Bacon-Grilled Cheese Egg-in-the-Hole

Less may be more, but so is more. I thought it would be a great idea to make a egg-in-the-hole for breakfast awhile ago, but instead of the usual toast with an egg fried into the middle of it, why not use a grilled cheese sammich? With bacon in it? Why the fuck not.

I made a coupla grilled cheese sandwiches (with Provolone and crispy bacon), punched a hole in the center and cracked an egg into it. I nibbled the cookie-cutter mini-sammies while I nervously paced back and forth, worrying that I'd over-toast the sandwich waiting for the egg to cook, then flipped it gingerly. Perfection. Though delicious, next time, I'll add a little something to brighten it up - tomato slices? Slivers of sweet onion?

Serve with The Believer and a fiery Bloody Mary.


(Note: thank you to this sassy bitch who corrected my original title, a misuse of toad-in-the-hole. Toad-in-the-hole is bangers in Yorkshire pudding, not an egg in toast. It was cool of her to call me out - it's how I learn!)

Napoleon Complex

I get a wild hair up my ass for weekend breakfasts. I'm never in a very big hurry, and I have the rest of the day to burn off the calories, so I can really splurge on two or three proteins and as much dairy and starch as I want. I can always, I dunno, go shovel snow or someshit.

This little treat is a testament to that philosophy. I wanted pancakes, but was really craving savory flavors, like salty ham, melty cheese and drippy yolks. I didn't want to phone it in with a Ham and Egg McChee™ (my go-to weekend brekkie), so I thought about making blini. Without buckwheat flour (or caviar), though, blini seemed pointless. But think about it: blini are just a savory pancake. Why can't I make a basic pancake recipe that's savory? I couldn't think of any reason why not, so I did.

Halving Joy of Cooking's basic pancake recipe, I omitted the sugar and added minced onion, chopped thyme and parsley, salt and pepper and a handful of grated Madrigal cheese (a French baby Swiss). I cooked little silver dollar pancakes, poached two eggs, and browned some shaved Niman Ranch applewood-smoked ham and some sliced mushrooms. When everything was ready (45 minutes later, including pre-cooking cleanup and prep), I stacked the little pancakes with a layer of ham, a layer of mushrooms, and a poached egg on top.

Served with some boiled potatoes tossed in crème fraîche and herbs (and the requisite mimosa), it was a luxuriant and elegant brunch. Let the diet start on Monday.

Salade Niçoise on Belgian endive

I picked up these beautiful little quail eggs at Fubonn. I was thinking of what little appie I could bring over to Carolyn's house that wasn't crackers and dip (she was making Amy Sedaris' Lil' Smoky Cheese Ball) or something that would require heating in situ, so I thought about mini deviled eggs (excellent idea, but way too cumbersome) or a little salad of some type served on endive leaves. I know, 1989 called and wants its hors doeuvres back. Fucking sue me. Greta had given me some gorgeous albacore that she canned, and I had some lemons and olives, so this seemed like a no-brainer. And after all the holiday stodge, a crisp, citrusy salad sounded perfect.

This is the difference between starting your photography at 3:00 and finishing at 3:30. Night and day, innit? It gets dark early, and all of the shots of the salads in natural light were migraine-inducing blurry (I really should get in the habit of using my tripod, but like I need one more thing in my kitchen), so I had to resort to my new lights (thank you, darling husband!). Unfortunately, I broke the reflector umbrella when opening it so I've been directing the eye-piercing lamp directly at the food to simulate daylight, but it's just harsh and red and obvious, even after shopping the fuck out of it. Look at the size of those shadows. Okay, stop looking.


I blanched and slivered haricots verts, cut a brunoise of olives and home-made pickles (sharp as cornichons, they are, but from full-size Persian cukes), and finely diced a boiled red potato. I added these, with minced shallot and parsley, to the flaked albacore. I loaded the whole mix up with lemon zest, and a vinaigrette of olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, anchovies and S&P. I added extra luxuriant crunches of Maldon over the top for flourish.

I forked a little of the mixture onto each endive leaf and then topped with a little softboiled quail egg. I wasn't trying to be stingy, it was just such an extreme pain in my ass to peel each of these wee eggs and I was in a hurry (and the whole thing was getting to be waaaay too precious), so I opted to quarter the eggs instead of serving halves. This ended up being the perfect amount of egg anyway.

Tomorrow night I'm making tiny Scotch eggs and Boddington's-battered halibut fish and chips (fagging pub grub up a little more with sweet potato fries and a savoy slaw with a creamy lemon vinaigrette).

Broccoli rabe, potato and ham frittata

I am losing my fucking mind in all this snow. We were able to drive through it on Saturday night, when it was just a few inches, but yesterday chains officially became required on all roads and the highways are closed. I don't have chains, and I can't go get any, either. We're trapped in our 2-foot drifts, with only our cupboards and fridge to sustain us, and there's nothing we can do about. Well, I guess I could shuffle through all that snow to the grocery store (a half mile away), but come on. Shuffling through snow is for suckers.

Anyway, I was frantically tearing through the fridge to find something to make for breakfast, and I found some eggs, broccoli rabe, ham, and a squidge of buffalo mozz. I sauteed a diced potato and some minced shallot, then dumped in the chopped ham and broccoli rabe (perfectly green-bitter, with lovely, cruciferous horseradish notes on the upper palate). I let it cook for a second to brighten up the greens, and then dumped in 4 (salted and peppered) beaten eggs and topped it with torn-up blobs of mozz. Into the oven for about 15 minutes. With good grainy wheat toast, it's a perfect breakfast. With a salad, it'd be a nice lunch or light supper.

Thanks to this lovely frittata, we're out of eggs now. We're out of a lot of things, come to think of it. No eggs. No milk. No flour. I can't make biscuits, or cornbread, or cookies, or anything of any value to a snowed-in person. Shit, I might end up walking a mile in the snow today.

Fry-Up Breakfast Pizza

I spent last week in Coos County, and haven't been in my kitchen since last weekend. I usually come home from these forays hungry for my own cooking, but we had plans on Friday and Saturday and so I still haven't really had any QT in the kitchen. After the marathon of Thanksgiving and a week of absence, I guess I'm still getting my groove back.

I hate to take a break for a week, and then return with some mess on a plate like this. It's not a sexy comeback, it's just breakfast. I made most of the components of an English fry-up: eggs, a couple rashers of bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes (just missing the black pudding and beans, really), and baked them on pizza dough. I also added some diced fingerling potato, chopped red onion and cheese curds for good measure.

I have a list of pickles and chutneys to crank out and can for holiday gifts, so that should keep me busy for awhile today. Here's to getting things back to normal.

Breakfast Sammich v2.0

Janelle gave me some of her hens' eggs a week or two ago. They're so lovely - different sizes and shades of tawny and heather-gray. The yolks are saffron-orange and salute proudly on the hot pan. But the best thing about these little beauts is the flavor. You can really taste the difference between eggs from lively chickens that breathe forest air, freely pecking at bugs and grit and weeds, and those from the soylent chickens that eat their own shit and feathers ground up with cornmeal and sawdust. Instead of the peaked, watery interiors of conventional (this includes so-called "free-range") eggs, these are rich and pastoral, humming with nutriment and fecundity.

Typical Sunday morning breakfast: carb/protein/fat in equal parts for optimal metabolic performance (you didn't know I give a shit about that stuff, did you). Today it's a fresh-baked multi-grain bagel (take and bake from friendly neighborhood Marsee Baking) with thick slabs of uncured ham, egg fried over medium, and Gruyère. Wash down with ample amounts of good, strong coffee. Do chores.

Ham and eggs with corn pudding and fried tomato

What to do with leftover corn and roasted poblano pudding: slice into thick slabs and brown in a pan with some good country ham and the garden's first brandywine tomatoes. This was brunch on Saturday, but I wanted to share before it slipped my mind.

A lot of things slip my mind these days. It could be the booze (my consumption has reached Scandinavian proportions), or the lack of sleep I've been granting myself (why are Current TV and BBC America so damn fascinating after 11:00pm on Sunday nights? Don't they know I have to work in the morning!?), but I cannot keep my shit straight these days. I come home, try to cook and write a little, and it takes me two hours to post ramen because I got lost down some rabbithole, reading some catty fag wax sarcastic about Brooke Hogan's exquisite lucite heels. Then, all of a sudden, it's like 10:30 and I haven't just connected with my husband, relaxed or stopped thinking in the 5 hours since I got home. (Yeah, yeah, you parents out there are rolling your eyes right now, but I don't feel like playing Who Has It Worse.)

So, sorry. You get my leftovers tonight. I'm also "cooking" leftovers: onigiri from the genmai (Japanese brown rice) and shiro maguro misoyaki (miso-glazed albacore) that I made to go with the midori-no sukaizuke last night. But at least I have a couple photos to share!

Gratuitous food porn runny yolk money shot. Skaboosh!

My first tomato of the season! It definitely looks like an heirloom tomato. That's gonna be my new thing: if something is totally fug and looks broke-ass, it's "heirloom". These fuckers are ugly as sin, but when you taste one, you'll see why they're $5/pound. And worth the trouble of growing.

Now to try to get some shots of my onigiri before the sun goes down. Sigh, no rest for the wicked.

Corn and roasted poblano pudding with calabacitas and mole chicken

This is just a quick post to get in my five for the week. I spent the afternoon at the river at Sauvie Island with Scott, picking blackberries, drinking a beer with our toes in the river, and then picking up some nice produce at Kruger's Farm Market. I'll tell you all about it later, but right now I'm full of delicious burgers and want to watch a DVD and have a cocktail, and not blog. I do wanna tell you about what I did with all those lovely chiles I showed you the other day, though, real quick.

So, it turns out that making chile rellenos from peppers the size of walnuts is a fool's errand. Instead, after I roasted the poblanos,* I decided to use them in the corn pudding. And hot damn! Am I ever glad I did. The corn pudding was so simple - just sautéed onion, garlic and corn with diced, roasted poblanos mixed with a couple beaten eggs, a splash of cream, a little blue cornmeal and a couple handfuls of grated cheese (jack and sharp cheddar). Bake in a buttered souffle until golden and set. So good scooped onto a plate with some summer squash confetti. Or sliced and browned in a pan with a thick slab of ham and some fried tomato for breakfast (I'll tell about that later, too).

*anchos are the dried form of poblanos, I forgot that on Thursday's post.

For the calabacitas (Mexican summer squash vegetable dish), I sautéed diced pattypan and yellow crookneck squash with some of my Royal Burgundy beans (they got a bit big and needed a chop), diced red bell pepper, chopped green olives and chopped dried cherries. Add some cumin and cinnamon, salt and pepper and it's a thing. Kind of like a vegetarian/healthy empanada filling. Oh snap, I am totally going to make this into an low-cal empanada, Ben!

The salty olives and sweet cherries really brighten up. It looks kinda like circus barf, but it was really good.

I had some chicken thighs that I simmered in a poaching liquid spiked with achiote, Mexican oregano, garlic, dried shallot and bay leaf. Then I shredded it and soaked it with mole I pulled from the freezer (from the venison tenderloin that I cooked for Norm). This busy plate looks a tranny mess, but good lord it was tasty. Add a basket of warm, soft, flour tortillas and a basic Argentinian Malbec (we had Don Miguel Gascón 2007 - the chocolate covered cherry is a no-brainer with the mole, but not too serious for the bright veg medley) .

Pulled pork and sweet potato hash with tomatoes

Man, we had the best brunch this morning. Best of all? It practically cooked itself.

* * *

Last night we had some long-lost friends over for dinner. Well, it's not that they were lost, but having a couple kids can sure make it seem that way (them, not me). It was great having them, but I was a little disappointed when the Japanese intern they're hosting had other plans and couldn't join us. I had really been looking forward to giving her taste of authentic American cooking - not the sort of canned corn and sliced hot dogs on Bisquick "pizza" that defines the Japanese interpretation of American food, but real southern food like slow-cooked pork and juicy heirloom tomatoes.

The menu:

• Carolina-style pulled pork sammiches with kohlrabi-dried cranberry slaw
• Sweet potato frites with walnut oil and Maldon sea salt
• Heirloom tomato salad with parsley flower vinaigrette
• Seven-spiced peach slump with ginger and pine nuts, topped with vanilla ice cream

I made my usual pulled pork recipe, but with two extra pounds of pork butt (and one less hour to spare in the oven), it was not falling-off-the-tongs tender. Tragedy! I ended up having to chop it up and mop it back through the golden fat to come close to the desired effect (the sweet-and-vinegar-y sauce that makes it "Carolina-style" also helped, as did the addition of a little gochujang for extra tongue-spank). Since I was engaged with my guests and their charming progeny, I wasn't paying as much attention as I normally would on the fries, and they ended up a bit squidgy with only crispy edges (not all-the-way crisped like I'd prefer). Oh well. Everything tasted good, and that's what's important, right? Right?

The salad was tasty and fast: thick slices of three different varieties of heirloom tomato with a drizzle of balsamic/white wine vinegar, olive oil, and sprinkled with chopped parsley flowers (my crop has bolted) and minced shallot. Hit of salt and pepper and you're laughing.

The dessert was really last-minute. I just sliced some nice organic yellow peaches, tossed them with a bit of sugar and a spoonful each grated fresh ginger and my homemade seven spice (this time with some pink peppercorns added) and pine nuts. I made a basic rolled biscuit dough (recipe from Joy of Cooking, halved, with the addition of a 1~/4 cup sugar). I rolled it out to the size of my casserole, dumped in the peaches and laid the dough on top. I jabbed a few holes to allow the steam to escape and sprinkled more sugar on top. Baked at whatever temperature the oven was already at (I think it was ~350), and pulled from oven when crust was golden.


But here's the million-dollar question: What do you do when it's 11-ish on a Sunday morning and you have a fridge full of leftover chopped pork, sweet potatoes and good tomatoes? Damn skippy - you make some fucking hash! Just chop everything (the pork's already chopped) and fry it all up in a pan using a dab of the congealed, orange pork fat that's settled into your storage container. When it's crisped up on the edges, dish it up and slide a fried egg (over easy) across the top.

Since it's actually nice out for a change, have the Hubz pour some mimosas, and go ahead and heat up the leftover peach slump just for shits and giggles. Butter some leftover wheat levain from Friday night's orzo and toast in under the broiler. Retire to your shady patio and enjoy brunch while watching the hummingbirds drink up the last of the rhododendron's nectar, and know that this is the life.

Yes, that is the Deery Lou mug from which I drink my daily coffee. No, I am not five years old.

Chrysanthemum salad with poached egg and warm bacon vinaigrette

In the spirit of gilding the (voodoo)lily, I thought I'd take the classic Salade Lyonnaise and take it in a different direction. Instead of the traditional frisée, I used crysanthemum leaves, which are slightly less bitter and impart a green, herbal note to balance the rich egg and dressing. They're sold in Asian markets as tong hao.

Yes, Antonia made a similar salad on this week's Top Chef, but I think mine is better. And you'll just hafta believe me, I really had been thinking of doing this before I saw the show, since I already had the giant bag of chrysanthemum leaves (see last week's Fubonn spree, wherein I also picked up those pea shoots).

Besides, it's not like Antonia invented Salade Lyonnaise. And she sure as hell didn't serve hers on a shady patio in perfect 80 degree weather. Cue birds chirping and the sounds of children's laughter.

Chrysanthemum salad with poached egg and warm bacon vinaigrette
Serves 2 for brunch or a light supper. Don't use an aluminum pan for this or else the vinegar you'll add will react with the pan and make everything taste tinny and "off".

~6 cups chrysanthemum leaves (this was a full typical produce-sized bag, after cleaning)
2 eggs
4 slices of bacon, minced
2 tbsp minced shallot
1 tsp lemon zest
1/4 c white wine vinegar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp Dijon or spicy brown mustard
1/2 tsp minced thyme
S&P

Stem and scrupulously wash the greens, pinch off the large stems and shake the leaves out to dry (since I don't have a salad spinner, I invented a technique where I soak them in a sink of cold water, shaking them a bit to knock out the dirt, then strain and rinse again, then place a large bowl over the strainer and shake off the water).

Poach the eggs - simmer in hot water with a splash of vinegar until the whites set up. You don't want the water boiling or you'll end up with wispy whites like egg drop soup. I crack the eggs into a small bowl and then gently dip the bowl into the water and slide them out. Note that the photos clearly show that I overcooked mine ever-so-slightly. You want runny yolks. Mine were more like custard. Hey, nobody's perfect.

Render the bacon bits for a minute over medium-low heat, then add the shallot and lemon zest. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon and shallot are browned and crispy. Remove from heat, add the lemon zest and juice, vinegar, mustard and thyme and whisk until emulsified. Salt and pepper (and more lemon or vinegar) to taste. Yes, you have just made salad dressing with bacon fat. You can thin this with a little olive oil if you want to make it healthier, but if you're eating salad with bacon and eggs on it, I'd say you've already given up.

Plate the leaves and top with poached egg, then dribble the bacon vinaigrette over the top. Add a crack of black pepper to finish. Serve with a crusty bread (we had poppyseed bialy) and prosecco (or leftover Domaine Labbé).

Wumpy stared at us and pawed pitifully at the screen door the entire time we ate.

Huevos Rancheros

I needed to take a little vacay from the blogging for a few days, because when my hobbies start to feel like a second job, I usually abandon them altogether. I don't want that to happen! I don't want to resent my blog. Also, I didn't eat at home much over the weekend.

Anyhoo, I meant to share my huevos rancheros with y'all. I have to be honest, though: while the photos came out very pretty, I don't think it tasted great. Does that ever happen to you? I feel like an imposter even showing this to you. The beans could've used some seasoning, the potatoes needed another five minutes on the stove, and I should've fried (or at least toasted) the tortillas. Oh well. Pretend it tastes awesome.




Huevos Rancheros

1 large waxy potato, diced
1/2 c onion, diced
1/2 c red bell pepper, diced
1/2 jalapeño, seeded and minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp chili powder
pinch chili flake
S&P to taste
4 corn tortillas
1 c cooked black beans
2 eggs
Accoutrement: sour cream, salsa and/or hot sauce, chopped cilantro

Fry the potatoes, onion, bell pepper and jalapeño in a little oil over medium-ish heat. Add the spices and a bit of water. Cover, and cook over low-ish heat until potatoes are tender. If you want, you can jack the heat back up, add some more oil and get a little crispy edge on the potato, but I always fuck this up when the potatoes (inevitably) stick.

While you're heating up the beans (btw, go ahead and give them a little salsa or at least some cumin, S&P), fry your eggs. I prefer "over medium", because while raw yolks are delicious, runny whites are fucking foul.

Heat up your tortillas by either toasting them until cripsy in the oven (give them a spritz of cooking oil and a pinch of salt if you do this) or fry them, if that's how you roll. I fucked this up by just heating them on top of the covered potatoes, which steamed them. This works great for flour tortillas, but corn tortillas taste stupid when given this treatment (unless you're making tacos).

Plate the tortillas, add a scoop of potatoes, then beans, a dollop of sour cream and salsa, the egg, then a sprinkle of chili flake and cilantro, and some S&P. Bueno appetito!

Heart Attack on a Plate

You ever wake up and feel like "fuck a bowl of oatmeal"? You ever want something so fattening, so boorish, so wrong that you're just like "Fuck it, I'll hafta run 5 miles to keep this off my ass but right now I'm going for it!" and then you let out a battle cry and race to the kitchen? Yeah, I thought so. Luckily, you're in good company.

For the young of artery, I present to you:

The Breakfast Burger
Yes, I am a serious as a fucking heart attack. (knock on wood)

Fry up a coupla strips of bacon. Then take a 1/4 lb of ground pork and smash it into a patty. Salt and pepper on both sides, and fry in the bacon fat. Throw some sliced onions and mushrooms in the pan with the pork and bacon fat. Meanwhile, fry an egg over easy. Toast a hamburger bun, and place the patty down, top with some sharp cheddar (Swiss would be great, too), then the bacon, then the mushrooms/onions, then the fried egg and give a crack of pepper and a dribble of hot sauce.



Look at the money shot! The drippy yolks are gravy. Serve with fried potatoes. Also, if you're eating breakfast after 12:00 noon, you can have a beer with this and it does not make you an alcoholic. I washed this beast down with an ice-cold Spaten.

Red Kale and Potato Tortilla

Spanish tortilla reminds me of a frittata. I suspect they are the Bobsey-twins of the egg family. It's like an open-faced omelette that is started on the stove and finished in the oven. A perfect light supper or Saturday brunch. Núria can probably testify. Can I get a witness?

Red kale and potato tortilla
Serves 4 as a first course or two as a light dinner

1 fist-sized white or Yukon gold potato, scrubbed and diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp minced shallot
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp fresh thyme
pinch red chili flake
3 tbsp julienned sun-dried tomatoes or chopped fresh ones
3 c kale chiffonade (2 or 3 leaves, destemmed)
4 eggs, lightly beaten (or 2 eggs and 1/2 egg white for a lighter, fluffier version)
1/3 c grated manchego

Preheat your oven to 350. Heat a little oil over medium heat in a medium-sized skillet. Saute the shallot for a minute and toss in the potatoes. Stir the potatoes around and add the garlic and seasonings. When the potato starts to stick to the pan add about a half cup of water and put a lid on it. Let it simmer in there until the potato softens up to your liking. Remove the lid and stir the starchy liquid around, and then add the tomato and kale. Stir this around until the kale wilts a bit. Give it some cracks of pepper and a pinch of salt.

Slowly pour the eggs over the top of the veggies, and let it sit in the hot pan for a minute until it begins to set up a bit. Then sprinkle the cheese over the top. Bake for like 10 minutes.

(Okay, you caught me. There's a bit of crumbled sausage in there too. You can add if you like but it's of no consequence to omit.)

Serve in wedges. I like mine with some toasted como. If you were to have this for dinner you could add a nice mixed green salad.