147: Herb Scrambled Eggs and 148: Smoky Chard Stems

It's hard for me to make a simple breakfast, or I can, but need bread. Without it I'm a little lost. Also the daylight situation in my kitchen in the mornings is throwing off my photos.

Eggs were easy- wanted to use up herbage, so I chopped up some sage and thyme. Eggs in a pan with (too much health-wise, enough delicious-wise) oil and butter, started the eggs, then tossed in the herbs soon after. My scrambles tend to be on the stove for less than a minute, product of a love of soft eggs and a super hot burner.

Accompaniment was a little harder. I decided on a quick saute of chard stems. Started some onion petals in a pan with oil, cooked until they were getting soft, then turned up the heat and threw in the chard stems (thick part had been cut in half). Kept stirring so they wouldn't stick, then tossed in a little smoked paprika towards the end for good measure.

The eggs were delicious. Not completely sold on the stems. They're fibrous and a little hard to eat. Flavors were good though.

138: Garlic Chive Scrambled Eggs

These chives had been semi-languishing in my fridge all week, finally used them on this recipe from serious eats. 

It didn't turn out quite as expected- though the picture makes that pretty obvious, and a little hilarious.

The chive stems were seriously tough- the softer leaves were a little too wilted to use- and though I gave them a decent bit longer than the recipe called for, they didn't really soften. The flavors were good, I ended up picking around most of those stem sticks though.

130: Spinach & Red Onion Scrambled Eggs

Dramatic breakfast lighting. Scramble was simple spinach and red onion (which was still good in the fridge from the other week). In lieu of bread I used the rest of Martha's provincial potatoes. Still not as big a fan. I tried to reheat them and crisp them up a bit in a pan on the stove top but it wasn't happening this morning.

125: Shakshuka

Now and then I come across a dish that I would eat every day for the rest of my life. Usually it involves tomatoes and eggs with yolks. Shakshuka is one of those dishes, and probably the essence of that dish as it's got a bit of heat.

Essentially it's eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce. Somehow I haven't made it before with this blog, but I did do something similar with purslane and tomatoes way way back in June.

I followed the recipe from smitten kitchen more or less. I didn't use as much oil (though it would've helped when adding the garlic and spices), and I subbed out 1 tsp of the paprika for smoked paprika because, well, it's amazing. Just did two hot peppers from my share, a jalapeno and a serrano, and it was plenty spicy.

The tomatoes were fresh, about 28 oz from this week's share that didn't look like they could make it til Friday (which is my next big cooking day), which I diced then heated a bit and lightly buzzed with my immersion blender. I chopped up 6-7 spinach leaves and tossed those in before the tomatoes- if I did it again I might have waited until towards the end.

Oh and I subbed out cilantro for parsley as that's what I had. So I followed the recipe less. Let's say I was inspired by it.

I realized while cooking these eggs the sauce could've used more reducing, but it was still delicious. I reduced the leftovers down a bit and have enough for about two more meals. I have a feeling there will be some late night snacking this week, especially if I can get my hands on some good crusty bread.

At the end of this project I'm going to tally how many eggs I've eaten. It will probably worry a lot of people...and chickens. It'll definitely worry chickens.

123: Collard Leftovers

I mentioned maybe trying collards with lemon in the initial post. Yeah...not gonna happen. Instead I made a lovely choice to have it for breakfast with a few over easy eggs.

The collards were still delicious, and if anything made even better with the richness of that runny yolk. Do this!

120: Cabbage and Onion Marmalade Pizza (& Thyme Scrambled Eggs)

This is definitely not a summer dish. A lot of standing around over an oven. Of course it happened to collide with one of the muggier weekends we've had in a while, so it's a good thing I don't mind sweating in a kitchen...and that it turned out well.

I followed this recipe from the NY Times for the marmalade. Tried my hand at chopping up the cabbage, the second half of the head (to be used in another recipe) was more finely chopped than this. But it cooks for so long, I feel like the flavors were on, even if the texture wasn't quite there.

Next time I'll probably keep it going until everything actually melts down, but for my purposes this is great.

The pizza crust has been in my freezer for a bit (it's the same batch as I used for leftover Indian pizza), and as I hadn't thawed out any bread for labor day breakfast, I decided to pair pizza with my eggs.

The Times recipe talks about putting anchovies and olives on the pizza. I wasn't totally sold, as I only had my paste and olives tend to be too assertive for me to enjoy. I'm trying to expand my pallate a bit so I did a little experiment.

The top half of the pizza got a thin layer of anchovy paste, directly on the crust. Then the whole thing was topped with the marmalade. The olives got put on the right half of the pizza. The end result:  quadrants featuring all flavor variations. Make sense? Part of me wants to draw a diagram but hopefully I worded that well enough.

My favorite quadrant was with the olives and anchovy, followed by anchovy no olives. Not that the others were bad, but both of those toppings added a nice savory salty contrast to the sweet marmalade.

The scrambled eggs were just thyme, with a little salt and pepper. Breakfast of champs.

119: Scallion, Collards, and Basil Scrambled Eggs

One of my more favorite scrambled eggs in a while.

Ingredients:

One scallion, dined fairly fine

~ 1/2 cup collards, chopped

~ 1 tbs basil, chopped fine

~ oil, salt, pepper as needed

I let the scallions go for a decent amount of time in oil and a little salt in a nonstick pan, then added my collards. That went for even longer as I remembered those need time to cook down. Added the basil towards the end. Then a little butter for egg insurance, then the eggs. They still stuck a bit. This pan is getting on my nerves, but the eggs turned out as well as they could.

The collards still had a decent bit of bite to them, which I didn't mind at all. They'd lost all of their bitterness, but obviously hadn't gone the length of time needed for the sweetness of that last collard dish.

What made the dish was the scallions, though; with all that time in the pan they got nicely fried. There's a flavor memory in the back of my mind for this but I can't remember what it is. Regardless I'm sad this was my last delivery scallion for the week as I'd love to put it in a few other things.

The bread foccacia from SCRATCH. Nommed well with the eggs. Good breakfast.

112: Curry Chicken Sandwiches

This is the last of the party food I'm going to post about. There was a tart, but I wasn't in love with it and I didn't actually use share ingredients for it. This one is tenuous as best (tomatoes and hot peppers), but it was soooo good I just have to share.

Do I have a recipe? No. Should you still try and make it, of course!

Originally the plan was to fire up the grill on the roof and make burgers or something. The grill grate was disgusting, and I was too lazy to clean, so I decided to make Indian. 

Actually no. The second string idea was to make some kind of pulled pork/chicken in my crock pot, that could hang out on warm for whenever people were hungry. But BBQ-flavoring required a ton of extra ingredients, so I said eff that and just did Indian. The best choice over all. 

I followed my standard Baignan Bharta seasoning profile, though I added some actual curry powder to make my life a little easier. The powder is apparently Jamaican style curry, so this may be more of a roti filling than straight up Indian, but it's delicious nonetheless.

I started this off with the chicken in my dutch oven. Eight thighs total, done in two batches to get a good sear and render off some fat. I didn't brown them a ton, but I did get a lot of grease out of them. Removed the chicken, placed in a bowl to cool for a bit and removed the skins before adding them to my crock pot.

Back to the dutch oven! Added a decent amount of hing to the rendered fat, then my spices (curry powder, turmeric, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, a little smoked paprika). Let those fry up then added my onions and some of the hot peppers. Once the onions got soft, added garlic and ginger, then the tomatoes. Added some lime. Adjusted the spices some more, then added everything to the crock pot.

I was worried the chicken would dry out/not be completely covered, so I added some turkey stock. It wasn't exactly necessary, not sure I'd do it again if/when I make this again.

Set the crock pot to low, went on a bike ride and did some shopping.

After a few hours came back, removed the chicken (which was falling off the bone, yay!), removed those bones, and put the (very thin) sauce back into my super wide dutch oven. Set it to a simmer and continued my party prep while it reduced to a significant degree. Added a little additional diced hot pepper, as the heat had mellowed considerably. Shredded my chicken, put that and the sauce back in the crock pot.

It was so good. Letting everything cook for a while liquified the tomatoes and onions. It was like pulled pork. Part of me was hoping the flavors would be a little brighter- next time I could probably add the ginger and lime to the pan during that final reduction, but it's not entirely necessary. I did what I could with the sandwich toppings: some tomato and cilantro.

I ate like three of these during the party, the perfect sloppy drunk food. And then this morning I did the best thing ever, cooked two eggs over easy and made myself an epic birthday breakfast sandwich. I would like all my meals to be this, please :).

109: Chard and Basil Scrambled Eggs

This batch of eggs ended up being rather greens-heavy, but the end product turned out well.

Started a small onion (diced) in the pan with a little oil and salt. The heat was on a little too high so the onions browned kinda quickly. This pan isn't the best, so everything kept sticking. Still tasted fine, though.

Chopped up some chard and added that to the pan, once it wilted threw in some finely chopped basil, garlic and almost immediately after, the eggs. It was a nice change of pace, the garlic still had a lot of the raw bite, and with the decent grocery store brand "rustic" bread I picked up to make breadcrumbs (probably not happening), was getting a flavor flashback to the garlic bread we'd always buy at shoprite growing up.

A little lame but totally comforting. Lovely little breakfast.

98: Indian Leftovers Pizza

What do you do with Indian leftovers? Make pizza! May be one of my favorite things when it's done well (aka with Kamal). Still, pizza is pizza and fresh is inherently delicious, even if your repeated attempts at baignan bharta don't turn out as expected.

I still had some dough in the freezer from the last pizzas I made, stretched those out on some parchment topped with a little cornmeal as the oven preheated to 450. 

Topped the dough with some leftover baignan bharta and some paneer I picked up at Kalustyan's (got another goodie from there I'm looking forward to trying). I made two mini-pizzas, one with an egg per my tradition. Cooked on my pizza stone for about 15 minutes (looking for a soft yolk and some crust browning so timing is variable) and topped then a little cilantro when it came out of the oven.

This was my first time working with paneer. It definitely helped mellow out the spiciness, but didn't realize it wouldn't melt at all. Next time I'll mix most into the sauce.

I'm surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often- it's my favorite way of using leftover Indian or chili, or anything that's spreadable but not super runny. 

Helpful equation:  __________ + fresh dough + cheese + egg = delicious. Doesn't matter what it is.

94: Carrot Top & Ricotta Scrambled Eggs

I didn't like this. It wasn't bad (it was eggs after all) but something about it didn't do it for me. I think I don't like carrot tops. I also wasn't the biggest fan of the ricotta in the scrambled egg mixture.

I adjusted my technique from my last attempt by just using the leafy portions and discarding the tougher stems. It definitely helped texturally- to an extent. They were still overly toothsome though, even though I let them go in the pan a little longer.

Lessons learned. Maybe a ricotta filling for an omelet, but not in the egg scramble mix itself. Also, let's not use carrot tops- at least, not here.

80: Scallions with some Scrambled Eggs

There is a thing as too much filling. I knew what I was getting into before I added the eggs and decided to go through with it anyway. Wasn't bad but wouldn't do it again. 

Believe it or not this is two scallions, the two purple/red ones from this weeks delivery. I thought they had a slightly stronger flavor than the white ones, but they were white as under that colorful covering so maybe it was all in my head.

I also chopped up a jalapeno (sans seeds) to give it a bit of spice.

The results weren't all that pretty.

Notes for Improvement:
- It was just kind of dry. I think the eggs got overcooked a bit. I could add some cheese next time to hide some of that a bit. Or, you know, not get distracted while cooking.
- As I said before, less scallions

72: Leek Scrambled Eggs

Flavors based on this recipe from smitten kitchen, as I had nowhere near enough leeks to do that recipe. I actually got a little impatient (and hungry for breakfast) so didn't let them go quite as long as they needed, but they still had a nice bit of caramelization. Texture was a little off- not soft enough yet. Topped with nommy blue cheese.

I'm not actually sure I like full on caramelized onions and leeks. French onion soup sounds delicious in theory but is never as good as it is in my head. I like the caramelization of browning, but when it contrasts the bite (texture and sharp flavor) present in the raw onions. Things I'm learning about myself.

The bread is buckwheat sourdough from SCRATCH, which I've been trying with everything, but haven't yet found an optimal pairing. Bread is never not welcome on my plate though.

Notes for Improvement: It's still too hot for blue cheese and heavy/savory/sweet semi-caramelized leeks. Also maybe a little more pepper next time.

64: Barley and Chard Salad

Barley and chard google searches lead to this recipe from the kitchn. Unfortunately I'd used up my roasted beets on other projects, so I tried to go simple. Diced a few small onions and minced up some garlic. Started that in a pan. Took the leaves off my chard, cut those into strips and diced the stems. 

Once the onions were getting soft added the chard stems and let that keep going a bit before adding the leaves, salt, and a little vinegar. Let that wilt down. 

Grabbed my barley from the fridge, and mixed up a little more vinegar and some of a second batch of green sauce (cilantro, basil, rosemary, something else). Mixed everything together. 

I wasn't super thrilled with the result. There was a weird pervasive bitterness I don't remember from past chard dishes. A bit more seasoning helped. I also thought without beets I needed something else a little sweet, so I added honey which helped as well...but I may have added to much. Fiddling a bit here. Luckily I only did this dressing with a small portion of the greens though, so leftovers were just the base greens and barley with a little extra salt and pepper. Oh and an egg. 

Surprisingly good drunk food. A lot of pepper was added to that before it went in my face.

Notes for improvement: 

- Green sauce may not have been the best choice with this. At least with everything else going on. 

- I was having issues with the size of the greens vs the barley, it didn't want to mix.

- The leftovers seemed fine proportion wise, so it looks like less barley/better mixing was the answer. 

62: Zucchini Fritters

I might have to start doing this in lieu of bread for breakfast. 

I sleep with the AC on- not blasting, but present and essential. This morning I opened my bedroom door and lo, it was actually comfortable in the living room. I wasn't shellacked in sweat in the time it takes to walk from my bedroom to the bathroom.

So what I do? Make something that requires turning on my oven. Yay! I used and followed this recipe from smitten kitchen. I recommend you do the same.

Didn't change anything, and took her suggestion of over easy eggs to go with it. Cooked those up in some of my basil butter.

Nommy! Runny yolks make everything better.

Notes for Improvement:
- Basil butter was good but I think I had too much on the plate, distracted a bit from the zucchini.
- Work on those over easy egg skills- one was lovely, the second went over. Sadface.

Dish 54: Scallion Jalapeno Scrambled Eggs

A little dramatic lighting for the morning?

Monstrous pile of eggs as I had (mostly) whites left over from another project I'll post about soon. Diced a jalapeno (no seeds), and sliced 2 scallions on the bias. Started the jalapenos in a pan with some of my herb butter to take a way a little of their heat, then added the scallions. When those were starting to get a little brown added the eggs. Etc.

Ate it with Black Rooster as that's what I had not frozen. It's less than ideal. The plan was much better than the fruit & nuts version, but once again it's way too hot for this bread. Even early in the morning.

The eggs tho? I didn't even touch the sriracha. Nommy.

Dishes 46 & 47: Spinach, Scallion and Basil Scrambled Eggs

This weekend's scrambled eggs. Saturday top, Sunday bottom. You know the drill. Bread is Walnut Levain from Runner & Stone I froze last weekend. 

Both started with cinnamon basil by itself in the pan, chopped as fine as my knife skills could muster. I wanted to infuse the oil with the flavor a bit. The lower pic had a few more leaves, which were left by themselves for longer. Added the spinach and scallions, didn't let them go too long before adding the eggs. The lower pic also got additional basil after I'd added the eggs.

I think I'm finally getting the hang of this pan by the way. Can you tell? I may even attempt a legit omelet one of these days.

The color temp is off but the basil obviously infused the oil, hence the paler color (also that first batch had an egg with a crazy orange yolk). The basil flavor wasn't very present in the top- more of a background herbalness- but definitely there in the bottom set. Neither were overpowering, they were both delicious.

I'm not the hugest fan of basil on its own, but when tempered a bit with scallions and greens it can be really good.

And for the record both got pecorino- went really well- and eventually, of course, sriracha. I need to be less afraid of these herbs. Or at least jump into them earlier in the week.

Notes for Improvement: If I'd just posted the original batch I'd say "add more basil" but I did that, so, I'd say it's good to do more back to back versions with variations.

Sauce 3: Green Sauce & Dish 37: Escarole Scrambled Eggs

Salsa verde- it appears- can refer to a number of sauces. Ask wikipedia. My green sauce attempts to be salsa verde in the Italian style- but it's more of an incredibly herbal olive oil. Super delicious. Super variable- I was taught to use whatever was on hand, though I guess a lot of parsley is traditional. Hence me calling it green sauce. So so green.

Ingredients:

1 tbs each: thyme, rosemary and mint, chopped fine 

1 clove garlic

4 capers

Salt to taste

Chop up your herbs with a sharp knife- I settled on the name Sweetness. Chop 'em up good. My rosemary could've stood to be finer, but I don't have those knife skills yet. Eventually. Chop (or grate) up your garlic fine, as well as those capers. Put in a container, I used a half pint mason jar, and cover with olive oil. Taste, add a little salt if you need to. Let sit for a few hours.

I don't think you can go bad with olive oil and herbs. I threw mine in the fridge before I went to bed and added a little more olive oil in the morning. It needed it.

And what can you do with this sauce?

Put it on everything! Scrambled eggs for one. I used escarole, which was crazy bitter raw, but mellowed out when cooked. I added the green sauce after plating. Added a little salt and pepper, too. The bread is Rhubarb and Pistacho from Runner and Stone. I picked up two loaves the other day.

It wasn't a conscious choice- I'd cut the two loaves in half and froze the rest, so this was what was out- but the sweetness went nicely with everything.

I should just be a professional egg photographer. Nom.

Notes for Improvement:
- Make more green sauce, vary the herbage- or have more variety
- Chop that rosemary finer
- Don't wait so long, any brownness is due to oldness, not a dull knife

Dish 29: Tropicana Lettuce, Purslane & Corn Scrambled Eggs

Maybe I should stop posting about my various scrambled eggs...but then like half of my share consumption would be undocumented :)

Sliced up a few leaves of tropicana lettuce- at this point I realize I should just throw a few leaves in everything I make- it's not really going to change the flavor of the dish much, but it'll help me work through it faster haha. Chopped up the rest of my purslane and threw those in a skillet. In the future I'd put the purslane in there a minute or two before the lettuce as it needs more time to cook, but no harm. Also threw in a handful of corn for good measure.

Added the eggs. Scrambled. Etc.

Nommy end result. The corn was nicely sweet. I didn't have a great deal of purslane left so I didn't get much tartness from it, but now and then it came through. The lettuce added a bit of texture, but again was generally unessential.

And yes, eventually I did add sriracha, but I wanted to get more of the subtle flavors before drowning it in spicy.

Dish 26: Breakfast for Dinner & A New Shiny

Sunday's normal breakfast was coopted by tomatoes and pizza, so I was jonesing for scrambled eggs. These were somewhat kitchen sink to clear out more room in advance of today's delivery, too. 

Chopped up garlic scapes and started those in a pan some oil. Once those had sizzled a bit added the remains of my Swiss Chard and some Romaine. After those had wilted added the eggs. You know how to scramble them.

I served it with some nommy SCRATCH sourdough and some sliced Kohlrabi, which I'd topped with a little salt and some olive oil- the salt enhances the flavor and fat helps deliver it.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, however, I bought a fancy Japanese knife :)

On the one hand, yes, I spent a lot on it...and the sharpening stone, and the case. But this thing will last forever as long as I take care of it. Quality over something easy and cheap. Part of my attempt to be an "Adult" and also "take this cooking thing seriously." I'll believe those things enough someday to not have them in quotes.

And! I signed up for a knife skills class at 3rd Ward, so hopefully I'll learn to not chop off my fingers. It's sooo sharp. Just need to think of a name.