salad comforting and it really is easy to make, the most laborious task is hard boiling the eggs. I thought kale would work well replacing the often used celery. I've also been using the spring onions in just about everything I can think of. A spring onion, looks a little bit like a scallion but is sweeter than a regular onion, and are great in just about anything.

I know I have two onions pictured here but I actually just used one

This was a great mix of flavors, it was crunchy, and kind of tasted like spring. I don't know if food can taste like a season but this tasted like spring to me. Mixing six hard boiled eggs, a large handful of destemmed, washed, and thinly chopped Blue Kale, and one spring onion. Then add mayonnaise, salt and pepper at your own discretion. Spread on some wonderful bread and enjoy

The bowl of egg salad mixed.

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A Dandy Mustard Tart With A Sprinkling Of Spinach

The last couple of times I have attempted to make tarts, they were not a success, mainly having to do with the tart crust. I had sworn off baking for a while because of my tart debacles, and found myself looking longingly at fruit filled pastries, and envying the golden, buttery crust.  I then realized that tarts are not just exclusive to sweet but can be savory as well.

The mustard greens and red kale

 While flipping through the The  Joy of Cooking looking for ways to use some greens I found a Chard Tart. Replacing the chard with mustards, red kale, and a little spinach this tart turned out great.
One of the reasons why this tart appealed to me was that the crust was easy. No delicate cutting in of butter, no chilling of dough, there's not even a use of a rolling pin. I mixed the ingredients together and then pressed it into the tart pan. While the crust baked for fifteen minutes I browned a few shallots, because we were out of onions. and then put in the greens and let them cook a little bit, just until they lose their bitterness but still have a bright green color.
Mixing the greens with a few eggs, some heavy cream, and some Parmesan, I poured this mixture into my golden tart shell. Letting it bake for half an hour it came out like this.

This is something I would make again, experimenting with different combinations of vegetables. The tart wasn't quite as eggy as a quiche, allowing the greens to be more dominant in flavor. The other great thing about savory tarts is that they can be eaten for any meal. They are great for breakfast or for dinner with a salad on the side. I think now I will strictly be a savory tart maker and leave the sweet tarts to the pastry chefs.


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Eggs and Broccoli

Since the start of the year I am trying to make more of an effort to be more organized. One of the first things I've tackled is to purge the ever growing stack of cooking magazines that have accumulated through the years. I've been tearing the recipes out that I would make, be interested in making, or have made. Putting them in a book and organizing them by meal. I even started a separate vegetable book for CSA cooking.
In my recipe organizing mania I came upon a recipe for a poached egg on toast sprinkled with Parmesan and a basil pistou.  This recipe inspired two thoughts.

One being that I love a good poached egg, especially on toast. The second thought was instead making a  pistou I thought about vegetables. What about sauteing broccoli instead.

Which is what I did.

I Sauteed  the broccoli in olive oil and a little garlic.
Then taking a toasted slice of french bread sprinkled with a little Parmesan, I placed the broccoli and then the poached egg.
This was satisfying and filling. The saltiness of the Parmesan worked well with the egg and the broccoli.
I probably could have sauteed the broccoli a little longer because it was still crunchy. I also could have cut it into smaller pieces so the broccoli wasn't overtaking the whole plate. None of that deterred from my enjoyment of such a simple dinner. Even as I write, I find myself thinking about wanting to make this for lunch.

 

Poached Eggs and Broccoli with a side of bacon.

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A visit from the CIA

My brother is currently at the Culinary Institute of America (the CIA). On a break from school he came over and cooked for us using all sorts of veggies  from the box.

Here are some roasted tomatoes and grated zucchini sauteing.

Watching him wield his knife, we stood around the kitchen as he chopped, sauteed, roasted and crumbled. Pizza being one of the most versatile foods, and  is good for any meal we gorged ourselves on Breakfast Pizza. What is breakfast pizza, you ask? Pizza with any type of ingredient and then half way through the baking eggs are cracked on top. It's a little like an omelet baked on pizza dough.

Breakfast pizza, somewhere among the bacon and eggs there are vegetables.

To see what he is doing at school check out his blog at http://mattatthecia.blogspot.com/

Swiss Chard Souffle

While the easiest thing to do with good hearty greens is to cook them with a little olive oil and garlic, I'm always searching for an alternative use.
While souffle's are just puffy omelette's, and just as versatile, I don't know if I would have ever thought of using Swiss Chard. I found this recipe in a Food & Wine cookbook. Here is the link
www.foodandwine.com/recipes/swiss-chard-souffle">

As I had never made a souffle before I was a little nervous as how it would turn out. Thanks to my Grandma Clark we had a large souffle dish, that was put to good use.

The result was delicious. The mushrooms and the Romano cheese were so complementary to the flavors of the chard. As souffle is not an item that is good later the four of us gobbled up all of it, along with a little green salad. It was such a great Monday afternoon meal.