Pork Fried Rice

Was looking for a good use of the last (still large) serving of carnitas, plus odds and ends of some vegetables left over from the holidays.  Some Googling suggested this idea for a kind of Asian-Latin fusion, took cues mostly from here & here...

Recipe

~1/2 lb pork, pre-cooked (e.g. Chinese barbeque or that carnitas)
6 c rice, cooked
1 egg
butter

Veggies - your choice of:
broccoli
carrot
frozen peas
mushrooms
onion
bell pepper
bok choy
etc.

Sauce
3 tbsp soy sauce
5 tsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp sugar

Heat a tbsp of butter and heat up your pork.  Next add your veggies and stir fry until tender.  Crack in your egg next and scramble it up.  Then add in your rice (you cooked it already, right?) and the sauce mixture and finish stir-frying.

Notes

 Great call - filling and delicious, enough veggies to be probably healthy?

One of those recipes said to start with uncooked pork loin, which is worth considering too I guess depending on what you have on hand - most everything else should be lying around!

Dan Bing

Saw this a while ago; no idea if dan bing is (still?) cool but finally got around to giving it a shot.

Recipe

Crepe
1/4 c flour
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 c water

Eggs
1 egg
1 scallion, sliced
sesame oil
salt & pepper

Sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp rice vinegar
chili / sesame oil
garlic

Mix together the crepe, egg, and sauce elements.  Heat a lightly-oiled nonstick skillet over medium, add crepe batter, and swirl to to coat the bottom.  Cook until the top is set (3-4 minutes) and flip over (maybe slide off onto a plate then back on?).

Add the egg, keeping it mostly on top of the crepe, and cook until mostly set.  Flip and finish for about 10 seconds.  Roll it up, slice it, and serve it with the sauce.

If you want to scale up, you still have to do each serving individually like this - can make one bowl of batter and another of sauce, but do the eggs one at a time.

Notes

Pretty good!  Obviously have a ways to go before getting up to Taiwanese grandmother level of proficiency overall (or even French crepe fluency).  Pic coming once I refine the technique...

Chorizo Pisto

Buenas noches!  Donde esta la biblioteca?  Tengo mucho hambre.  Quiero una cena espanola.  Hacemos pisto!  La idea viene del New York Times aqui.

Recipe (I feel like I must have known the Spanish word for "recipe" before, but not anymore so back to English...)

1/2 lb chorizo, removed from casing (optional)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb zucchini or summer squash
1 14 oz can tomatoes
2-3 eggs
salt & pepper
olive oil

Heat some olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Start with the chorizo, breaking it up and getting it a bit brown.  Next add the onions until well tender (about 5 minutes),  then garlic (a minute or so), then zucchini/squash until starting to soften (another 5 minutes).  Add the tomatoes and juice, lower heat to medium low and cook about half an hour, stirring and mashing with a wooden spoon periodically.  Finally, make wells in the stew for the eggs, break one into each, sprinkle with salt & pepper, cover, and cook until the whites are set but yolk still runs (6-8 minutes).

Notes

This is kind of a simplified, meat-ified version of the NYT's recipe.  I was hungry though, and regret nothing!  The chorizo gives it so much flavor, and the rest of the stew is essentially all vegetables so hearty and healthy.

Crispy Baked Chickpeas etc.

This post aggregates a few concepts I like, but didn't feel were really substantial enough for their own posts:

Crispy Baked Chickpeas

Drain and rinse a can or two of chickpeas.  Cover in vinegar, bring to a boil, remove from heat and let sit for 20-30 minutes.  Drain, toss with olive oil and some seasonings, and bake about 45 minutes at 400 degrees.  (Original link)

This was the kicker to get me to put this post together.  I'd done baked chickpeas a few ways before; they were good but simple enough I didn't need to save the instructions or publicize it.  Trying to use up the bounty of homegrown apples, though, I sliced up a few (to go with the apple cider vinegar).  The sweet element really added to the flavor (especially since the vinegar can be overpowering).

Eggs Baked in Avocado

Halve your avocados, remove the pit, and scoop out some more space for an egg.  Season with salt, pepper, lime juice, etc.  Crack an egg into each half, and hey, season some more (chili powder, jalapeno, etc.).  Bake at 450 degrees about 10-12 minutes, until the egg white is appropriately set.  (Original link)

Another simple concept.  It's too bad, but you really have to scoop out some extra avocado pulp to make room for the egg.  I did not, so my first ones were a little messy...  Second time around, I made plenty of space for the egg, but neglected the stability factor and lost some of the egg the totally predictable rolling of the avocado halves :(  Still plenty of goodness left, and at least more photogenic:

Marinated Zucchini

Halve some small zucchini lengthwise (or quarter bigger ones).  Heat some olive oil in a skillet, and brown the zucchini a couple minutes on each side.  Whisk together three tbsps olive oil, one tbsp vinegar, and seasonings like garlic, salt & pepper, etc.  Toss with zucchini in a flat container and let marinate at least an hour.  (Original link)

Simple again - see the theme?  Also flexible, since you have plenty of room to add seasonings, apples, etc.  The vinaigrette ratio was also helpful for future reference!

Hard & Soft-Boiled Eggs

This is a boring but important one.  I've tried out a lot of ways of adding eggs to my regular diet - weekend mornings, obviously, but also as a snack, salad addition, etc.  These are two of the easy (as in, pretty hard to mess up) ways of doing it that I keep coming back to, and wanted to get the details (really just the cooking times) on the record:

Hard-Boiled Eggs

Place a layer of eggs in a pot and cover with an inch or so of water.  Cover and bring to a boil.  Turn off the heat (if the stove doesn't retain heat, maybe simmer for a minute), and let sit for 10-12 minutes (but a little while longer won't hurt).  Drain and run under cold water.

If you make a batch to save for later, seal them since they might smell a little in your fridge.  They say they last five days, but you can probably push it a little...

- original link here

Soft-Boiled Eggs

Bring about a half-inch of water to a boil.  Gently place in your eggs and cover.  Cook for 6 1/2 minutes.  Remove from heat, drain, then run under cold water, and eat.

- courtesy of America's Test Kitchen

Ground Beef with Eggs & Stuff

This recipe probably came out of a conversation with heavy use of the word "bro."

Recipe

1 lb ground beef
1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
10 oz. spinach
2-4 eggs
salt & pepper, sriracha

Start to brown the beef over medium heat.  Once it gives up some moisture and fat, add the onion and garlic.  Meanwhile, whisk up the eggs.  Once the beef is cooked through, add in the spinach, then the eggs, and cook through.  Season with salt, pepper, and sriracha, and eat.

Notes

I was kind of expecting this to be a kind of gross protein delivery system, but it was actually pretty good!  It still probably couldn't pass off as "deconstructed meatloaf" or anything fancy, though...  As far as my own spin on the recipe, I halved most of the key ingredients but just used one egg, which semed enough for me.  I also used fresh(ish) spinach instead of frozen as the recipe recommends.  If you do the same, put in a lot!  It should look almost like a salad at first, but it wilts down nicely...  Seasoning is key too.  Actually even looked pretty good:

Dragon Noodles

Next up from Balanced Bytes:

Recipe

4-6 oz. lo mein noodles (or similar, e.g., egg noodles)
2 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1 large egg
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sriracha
cilantro, green onion

Start up the noodles.  Mix together the sauce: brown sugar, soy sauce, and sriracha.  Melt the butter over med-low heat, adding the red pepper.  Whisk up the egg and add it in with the butter, stirring and breaking it up until cooked through.  If necessary, remove from heat until the noodles are ready.  Add the noodles and sauce, and mix together.  Garnish with cilantro and green onion.

Notes

Like the first one from the same website, this one is cheap and easy.  It's also very fast - that's the nice thing about noodles and eggs.  After some 15 minutes you've got a bowl of rich, spicy, eggy noodles.  My first batch didn't really seem worth a picture without the little green touches though...

Butternut Squash Bread Pudding

One of these days I'll get to enjoy a Philly cheesesteak when visiting the City of Brotherly Love.  For now, though, it's all about finding good vegetarian options.  Cooking in this time, we gave this recipe a try (definitely the one I found most promising here (but more dishes worth taking a look at!)).

The Recipe

2 lbs butternut squash cut into small pieces - about 1-2 medium to large squashes
1 baguette, torn into 1 inch pieces
7 eggs
2 1/4 cups half & half
6 tbsp white wine
1 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1 cup shallots, chopped - about 4 large
2 bunches kale, stems removed and chopped/torn
8 oz extra sharp cheddar, grated
olive oil, salt

Peel, de-seed and chop your butternut squash, toss with some olive oil and bake at 400 degrees until soft, about 20-30 minutes (stir occasionally).  Meanwhile, whisk together your egg, half & half, wine, mustard, and a little salt, and fold in the bread chunks.  Let this sit about half an hour (yes, stir occasionally).

Catch your breath, then chop your shallots, and wash and prep your kale.  Saute the shallots for a few minutes with some oil in a very large saucepan.  Then add your kale and stir, saute, cover/uncover about 5 minutes until wilting but still bright green.  Oh yeah, and grate your cheese.

Once those four elements are all ready, turn the oven down to 350 and butter a large casserole dish.  Start with a bottom layer that goes (half of the) bread, kale, butternut squash, then cheese; repeat with the second half of each.  Cover with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes, then uncover and cook until the inside layers of bread are set - about another 20-30 minutes.  Then put it under the broiler a few minutes for a toasty finish.

The Outcome

You definitely want a team working on this one so you can get the squash and bread elements going at the same time.  We vaguely 1.5'ed everything.  No complaints about the balance; if anything, I'd do it again with a little less bread and more squash and kale.  But it's hard to go wrong when you have a nice chunk on your plate and you can carve out a bite wherever looks good!  And the recipe's cooking time may be on the low side - we waited until the inside was clearly set.  The top was crusty but still juicy; the bottom was a bit further along, but it just tasted like Yorkshire pudding...

That left us with a delicious meal, not to mention one of the most filling vegetarian dishes I've ever had.  The egg-soaked bread on its own gives you plenty of starch and protein, and butternut squash and kale are both hearty ingredients too.

Oh yeah, if vegetarianism isn't your thing (or your fellow diners'), maybe crisp up some bacon before the shallot saute?  Some chicken would go well in there too.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

I haven't cooked this one in a while, but it's definitely worth including in the archives here...  The backstory comes from when I was just starting to think about cooking for myself more, was hungry one night but didn't want to get groceries.  With help from Google and the Food Network, I found a recipe for which I actually had all of the key ingredients on hand - pasta, eggs, bacon, garlic, olive oil and parmesan cheese. Here goes:

The Recipe

1 lb spaghetti
4 oz bacon (or pancetta), chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 eggs
1 cup grated Parmesan
pepper

Get all your ingredients queued up because this moves fast.  Start your pasta.  Beat the egg and Parmesan together.  Meanwhile, heat your oil, then bacon until crisp, then garlic for about a minute.  Your pasta should be done here - add it to the pan with about 1/2 cup of the water.  After that's mixed, turn off the heat and add the egg/cheese and some pepper.  Eat.

Notes

Returning to this recipe many, many times over the following months, I refined it to my liking with a few footnotes to the Food Network recipe:

• Start the oil just a minute or two after the pasta goes in the pot.
• Plop the bacon in with around five minutes to go. It hits that perfect point quickly! One minute it looks like it'll end up undercooked, the next it's crisping up...
• I suck at cracking eggs.
• Don't strain the pasta. Just pour out as much water as you can without losing any noodles, and the rest of the pot gets tossed with the rest of the mix.
• Never bother with parsley or (ugh) peas.

After a quick but intense 15 minutes or so, you too can end up eating this:

Asparagus & Egg

I was surprised to come across this concept for broiled asparagus and eggs - apparently it's a thing? - but I was intrigued enough to try it.

1 lb asparagus - the good end, chopped into about 1 inch pieces
1/4 onion, diced
4 eggs
lemon juice, olive oil, salt & pepper

Turn on the broiler and get the rack about 5 inches below.  Put 1-2 tbsp oil in a skillet and heat it in the oven.  Add the vegetables and coat in the oil, then cook until lightly browned, a few minutes.  Clear the center of the skillet and crack in the eggs.  Cook until set but still runny (could be as quick as a minute or two).  Sprinkle with lemon juice, salt, and pepper, and eat.

I made it as a hearty side for a steak, which overall worked out pretty well, i.e., I didn't go hungry.  I reduced the portion size but not proportionally - could have used another egg and (a lot) less onion.  Not sure I nailed it but worth trying again.  Spargel!