poached eggs

Poached eggs are funny, aren't they? People love them or hate them. Some people are intimidated to attempt them, others think they're easy peasy. Why are there so many ways to cook eggs, anyway? I can think of maybe three ways to cook broccoli. Three ways to cook chicken. But eggs? I count seven just off the top of my head, and I'm probably forgetting some.

Eggs are awesome.

I took my first crack at poaching eggs (pun completely intended) Smitten Kitchen-style. There may be other methods that work fine, even better, but this one worked perfectly for me the first time, so I'm sticking to it. A little vinegar in the simmering water, get your swirl on, crack the egg in, take it out in a few minutes. So much easier than I thought it would be!

And what could be better for breakfast (or lunch or dinner) than two poached eggs on top of leftover sweet potato? Two poached eggs over kale, perhaps. But the sweet potato was pretty awesome.

mystery squash

I'm a lazy composter. I just throw my garden/fruit/veggie scraps in a pile outside and let it sit. A year later, it turns into compost, but many seeds survive the process. As a result, I get kale and tomatoes and squash growing out of my compost pile, and mystery squash growing in my garden. I thought these two were going to be zucchini when they started growing because they were dark green. But they were growing short and stubby instead of long and slender. As fall approached, they started turning orange, so I thought maybe they were pumpkins. But they didn't get round and dark orange like pumpkins.

Last week I plucked them off their vines and cut them open. They looked like squash inside. Imagine that! They both had the little round cells that I'm used to seeing in spaghetti squash, so I cooked them accordingly. They didn't shred quite as easily as spaghetti squash after cooking, though. I'm guessing they were some mutant, cross-pollinated version. They tasted fine, and we're all still alive, so I call it a win.

I used the small one for Squash with Curried Apples and Turkey (pictured below), and the large one for gnocchi. Hooray for free volunteer vegetables!

zucchini noodles

If you planted zucchini this year, I'm guessing right about now you're thinking, “What am I going to do with all this zucchini??” I haven't planted zucchini the last two years because I don't actually like zucchini unless it's baked into bread or zucchini cake. But after Monday night's dinner, I'm starting to change my mind.

My sister-in-law gave me two zucchinis last weekend, as well as two cups of grated zucchini for the freezer. (How perfect is that? Love her!) Inspired by this Kitchn post, I pulled out my mandoline and julienned the whole zucchinis into “noodles”. They're not noodles, Mom, my 9-yr old said with that almost-teenager look in her eyes, they're zucchini.

But she liked them anyway. I put them in a bowl, added some thinly sliced sweet onions and chopped cilantro, then tossed it all with some leftover peanut dressing. I topped it with cooked, diced chicken breast and sprinkled on some pepper flakes for the adults.

It was so good! It didn't taste like zucchini at all. I promise you, this is the only way I have ever liked zucchini that wasn't zucchini bread or cake. 

Oh, and it was fast. Since the chicken was already cooked, I had a healthy dinner on the table in less than 20 minutes.

I'll have to find room in the garden for zucchini next spring.

green olive lasagna. . . and oh, hi.

Hi y'all. I'm sure I've lost most of you with my infrequent posting. It has been a busy spring, and the first time ever I've looked forward to summer break since having children. We're on Day 2 of summer break and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I have cut all my quilt pieces and I'm hoping to get sewing soon. . . but we'll see. I also have a Blurb book to finish and children that need more attention now that they're out of school.

I am severely neglecting my camera, though, and I miss it. I'm contemplating committing to a picture every day in July. I think I can do it. I need to do it, for myself.

I made lasagna last week for Hubs. It's his favorite, and I forgot to make it when it was Let's Make One More Lasagna Before It Gets Hot weather. I swear I make lasagna twice a year—once when the weather turns cool and once before it gets too hot. 

For this one, I added chopped green olives to the meat sauce. I also use cottage cheese instead of ricotta, thanks to my mother-in-law. Do you have any non-traditional lasagna additions I should try? You know, in October, when it's cool enough to turn my oven on again.

284/366 coffee + chocolate

 We ♥ our local Full Sail Brewery.
This season's new LTD 06 caught my eye today.
Can you blame me?
With a description like that, who wouldn't grab it off the shelf?

By the way, we had taco salad for dinner. I traded our usual tortilla chip “croutons” for a flour tortilla underneath. We ate the salad down until it was burrito-filling-size, then wrapped the tortilla around it. It was like having taco salad and a burrito for dinner. Genius.

We cut the roots off our tiny sunflower from yesterday.
It definitely sucked up more of the blue coloring, but it still wasn't as impressive as the celery or carnations.
Fun little experiment, though!

280/366 jenga and flatbread

I struggled with my 20mm all day today. I think it's time for another few days of immersion training.

I indulged in a three hour nap while Hubs made a lovely dinner for us tonight. Brussels Sprout, Pancetta and Parmesan Flatbread from Food & Wine magazine. He also threw on some sliced summer squash. Absolutely delicious!

220/366 baby bok choy and turkey barley soup

This turkey barley vegetable soup from Real Simple is one of our favorites. It's super duper healthy and the kids love it! You can change it up quite a bit—adding spices, using different meats or vegetables, even a different broth would give the flavor a little tweak. Tonight, instead of celery and spinach, I used baby bok choy. It was delicious. I'll probably make it again with swiss chard from the garden before the summer is over. What's your favorite summer soup?

208/366 focaccia & basil aioli

Homemade herbed focaccia (recipe here and with roasted garlic here) with homemade basil pesto aioli. (By which I mean homemade pesto mixed with store bought mayonnaise, of course. I didn't make my own mayo.) Fried egg, sliced tomato from the garden. 

It was amazing. So delicious. Eat your veggies first and save the best for last delicious. We are making that again!

203/366 mustard dressed potatoes with eggs and baby chard

Hubs made us a light, summery dinner tonight. He found a recipe for Baked Mustard Dressing in the latest issue of Food & Wine magazine. My mustard-loving husband has a wide assortment of mustards on hand at all times, so he was able to prepare this dressing with a hand-selected mustard pairing. (I don't think I've ever typed “mustard” so many times.) He tossed the dressing with some red potatoes and added some perfectly cooked eggs. I grabbed some swiss chard from the garden for the side. Perfect summer dinner.

190/366 marinated tomatoes

I made Missy's Marinated Tomatoes from the Pioneer Woman's blog. We ate them with homemade focaccia bread for lunch. (My focaccia is just herby pizza crust with no toppings, or sometimes topped with cheese. Or sometimes garlic.)

I changed it up a little bit. Missy's recipe calls for a whole cup of canola oil. I'm not a fan of the taste of plain canola oil, and I couldn't bear to use a whole cup. So I substituted with 1/3 cup of good, flavorful olive oil. 

I also used good, thick, syrupy balsamic vinegar. (I love the syrupy balsamic. So different than the grocery store stuff. We get our balsamic and olive oil locally from OVINO in Hood River, OR.)

I omitted the parsley, because we didn't have any.

I added chopped cucumber, because we had some that needed to be used.

It was delicious! Even with store-bought tomatoes. It was a little on the sweet side for me, so next time I'd use less sugar. The sweetness in mine could have been amplified by the extra-sweet balsamic.

There was just a little bit leftover—I'd say the complete recipe made about five cups. I strained the balsamic olive oil infused with tomato, green onion and herbs into a jar to be used as salad dressing. I'm dreaming of that salad now. . .

108/366 morning light in the kitchen

I gave myself a gold star this morning. I made breakfast for three, packed lunch for two, got dinner started in the crock pot (Korean beef tacos, yum!), showered, and got everyone out of the house by 8am. I even had a few minutes left over to photograph the pretty morning light streaming through the kitchen windows. It was a great start to the day!

five minute pizza dough and a voodoo brew review

When we visited Rogue Brewery on our Oregon Coast trip, Hubs wanted to buy some beer to take home. I took the kids out to the car so he could make his selections in peace. Foolish me—he came out with a 40-50lb box of beer. In that box was a pink bottle of Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale. Yes, you read that correctly.

You've heard of Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, right? And their famous bacon maple bar? I thought so.

When I found the recipe for this caramelized onion and goat cheese pizza, I had a hunch it would pair well with the unique beer. It absolutely did.

The crust for this pizza uses the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes dough. (Recipe here, called White Boule Artisan Free-Form Loaf. I substituted 40% of the white flour with whole wheat flour.) We really liked the crust, and prep was very easy, since I already had the dough in the fridge. Last week I made a loaf of crusty bread to go with some homemade minestrone, pizza crust tonight, and I'll use the rest of the dough for some yummy cinnamon swirl bread.

The caramelized onion and goat cheese combination on top of this crust was divine. The kids wouldn't touch it, but Hubs and I loved it. We'll be making this again, for sure.

But you want to know about that crazy doughnut beer, right?

 

We liked it! It was definitely different from any other beer I've tried. When I brought the glass up to my nose, I smelled sweet maple instantly. That's the first taste I got, too—sweet maple + beer—like someone stirred maple syrup into a good beer. It finished with a smoky flavor, like the smokiness of bacon without the fatty, salty taste. I'm glad it wasn't too bacon-y.

I'm not a fan of anything super sweet, so I'm not sure I'd drink this beer alone. But I'd definitely have it again paired with something savory and equally assertive, like the pizza.

What do you think? Have you seen this beer? Have you tried it? If not, would you? What would you pair it with?

Note: We bought the beer. No one provided it or asked us to buy it, no one asked us to review it, no one asked me to post about it here. I thought it was fun, inventive, interesting, and worth sharing, so I'm sharing. :)

cheeseburger salad

“Best salad ever.” That's what Hubs keeps saying. I'd say even the kids agree with him. They're not fans of salad, but they love this. I first saw it on The Pioneer Woman, and Ree says she based it on this Pampered Chef recipe. Whoever created it is a genius, as far as I'm concerned. I could eat the ground beef mixed with ketchup, mustard, and barbecue sauce in a bowl with a spoon, and I am not a meat lover.

I didn't have any hot dog or hamburger buns to make the croutons as suggested in the recipe, so we had it with oven fries. The fries were the perfect accompaniment, and made the meal gluten-free. 

I also made it a tiny bit healthier by adding raw spinach and young kale leaves to the romaine, and a cup of leftover cooked quinoa to the ground beef. Sweetpea said, “I know what you put in here. You put quinoa in the meat. But it's ok. I still really like it.” That darn germ ring is a dead giveaway.

The salad provided great dinner conversation. We talked about all kinds of variations we should try. Sweetpea wanted to try it with homemade cheese sauce instead of grated cheese. Hubs wanted honey mustard dressing. (Yuck.) I thought a Big Mac/fry sauce/special sauce type dressing (there are lots of copycat recipes online) would be good.

We all agreed, reluctantly, that we'll have to make this a turkey burger salad (using ground turkey instead of beef) if we add this to our regular rotation. Sigh.

Click over to the recipes and make it! Let me know what variations you come up with, so I can add them to our list. :)

Pioneer Woman's Cheeseburger Salad

Pampered Chef Deluxe Cheeseburger Salad

58/366 topped ramen

Hubs and I perused a semi-nearby Asian grocery store (Uwajimaya in Beaverton, Oregon; there are a few in Washington, too) over the weekend and found these pink noodles. They're colored with plum extract. Even though Sweetpea is too old and too cool for pink these days (sigh), we still think of her when we see the rosy color anywhere. She was obsessed with pink for five of her seven years, after all.

Aren't they fun? They look like long thin sticks of bubble gum up close. (They're not flavored, though, just regular noodles.)

I knew what to do with them right away. One of our favorite dinners is basic noodle soup and an array of toppings. We first did this when Sweetpea wanted to try those little packages of ramen. She wanted it plain, but I told her noodles, water and flavored salt do not make a meal! So I chopped up some veggies and meat (sometimes hard boiled egg) and let everyone choose some healthy toppings for their soup.

Tonight's dinner was pink noodles, cooked and then added to simmering chicken broth + minced onion + a pinch of salt. On the table were bowls of sautéed kale, sautéed mushrooms, tomato, leftover barbecued chicken, carrot shavings and asparagus. Hubs complained that his bowl was too small. Sweetpea had her noodle soup plain, and a bowl of veggies and chicken on the side. I didn't hear from Little Mister until his bowl was empty—he was too busy eating.

Oh, and the best part about this dinner? Slurping noodles is most definitely allowed! :)

sweet potato black bean quinoa burgers

My favorite new blog find of the week? The Joy of Clean Eating. This blog has tons of recipes, including many that are vegan, gluten free and grain free. Like these sweet potato quinoa burgers with black beans. They were so tasty! I was skeptical—non-beef burgers are prone to falling apart, which causes me much frustration. But these held together flawlessly. They do have a softer texture than regular burgers of course, but none of us seemed to mind.

I didn't have any buns on the night I made them, so we ate them plain. I put mine on a bed of baby spinach with raw bell peppers on the side. My dinner was filling and completely satisfying, but I didn't feel weighed down. Such a great feeling.

I baked them this time, but next time I'll pan fry them. The author mentions in her post that they taste like hash browns if you pan fry them. Yum.

For the kids, who don't love spinach and won't touch bell peppers, I gave them just a few spinach leaves and some extra corn. They both really liked the burgers! 

Note: I know this sounds like an advertisement. I assure you that I don't know the authors of the blog and they didn't ask me for a review. I just tried the recipe and really loved it.

Have you tried any new recipes this week?

favorite: kale

I am in love.

I walked in to Trader Joe's (an hour's drive from my house) last weekend and the first thing I saw was this bag of kale. This beautiful, amazing bag of pre-washed kale was sitting on the shelf so nonchalantly, as if bags of pre-washed kale were available at every grocery store. No flashing neon signs to draw attention to such a wonderful thing. I was flabbergasted and threw two into my cart before anyone else could grab them.

Now, I know I live in a small town. Our grocery selections are not as broad as those in larger cities. Is pre-washed kale a new thing?

I love eating kale.

I detest washing kale.

Dirt hides in all those curls and folds and has to be scrubbed out. I bought flat-leaf (lacinato) kale seeds for the garden for easier washing, but still had to scrub them because of the bugs. (They looked like aphids. I need to try ladybugs this year.)

Finding pre-washed, pre-cut kale was the highlight of my week.

I've been eating it every day since. I threw some in a barley and bean minestrone. I sautéed some with quinoa and nuts for breakfast. (Yes, really. That's how much I love kale!) Today it was sautéed beside huevos rancheros à la Smitten Kitchen (minus the cheese and beans).  Cutting out the prep work makes this my new favorite ingredient. I'm going to be traveling to Trader Joe's a lot more often.

My heart is so happy.

4/366 crock pot prep

Images today taken with a Canon S5iS (edited in Lightroom) while my D7000 is away.

Inspired by this post on Mama and Baby Love, I spent an hour this morning preparing two crock pot dinners for next week. I chopped all the necessary ingredients, put them in a gallon size Ziploc bag, and stuck them in the freezer. In the original post, she suggested doing more dinners at one time, but I've got limited freezer space right now.

I don't have a lot of counter space, so this was challenging. And those gallon bags were very full. But they closed easily and fit in the freezer, and I know I'll be so thrilled next week to just empty the frozen contents into the crock pot and head out for the day. We've got swimming lessons during dinner prep time this month, and this is my solution. I'll let you know how it works next week.

I prepped two different, and new-to-me recipes:

1) Crock Pot Chicken Pot Pie from Creations by Kara

2) Sweet Potato Vegan Chili from A Year of Slow Cooking (except I added some chopped up leftover steak, which made it decidedly un-vegan)

Tomorrow I'm throwing this in the crock pot, because I have time for prep in the morning—Slow Cooker Shredded Korean Beef Tacos from A Year of Slow Cooking. I had all of the ingredients on hand anyway, so why not? Sounds tasty.

What's your favorite slow cooker recipe? I have a few more nights to plan.

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One more image from today:

With all the clouds yesterday, I was glad to see some light coming through the windows this morning. It was foggy, though, and the fog was acting like a big bright softbox.

And a couple from last night, because I couldn't resist: 

Sunsets + fog = pretty cool