Asian style quinoa breakfast bowl

I love it when kitchen experiments actually turn out! I was starving this morning after playing a tough ultimate frisbee double header last night and was craving something satisfying yet healthy for breakfast. I took a few extra things I had in my veggie bin, threw it together, put an egg on it and it actually turned out amazing. So happy with it! Hope you try it and like it too :-) Breakfast with an asian twist

Quinoa Breakfast Bento Bowl

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 bunch kale, destemmed and chopped

2 cups sliced crimini mushrooms

3 scallions, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 slices of bacon, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1 inch ginger, minced

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1-2 tbsp sesame oil

1 cup quinoa

1 tbsp Thai red curry paste

3 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup mirin (Japanese rice wine)

3-4 eggs for poaching

Garnishes: more chopped scallions, chopped cilantro, chopped peanuts, soy sauce, oh and SRIRACHA...!

Directions

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the chicken broth and the red curry paste and bring to a simmer until well mixed. You will use two cups of this to cook the quinoa and 1 cup for the greens braising liquid.

Cook the quinoa according to package directions, using the broth instead of water. 

In a dutchoven or large stock pot, crisp up the bacon over medium heat and set aside. Add the sesame oil and turn the heat up to medium high. Once the oil is shimmering, add the garlic, ginger, scallions and red pepper flakes. Fry, stirring constantly for 2-3 min. Deglaze the pan with the mirin, scraping bottom of the pan to loosen all the crunchies from the bottom of the pan. Add the remaining broth and let reduce by approximately half.

Meanwhile, sauté the mushrooms in a separate pan and set aside. Poach or fry eggs, as desired. I would definitely recommend poaching or frying over easy to get that nice creamy texture!

When the broth is reduced, add the kale, lid the dutchoven or pot and let the kale wilt (a few minutes). Add in the mushrooms and turn off the heat. 

In a bowl, add a scoop of quinoa and the greens mixture, topping with some of the leftover mirin braising liquid. Sprinkle with some bacon bits and top with egg(s). Garnish with sriracha, cilantro, green onions, chopped peanuts as desired. DIG IN. 

Cranberry Crunch Salad

My first post in a while! I thought Thanksgiving would be the perfect time to dust off the ole laptop and share some yummy recipes. We all love the traditional holiday recipes that we grew up with but sometimes it's nice to mix it up a little. So.... what's up with the weird jello fruit salads that our moms always make? Don't get me wrong, I love my Mom's "Coronado Fruit Salad" (despite it's opaque mint green color and questionable mixture of heavy cream, pineapple chunks and horseradish) and gobble it up every year but it's time for an update!

This salad is a healthier, refreshing combination of fresh cranberries, apples and nuts that offers the palate-cleansing we crave... without being a scary gelatinous blob :-) Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

Cranberry Crunch Salad

Ingredients

• 1 package (12 oz) fresh cranberries
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 envelope unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1 small apple, cored and chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Directions

1. Wash cranberries and drain. Chop coarsely in food processor. 
2. In a large bowl, combine cranberries and sugar. Let stand 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Chop the celery, apple and nuts.
4. Sprinkle gelatin over orange juice in small saucepan. Let stand for 1 minute. Stir over medium heat until gelatin is completely dissolved (about 1 minute).
5. Add gelatin mixture, apple, celery, and nuts to cranberries. Mix well.
6. Turn combined ingredients into a 1 quart mold or 9x9 casserole dish. Refrigerate until firm or overnight.

Makes 8 servings.

Chicken and dumplings

In spite of the fact that even at 11 pm, it's still 90 degrees in mid-September in this balmy oasis, I was in the mood for comfort food last night.  I've made this twice already, and it's so quick and easy, creamy and yummy.  It's basically Rachel Ray's recipe - I think I changed a few minor things, but don't remember what they were.  I know I left out the frozen peas - those have no business in chicken and dumplings, in my opinion.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/chicken-and-dumplings-recipe.html

Here goes:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb chicken (breast, thighs, tenders... whatever you like)
• 1 Tbsp olive oil (1 turn of the pan)
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 3 small or one baking-size russet potato, peeled and cubed
• 3 Medium carrots, peeled and cubed or sliced
• 1 Medium onion, chopped
• 2 ribs celery, diced
• 2 bay leaves, fresh or dried
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp poultry seasoning (1/3 palm full)
• 2 Tbsp flour (a handful)
• 1 quart chicken broth or stock, canned or paper container
• 2 Cups biscuit mix
• 2/3 Cup Milk
• 2 Handfuls flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Directions

1. Dice chicken into bite size pieces and set aside. Wash hands.
2. Place a large pot on stove over medium high heat. Add oil, butter, vegetables, one handful chopped parsley and bay leaves and cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Season mixture with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. Add flour to the pan and cook 2 minutes. Stir broth or stock into the pot and bring to a boil. Add chicken to the broth and stir.
3. Place biscuit mix in a bowl. Combine with 2/3 cup milk and remaining handful chopped parsley. Drop large tablespoonfuls of prepared mix into the pot, spacing dumplings evenly. Reduce heat to medium low and cook uncovered 10 minutes. Cover pot tightly and steam dumplings 8 to 10 minutes. Remove cover and stir chicken and dumplings to thicken sauce a bit. Remove from heat, garnish with chopped parsley and serve in shallow bowls.

And, it goes great with a cold glass of rose on a plastic TV tray!

Keep your clothes on....

Last weekend, I made these incredible brownies - chocolate, of course, with a caramel center, and a generous dusting of powdered sugar.  Incredible.  The recipe is from the Pioneer Woman, and they are called "Knock-You-Naked Brownies."  I won't copy her recipe, but here is a link to it on her website - they are a-MAZ-ing!!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/05/knock-you-naked-brownies/

Skew-symmetric Deliciousness

... a little engineering humor for ya! I made these on a whim for a friends BBQ last week and wow. Let me just say, there were a huge hit and were gone in like 5 minutes!! They are SUPER easy to make and are bursting with summer flavor. Perfect warm weather appie!

Caprese Skewers with Balsamic Reduction

Ingredients

• 1 pint red grape tomatoes
• 1 pint yellow grape tomatoes
• ~4oz fresh basil leaves, chopped into 1 inch pieces
• 8 oz ciliegine (small mozzarella balls)
• 1 cup balsamic vinegar
• olive oil
• sea salt/ ground black pepper
• crushed red pepper flakes
• skewers (I found that bamboo cocktail picks worked well, or you could cut down some wood BBQ skewers to ~4" long)

Directions

1. Heat balsamic vinegar in a medium sized pan on med-high heat til *just* boiling, then reduce heat to a low simmer. Continue stirring until reduced by about half. Take it off heat and pour into a heat proof bowl when it is a tad runnier than you would want it for a drizzle... because by the time it cools down it will become more viscous and be just the right consistency. Yes, more engineering terms!

2. While the reduction is cooling, construct the skewers. I used the following order:
                     - red tomato
                     - piece of basil, folded if needed
                     - mozzarella
                     - piece of basil
                     - yellow tomato

2. Garnish to your hearts desire! Drizzle olive oil, season with salt/ pepper/ red pepper and then finish off with a drizzle of reduction. YUM!

Tamales

This is my favorite thing to make out of my leftovers from pulled pork tacos.  It's very time-consuming, but I love tamales.  It's worth the effort!

Equipment:

--large pot (typical stock pot)

--steamer basket

(or you can use a steamer appliance, whatever)

Ingredients:

--About 3 cups of filling (I use the pulled pork but you can use whatever you want)

--3 cups masa harina (regular or the stuff specifically for tamales - both work well)**

--1 tbsp ground oregano

--2 tbsp chicken bouillon

--2 tsp cumin

--1 tsp garlic salt

--1 tsp cayenne pepper

--1/2 tsp chili powder

--1-1.5 cups oil

--2-4 cups of water, as needed

--1 pkg corn husks

**This amount of masa harina will generally make enough tamales to cook one batch in the stock pot, about 30 tamales, give or take.

1.  Soak the corn husks in warm water for long enough to soften them up.  (They're impossible to work with if you don't soak them well.  Chop the filling up so there aren't large pieces of meat.  Place the steamer basket in the stock pot and fill with water to just below the steamer basket. 

2.  In a large bowl, combine the masa harina and all the seasonings (oregano through chili powder).  Mix this well with a fork.  Add the oil and mix well.  The mixture should be sort of crumbly.  Add water about a cup at a time and mix it with your hands.  This is the tricky part - getting the right consistency - the dough should not really stick to your hands much, but you want it to be thick like peanut butter.  So creamy sort of, but not too wet and sticky...

3.  Tear a few corn husks into thin strips; you'll use these to tie up the tamales, so be sure they are long enough to wrap around. 

4.  Lay down two corn husks, overlapping them by an inch or so at the widest point.  Take about a golf ball sized amount of dough and press it onto the husks, making a thin layer in the shape of a rectangle.  (This should leave a few inches of husk on the ends, enough to fold over.)  I like a thin layer (as opposed to a thick layer) because you can taste more meat, so press it as thinly as you like.  I use the heel of my hand and my fingers to get it in the shape and depth I prefer.

5.  Layer the filling along the center of the dough, leaving a little space on either end (to close up the masa). 

6.  Take the husks and fold up the top and bottom to close the masa around the filling.  (Make sure you have enough masa to cover it all; if not, take out some filling.)  Pinch the husks just above the masa and roll it up, fold the ends of the tamale across it, and tie it with a husk strip.

***This is hard to explain without pictures!***

7.  Heat the water in the stock pot to boiling; while it's heating, place the tamales in the steamer basket, standing upright.  

8.  Turn the heat down to medium-low.  (Just low enough to keep making steam, like maybe around a 4 setting.)  Cook the tamales for at least 2 hours and 15 minutes; I usually check one around 2 hours and see how the masa is cooking.  If it's not done, keep cooking it.

There are tricks to the masa, too - I don't really use them, but you can try to float a ball of masa in a cup of water to make sure you have enough oil in the dough.  If you have trouble with the dough and it won't cook, then you can finish them off in the oven; that will help dry the masa out.  They don't taste as good, but it does dry the dough out so they stick together.



Hashing it Out!

This recipe is so perfect for those chilly winter months -- healthy and hearty. It's great for breakfast but we've made it for dinner too! You can basically roast any kind of winter veggies you want but here's the way I made it. Fennel bulb, carrots, turnips, other types of squash and yukon gold potatoes make good substitutions as well.

Winter Veggie Hash

Ingredients
1 butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed and cubed
1 lb Brussels sprouts, halved
1 bunch kale, stems removed and cut into bite sized pieces
3 parsnips, sliced into chunks
3 shallots, quartered
8 eggs (for poaching)
white vinegar (for poaching)
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
8 sage leaves, roughly chopped
safflower oil (or other oil with high smoke point -- can also use grapeseed)
olive oil
salt & pepper for seasoning

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Boil a medium pot of water to cover parsnips and parboil them for 15 min. Enough to where they are softened a little bit. Drain water.

2. Combine parsnips, squash, shallots, sprouts, thyme and sage in a large bowl. Toss with enough safflower oil to coat and season with salt and pepper.

3. Spread squash/veggie mixture onto 2 large baking sheets and bake in 400 deg oven for 30-35 minutes, until squash is cooked through.

4. While veggie mixture is roasting, prepare the eggs for poaching. You can do this 4 at a time using this method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMiCy8EH1go

5. Toss kale with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. When veggies are roasted, remove them from the oven and into a covered casserole dish or pot to keep warm. Spread the kale onto one of the baking sheets and flash broil kale for 3 min or until edges are slightly crispy. *watch this closely because kale can burn pretty fast!! 

6. Poach eggs and toss kale in with remaining veggies.

7. Arrange mound of roasted veggies on plate, top with 2 poached eggs and freshly ground pepper. Serves 4!