Chard and Cheddar Omelet

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 cups chopped swiss chard
• pinch anise seed
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
• salt and pepper

I put the cast iron pan on medium heat. Tossed in a pinch of anise seed and let it heat up so the oils release.

I cracked 3 eggs and beat with a fork until completely blended. I added 2 TBSP of cold water and beat to smooth.

I then added 1 tbsp of butter and tossed in the cleaned, and chopped chard, sautéing quickly. It is done in two minutes of so. I removed from heat and set aside, scraping the pan to remove all the chard.

I added 1 tbsp of butter and tilted the pan to make sure every inch is covered with butter. I poured the beaten eggs and tilted again to spread evenly. Then I lift the pan up and drop it, bang-bang, to get the bubbles out. It seems to make it really set, somehow. Turn the heat down to medium-low.

While it cooked a bit, I grated 1/4 inch slice of sharp cheddar cheese, about 1/4 cup. I sprinkled it over the eggs. Added some salt and pepper, then spread the cooked chard over this.

When spreading the cheese and chard, make sure to leave about 1/2 and inch clear from the edges so when you fold it over, it will “seal’ and not gape open with chard leaking out.  As soon as the egg is set, slide out on a plate, folding it over as you place it on the plate.

While there is not very much cheddar, it adds just the right amount of creaminess to offset the slightly sharp flavor of the chard. The aromatic anise is exquisite with eggs.

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Baked Eggs with Bacon and Kale

My best friend treated me to breakfast at The Little Griddle last week and I enjoyed a delicious baked egg dish served in a small cast iron skillet. It was made with bacon, eggs, and spinach and topped with panko and parmesan. It was delicious, so much so I wanted to try to recreate it in spirit, if not in form. I don’t have the right size skillet, so I used a small baking dish.

I decided to go with kale rather than spinach. I love spinach in salads and in spanokopita, but in cooking, I am very much in agreement with Imani Grandy. You think you have enough and you start cooking it and it disappears.

Is there a vegetable that’s a bigger liar than spinach?

— Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) March 21, 2018

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It took me five trials to get it right. The first three times, it still tasted good, but getting the eggs baked so the yolks remained soft and runny while the panko toasted was tricky. If the panko was toasted, the egg yolks were hard, broiling resulted in toasted panko with semi-raw eggs. I tried different temperatures but finally succeeded by baking the eggs until nearly done before adding the panko and broiling. During my trials, I tried different spices and discovered that I really liked sage and cinnamon the most. However, cumin and red pepper flakes was also tasty. So was cinnamon and cayenne. I decided on going with sage and cinnamon to satisfy my love of umami. So here goes.

Ingredients

• 2 slices of bacon, cut into small cubes
• 1/2 tsp of dried sage
• 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 cup diced yellow onions
• 1 stem of kale, cleaned and stripped off the stem, chopped finely
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 2 eggs
• salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. Put a skillet on medium heat, add bacon, sage, cinnamon, salt, and pepper. Sauté until the aroma fills the room.
3. Add onions and kale and continue to cook until done. Ideally, the bacon, onions, and kale are all the same size.
4. Remove from heat and place in the bottom of a small baking dish or two ramekins. If you have a small enough skillet, you can leave it in the skillet and skip this step.
5. Put 1/2 cup of sour cream on top of the spinach and bacon. You could use cream or yogurt. Don’t stir it in, lay it in top because the eggs bake into it, sort of like coddled eggs.
6. Carefully crack two eggs and lay on top. Add salt and pepper and bake for about 10 minutes.
7. After 10 minutes, check the eggs, the whites should be close to done and the yolks still runny. This can be anywhere from 10 to 12 minutes, depending on your stove and the size of the eggs.
8. Remove from oven and sprinkle with panko all over the top. Turn oven to broil
9. Broil for 3 to 5 minutes. Keep your eye on it so the panko does not burn.

Needless to say, this is delicious. I would not experiment over and over on the same recipe for two weeks if I were not trying to get to something perfectly delicious. In many ways, this is like coddled eggs, but I didn’t have cream and love sour cream with kale so much I had no interest in buying cream for an authentic coddled egg. If I had cream, then I would have needed to add some parmesan to get a bit of sour flavor to counter the sweetness of the cream. I thought sour cream easier and even tastier.

I think this dish could be made with collards, mustard greens, spinach (obviously), kale, and any other flavorful greens. Variations could be made with fennel, cauliflower, and more. Experiment yourself, just cook everything, put the sour cream on top, then the eggs, bake. Add panko, and broil. Go for it and let me know how your own experiments pan out.

Masa Cakes with Kale & Sweet Potato Salad with Over-Easy Egg

This was easy and delicious. I have been experimenting with masa harina to figure out ways to cook with it since I got a huge bag from Harvest Share. I’m not fond of cornbread  so I wanted to go in a different direction. I made the salad first and made more than I needed for the masa cakes.

For the salad, this makes enough for 8 masa cakes, but is also good on grilled cheese and with sandwiches. So I don’t mind.

• 1/2 bunch of kale, cleaned, stripped off the stem, and finely chopped. This is about 3 cups of kale.
• 1/2 TBSP olive oil
• Juice from 1 fresh lemon
• 1 tsp kosher salt.
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced.
• 1 medium sweet potato, peeled,  cut into small pieces, and parboiled in salted water.

Mix these first four ingredients together and rub the oil, salt, and lemon into the kale to soften it. Add the sliced onions. Drain the sweet potatoes and add to the kale. Let rest for an hour or more in the fridge.

For the Masa Cakes, this makes four masa cakes.

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1½ tablespoons  butter, sliced
• 1 cup masa harina corn flour
• Dash of Kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/3 cup grated cheese (I used pepper jack)
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Mix together the masa, salt, sugar, use a pastry cutter to cut in the butter, add milk and stir together until smooth, add the cheese and mix it in.  Divide into 4 balls.

Using a piece of wax paper, but one ball of dough between two layers of wax paper. Press flat to about 1/4 inc. I used a small bowl and pressed down to make the edges smooth, tossing remaining dough back in the bowl to use. This will make 4 masa cakes.

Heat a griddle on medium and put about 1/2 tbsp of olive oil on it. When it’s heated, put two on the griddle to cook, about 3 to 4 minutes on each side.

When you’re ready to serve, fry an egg over-easy. You could poach them instead.

Assemble by putting a torta cake on your plate. Then put a handful of kale salad on top of the cake. Add the over-easy egg so when you eat it, the egg dresses the salad.

Makes four servings.

 

Dutch Baby with Pear Sauce and Yogurt

Leave 3 eggs out overnight so they are room temperature when you make this.

Preheat oven to 450° F.

Heat cast iron skillet on stove top. Add 3 TBSP of butter and melt until bubbling, but not browning.

Meanwhile, beat 3 eggs (room temperature) for about a minute, just to get some air in them.

Add 3/4 cups of milk.

Add 1 TBSP sugar

Add 3/4 cups of flour

Add 1/2 tsp of salt.

Mix together and pour into the melted, bubbling butter.

Put in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, turn the oven off and let sit for another 5 minutes.

While it’s baking, melt a TBSP of butter, peel and dice one pear, add to the butter and cook until tender. Add 1 TBSP of brown sugar and let it melt into the butter, coating the pears.

Cut your Dutch Baby into quarters, put a fourth of your pear sauce on top, with a spoonful of plain yogurt.

This is simply delicious, fast and easy. It’s a recipe that is easy to keep in your head, too. Think of the 3s, 3 eggs, 3/4 cups of flour and milk, 3 TBSP of butter. It’s also not too sweet, the yogurt adds a nice tang that balances any sweetness from the sauce.

 

Lemon Krumkake

My family sent my late sister’s krumkake irons to me. One is the traditional old-fashioned iron for use on a wood or gas stove. It’s from Nordicware, like the one Mom had, I used to have, and everyone I know has ever had.  The other was a Bethany electric krumkake baker. Bethany is the maker of my lefse griddle, so familiar to me. I was excited to try the electric baker because I am anxious about using the old-fashioned iron on an electric oven. It worked pretty well, though it does not press the krumkake as thinly as the stovetop iron.

So here’s the recipe.  I mixed the dry ingredients first. Then I mixed the liquid ingredients and added to the dry. I heated the iron, brushed it lightly with vegetable oil just for the first cookie, and then started baking the cookies. Each cookie takes about 1 TBSP of batter. This made about 3 dozen cookies.

You can stuff with whipped cream, lingonberries or use with sorbet, but for me, I prefer them plain.

• 1 1/ 2 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar
• Zest from 2 lemons

• 2 eggs
• 1/ 2 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup of milk

 

Breakfast Tostada with Kale, Eggs, and Lemon

This took less than five minutes to make. I heated two pans on the stove, one set at about 4/10 and the other at 6/10 on the heat dial, a low and a high medium. In the low medium, I added no oil at all. I put about 1/4 of a small onion cut in thin slices and about 1 cup of chopped kale, chopped up. I added a bit of salt and pepper and a few red pepper flakes. I squeezed the juice from half a lemon on it and let it cook. I did not want it to get overly cooked, just warmed.

When the kale was about half done, I melted 1/4 tsp of butter in the other pan and cracked an egg in the melted butter. I added salt and pepper, and let it cook for a minute.

I put the tostada on a plate, spooned the kale and onions on the tostada, then I flipped the egg for a few seconds and placed the egg on top of the kale. When eating, I broke the yolk right away so it blended with the kale and onions. The kale alone tastes too strongly of the lemon juice until you mix the egg yolk…and then it’s a perfect lemony sauce .

This is a pleasant mix of textures, soft creamy eggs, crunchy tostada and soft, but still toothsome veggies. The egg yolk and lemon are a light and creamy sauce for the salty tostada and the sharp onions and slightly bitter kale. It’s fast, easy, and delicious.

Shakshouka with Tomatillos

Yesterday I got about 5 pounds of tomatillos from Harvest Share. I had eaten them before but never cooked with them. Last night I made a quick stir fry with them that was tasty. Seeing how they cooked, I wondered if they might work for a shakshouka. No harm in trying, right? Well, I tried it. I liked it. I will make it again. Shakshouka made with tomatillos is very different, but still very good.

To make the shakshouka, I heated my pan to medium, added 1/2 tsp of cumin and 1 tsp of red chili flakes to my dry cast iron man and let them toast for a couple minutes, just long enough to make the air fragrant. I then added 1 TBSP of olive oil and 1 cup of chopped yellow onions, and 2 cloves of garlic and sautéed until the onions were tender and turning transparent.

While they cooked, I chopped up 6 small tomatillos. I added the chopped tomatillos and let everything simmer until the tomatillos cooked down. I squeezed juice from one lime to make it zing. After about 10 minutes, I added 1 cup of water and stirred.

When the tomatillos were broken down into a sauce, I cracked four eggs on top to let them poach. To be on the safe side, you can crack your eggs into a small bowl and slide them into the liquid to avoid breakage. I find that if I crack them on a flat surface, I don’t break the yolks and I don’t get shells falling into the dish either. Add some salt and pepper to the eggs.

I let them poach for a few minutes, covering them for the last minute to make sure they cook thoroughly, though not so the yolks get hard.

So this made four servings, or two with 2 eggs. There is a delicious tartness to this shakshouka. There’s gentle heat from the pepper flakes and some delicious umami from the the eggs. It was delicious and I will definitely make it again.

Grits with Red Chard & Egg

So, you can make grits ahead of time if you like and even make a big batch of grits in advance, or you can make a single batch for just this dish.

Today, I made one serving, so I brought 1 cup of water with a dash of salt to a boil and added 1/4 cup of corn grits. Stir the grits in the boiling water for a couple minutes and then cover, turning heat down low for 15 minutes. If your pan is thin, check on it and stir frequently. If you have a big thick pot, you can just leave it and it will be cooked to perfection without sticking.

About 10 minutes before serving, heat a tsp of olive oil in a small pan. Sprinkle 1/4 tsp of anise and warm in the oil, add salt and pepper. Add 1/4 cup chopped onions and sauté until tender. Chop 1 cup of red chard, add when the onions are tender. Sauté lightly for
a minute or two then add 1 TBSP of rice vinegar. Let cook.

Poach an egg. You can either drop it in boiling water that you swirl to make centrifugal force keep it together or you can poach it in a microwave. Add about 1/2 cup of water to a bowl. Crack you egg into the bowl. It must be submerged under the water, but to be on the save kid, prick it with a toothpick or the tip of a knife anyway so it does not explode. . Cover the bowl with a plate. Microwave for about a minute. Keep an eye on it, sometimes it will be done in 40 seconds, sometimes a minute. I have poached dozens of eggs in the microwave and each egg seems to need their own time somewhere between 40 and 80 seconds.

Spoon the grits in the bottom of a bowl. Add the cooked chard, Place the egg on top. The yolk mixes with the vinegar and oil of the veggies into the luscious creamy, tangy dressing with the perfect blend of heat and bright tang.

Breakfast Smörgås – Open-Faced Breakfast Sandwich

I really love a good open-faced sandwich, I suppose it’s my Swedish heritage and the tradition of smörgås. Two slices usually seems like too much bread, unless I use so much filling it’s unwieldy. I also have the Swedish yen for rye bread over all others. WinCo had fresh rye bread on sale for just $1.78 a loaf the other day. Who could resist?

Ingredients

• 2 slices of rye bread with butter
• Havarti Cheese sliced thinly
• 1 tsp of reserved bacon fat
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 3 oz breakfast sausage
• 2 TBSP yellow onion
• 1 mushroom
• 8 grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes
• red pepper flakes
• 2 TBSP fresh fennel tops
• 1 TBSP lemon juice

So, I put 1 tsp of saved bacon fat but you could use butter or olive oil in a small skillet on medium heat and added 2 TBSP of chopped onion, salt, and pepper and cooked until tender.

Meanwhile I removed the casing from 3 breakfast sausage links, but you could just measure out 3 ounces of breakfast sausage if you don’t buy it in links. I added the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces with a fork.

While the sausage was cooking, I sliced one mushroom in very thin slices.

I put a griddle on and started heating it to medium.

I put a small sauce pan on and heated to medium high with 2 tsp of olive oil. I added one clove of garlic (minced), shook in a few red pepper flakes and tossed in 8 whole grape tomatoes. I want the tomatoes to blacken a bit, so I shake them only to keep them from burning.

On the griddle, I laid down two slices of rye bread, buttered on one side and placed buttered side down. I sliced very thin slices of Havarti cheese and placed on both slices to melt while the bread toasted.

I chopped 2 TBSP of fresh fennel fronds and tossed into the sausage and mushrooms.  I cooked some fennel the other night and saved the tops knowing they are a delicious addition to anything with tomatoes.

I cut the top fifth off a fresh lemon and squeezed about 1 TBSP of lemon juice into the tomatoes, stirred and added the tomato sauce to the pan with the sausage, mushrooms and fennel.

Meanwhile, I poached 2 eggs in the microwave, breaking each into a tbsp of water in a plastic egg poacher. Poaching takes about 40 seconds for 2 eggs.

Everything should be ready together. I spread the sausage, mushroom, and tomato blend on top of both slices of bread. Then placed one egg on each slice.

 

English Muffin Breakfast Sandwiches

One of my favorite things about English Muffins is that they are the perfect size to hold one egg in a sandwich. An easy breakfast can be made by toasting an English Muffin and cooking an egg your favorite way. For me, I like a fried egg best, so that’s what I make. But what about adding a little extra to your sandwich. In the sandwich I made yesterday, I put some butter down on a medium cast iron skillet. I cooked my egg in the center, on one side, I cooked a small handful of spinach. On the other side, I toasted the English muffin, melting some thinly sliced Havarti cheese on it. Put the muffins on first, then the egg, then the spinach. To keep the egg from spreading out too far, I put it in a metal one cup measuring cup and  flip it on the griddle, leaving the cup in place. It holds the egg in place pretty well. You can also cut both ends off a can of tuna or cat food, and use it as a shaper to keep the size right.  The creamy Havarti is a perfect complement to the umami of the spinach.

This morning I made another sandwich. I started with the tomatoes first. I put 8 grape tomatoes in a small pan on medium. I did not add oil at first because I wanted a bit of char….it deepens the flavor and I always like a little char anyway. Meanwhile I heated my skillet for the egg, melting some butter in the center where I would cook it. When the first tomato burst, I put the egg on to cook with a dash of salt and pepper, put the English muffin in the toaster. Then I started to finish the tomato sauce. I added 2 tsp of olive oil, 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and then zested some lemon on top. When the muffin was done, I flipped the egg to cook the other side slightly, put it on the muffin. I then squeezed about 1 TBSP of lemon juice on the tomatoes and stirred. I spooned the cooked tomatoes on the other side of the muffin. It was delicious. The tomato sauce is rich in flavor, sweet with some heat and tartness and of course, the over easy egg added a creamy richness. Yum!