Filed under: breakfast, cheese | Tags: breakfast, cheese, cornbread, egg, vegetarian
It’s been a while! I made this many moons ago and have been meaning to make some more… it makes a nice little breakfast sandwich, like a healthy Egg McMuffin!
All you need to do it stack cornbread and a slice of swiss cheese and pop it in the microwave or oven to warm it up and melt the cheese. Then top it with a fried egg and, if you’re like me, some hot sauce (I am devoted to the Red Devil brand).
This is a cornbread recipe I have used from Moosewood. It wasn’t my favorite but my neighbors (who don’t usually eat cornbread) really liked it.
Basic Corn Bread
butter for the pan
1 c cornmeal (Paul’s Grains!)
1 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda, salt
1 c buttermilk or yogurt (I used non-fat yogurt)
1 egg
3 tbl sugar or honey (Ebert honey!)
3 tbl melted butter
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease an 8-inch square pan (or a 9- or 10-inch cast-iron skillet) with butter or margarine. Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Combine the wet ingredients (including sugar or honey) separately. Stir the wet into the dry, mixing just enough to combine (I always forget about this part). Spred into the pan and bake for 20 minutes or until the center is firm to the touch.
Filed under: breakfast, snack | Tags: blueberry, cornmeal, lemon, muffins
These were the best muffins I have ever made. Another recipe from Abby’s Celebrating the Midwestern Table. I would reccomend waiting until blueberry season (June and July I think?), but they are a really lovely treat this time of year if you are not cooking strictly seasonally.
You’ll need:
grated zest of 2 large lemons, about 2 tbl
1 cup + 1 1/2 tbl sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups flour (sneak in some whole wheat if you want)
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda
scant 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup blueberries
3 tbl fresh lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a standard-size muffin pan with paper liners or grease them. Set aside. Use a wooden spoon to mix zest, 1 cup sugar, oil, and egg in a bowl. Sit in the buttermilk, then flour, cornmeal, baking soda, and salt. Fold in the blueberries. Let the batter rest for 15 minutes before baking for puffier muffins. Fill the muffin cups so that they are 7/8 full with batter. Bake about 22 minutes, until lightly brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. While they cool, stir the lemon juice and the rest of the sugar together in a small bowl. When you can easily remove them from the pan, quickly dip the muffin tops in the glaze. Let them dry 15 minutes before serving. Makes 12 muffins.
Filed under: breakfast, ferment | Tags: breakfast, egg, fermented, kimchi, korean, vegetarian
I had a great weekend visiting with my family in North Carolina, but now that I am back in Iowa I have to start feeding myself breakfast again. My roommate, Rebecca, said this was “gross,” so maybe I am not doing such a good job. On the bright side, absolutely everything in this meal (excepting the salt and ginger) is either from my CSA or the farmer’s market. Judge for yourself…
Eggs with Kimchi
1 egg, hard-boiled and diced
equal volume of kimchi, diced
Mix them in a bowl and eat ‘em!
Okay, that part was easy. Here is how to make radish kimchi:
I only used radishes and a little bit of cabbage from my CSA, but Katz reccomends that you use daikon radishes, burdock root, turnips, Jerusalem artichokes, carrots, red radishes, and fresh horseradish root.
Soak the radishes or root vegetables in a brine of 4 cups of water and 3 tbl of salt for a few hours or overnight. Once soft, taste the vegetables. If they are too salty for your taste, rinse them off. Reserve the brine.
Mix the vegetables with a paste of 1 to 2 onions, leeks, scallions, or shallots (or more), 3 to 4 hot red chilies (or more, I used red pepper flakes), 3 to 4 cloves of garlic (or more), and 3 tbl of grated ginger (or more). Stuff everything in a clean quart-size jar. Pack it tightly, pressing it down until brine rises. If there is not enough brine to cover the vegetables completely, add the reserved vegetable-soaking brine. Weight the vegetables down with a smaller jar or a zip-lock bag filled with brine (I prefer the latter method). Check everyday to make sure the vegetables are under the brine. This protects them from mold and promotes the growth of desirable bacteria cultures.
After about a week, move the kimchi to the refrigerator. That’s it! Don’t bother buying kimchi from the store; it doesn’t taste nearly as good and the bacteria cultures have been killed off.
Katz, Sandor Ellix. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company. 2003.
Filed under: breakfast | Tags: bread, breakfast, egg-in-a-basket, eggs, vegetarian
It’s strange to think that I used to not like eggs. Maybe it was my way of rebelling against an egg-centric household, or the fact that my dad’s idea of good eggs is a runny, milky, scrambled mess (to his credit, they are the best scrambled eggs I’ve had). Clearly things have changed.
I am trying to teach my friend Danny how to feed himself and not be confined to a life of peanut butter banana sandwiches and take-out from Chuong Garden (although both of these are pretty delicious). Last lesson it was grilled cheese (the whole idea was prompted by my joking that he did not know how to make grilled cheese and it turned out to be true). This time, we’re moving onto what is, according to Wikipedia, Brian Wilson’s favorite dish: eggs-in-a-basket!
You will need:
bread
an egg
oil or butter
That’s it! So… oil up a pan and turn the heat to medium. Cut an egg-sized hole in a slice of bread. Toss it in the pan and let it toast for a minute. Crack open the egg and empty its contents into the hole. Once it’s solid enough, flip it and cook the whites all the way through. The yolk will be runny and divine. Serve immediately.
Filed under: breakfast | Tags: breakfast, eggs, frittata, mustard greens, sweet onion, vegetarian
I hadn’t plan to post this but it was really good. Over the summer I would wake up at 5:30am so I could have a nice, leisurely breakfast before starting work on the farm at 7am. Most of the time, it was a frittata, toast with butter and homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam, and yogurt. I whipped up another frittata this morning with my CSA mustard greens, onion, and eggs.
Here’s what you’ll need:
1/4 cup sweet onion, diced
handful of mustard greens, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 or 2 eggs
salt and pepper, to taste
olive oil
Saute the onion in olive oil until soft over medium heat. Add the garlic and mustard greens and cook until wilted. In the meantime, beat an egg in a bowl with salt and pepper. Add the onion, garlic, and greens to the egg. Add more olive oil to the skillet and cook the mixture over medium heat. When it’s solid enough, like a little egg pancake, flip it over to cook the other side. Sometimes it helps to invert it on a plate and slide it back into the pan. Serve immediately. This tastes good on its own but is also nice with a dash of hot sauce.
Filed under: breakfast | Tags: bread, breakfast, brunch, egg, french toast, local, vegetarian, whole grain
I love sharing stories about my food almost as much as I enjoy cooking. After realizing I was e-mailing my mom with descriptions of my meals and new recipes everyday, I thought I must be a prime candidate for food blogging. This is mostly for my family and friends, the people who would be reading my food-themed e-mails anyway (and the occasional beneficiaries of my cooking) but maybe I will inspire some other readers on a budget as well.
Last week I made whole wheat molasses bread, one of my favorite recipes from The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book: A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking by Laurel Robertson. It uses very little yeast and has a twelve-hour rise. According to Laurel, this “long, slow fermentation softens the bran particles and gives the dough enzymes a chance to release a wealth of trace minerals.” And it’s just damn tasty.
By this week, the bread was getting a bit dry and, not wanting to waste good mineral-y bread, I have been making french toast for breakfast all week. Normally I would go to The Breakfast Club, a get together for a group of friends I made over the summer (as well as a cult classic film of the 1980s), on a Friday morning. This morning, however, they prepared hot 7-grain cereal from Paul’s Grains in Laurel, Iowa with sorghum. Since I’ve never been able to choke the stuff down, I stayed home and used up the last of my bread.
I love french toast because it is exponentially more delicious than the time you put into it, which is about 10 minutes for me. I use eggs that I buy from my CSA farmer and organic milk from Kalona, Iowa, an Amish community about a half hour away. I just eyeball my measurements but I’ve given you a starting point to play around with.
Caroline’s Single Serving Healthy French Toast
2 slices whole grain bread
1 egg
1 tbl skim milk
1/4 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon (optional)
2 tbl olive oil, for frying
honey, to serve
Beat egg, milk, and salt together in a small mixing bowl.
Dip the bread in the batter, even let it soak for a minute or two. Heat a skillet with olive oil on medium hear. Sprinkle some cinnamon on the bread if you like. Fry the bread and wait for it to brown. I usually do about two minutes per side, but you should check to see how long it takes to brown the first time you make it. Every skillet distributes heat differently and mine are crappy ones I inherited with my rented apartment (along with a George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine). Remove from heat, drizzle with honey (or whatever topping you prefer… honey is a good local option- I can buy it at my farmer’s market- and I like it better than maple syrup), and chow down!
Me and honey bear in the morning!
