Miso and poached egg

 A breakfast I like is miso broth, with a poached in it. I lower the egg into it carefully, then make sure it is covered in the broth so that it poaches. You know it is down when there is white film around the yolk.  I typically don't need to put anything else in it, but I will use sesame oil if I remember.  

Ribs

 I put some boneless beef spare ribs in a snow cookers for several hours. 

Seasoning was:

Chinese five spice (very sparingly)

Miso paste

Soy sauce

Mirin

Rice vinegar 

Garlic, Ginger, onions 

I added enough water to cover the meet. Check after two hours, and then at the third hour. Then it can be turned off or to "keep warm" depending on when you want to eat. 

It was very tasty. I made a potato and black pepper dish out of Madjur Jaffrey's Indian cookbook, and some wilted spinach to go along with it. 

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Pork or beef ribs can also be done in crock pot with traditional bbq flavors: onion, tomato sauce, vinegar, molasses, cayenne, in whatever combination desired. Or you can just pour bbq sauce with the meat in the slow cooker and do it that way.  Key elements are salt, acid, something pungent like onions or garlic. It should be tender but not dried out. Don't open the crock pot too often.  

sunny side up + pico

Breakfast / lunch yesterday and today was like huevos rancheros but without tortillas. I made two eggs sunny side up and covered them with homemade pico de gallo, which I didn't heat up, because why would you heat up pico de gallo? My pico has tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, cilantro, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar. I spooned it on the eggs with a fork so as not to have too much liquid. One of the tomatoes was yellow so it gave a nice multicolored approach to the dish.   
 

Rancho gordo

 I bought a package of rancho gordo beans. They are $6 so not cheap (for beans) but it makes a good pot of soup that will last several meals. I saw this brank at my brother's house, who is mostly vegan for health reasons. They were brown, maybe kidney type beans. I first made a sofrito with onions, celery, and garlic. I added other vegetables, like peppers, tomatoes, and various herbs and spices that I thought would go well. A dash of soy sauce and some bullion cubes, and a dash of balsamic vinegar. I cooked the soup about three hours. The broth was rich and flavorful. We ate it with sourdough garlic toast and a salad of arugula, olives, olive oil, parmesan, and more balsamic vinegar. 

Green beans

Farmers market green beans:

Green beans (handful)

1 smallish tomato 

Garlic (1 clove)

Thai Basil (enough!)

Olive oil (use your judgment)

1 small hot pepper (but it wasn't very hot...)

Salt & pepper (to taste)

Splash of red wine (optional)

I boiled the beans for a while, drained, then sautéed everything in olive oil.  Ate with leftover sausage and potato from previous night.  Every recipe, however minimalist in intention, ends up having 8 or 9 ingredients. 

farmer's market eggs

 I didn't feel like going to the store, so for dinner I had two fried eggs with everything sautéed I had from my weekly vegetable subscription: onion, red potato, basil, onion, carrot. A hot pepper from the garden where I am house sitting. Nine ingredients, counting the salt and olive oil. It takes a lot of stuff to make a minimalist meal, just like my nada pasta.  10 if you count the beer I drank.  I couldn't include berries, cucumbers, and apples.  

[The eggs are part of the subscription too; house where I am pet / house sitting has chickens, but they don't lay anymore.] 

Nada pasta

 The NYT cooking talked about "nada pasta," where you make a minimalist pasta dish with whatever is on hand.  I had some squash and fresh basil, so I sautéed those with olive oil and garlic, added black pepper, some olives, a splash of red wine; then of course, topped it with parmesan.    

So my minimalist dish ended up having 8 ingredients.  It was tasty, but a bit more than nada.  

Ribs

 I bought some pork ribs and put them in a slow cooker with onions, garlic, ginger, five-spice powder, soy sauce, mirin, honey, rice wine vinegar, and whatever other spices I thought went well with this particular combination, including some Korean hot pepper flakes. I never makes this recipe exactly the same way twice. It should have salty, acidic, pungent, fiery, and sweet elements. The night before, we had gone out and had a Caesar salad and filet mignon at a restaurant that is usually good, but has now fallen into the trap of oversalting everything: the salad dressing, the meat and potatoes, the asparagus. The home cooked meal was more satisfying.       

Epiphany

 I made eggplant parmesan the other day. Then I had an epiphany.  I had layered some slices of tomato on top, and then topped with last layers of cheese. The combination of tomato slices and cheese was great, so I invented another dish, which is slices of tomato topped with crusty parmesan and mozzarella and fresh basil. Think of it as a crustless pizza. I am staying at B's house to take care of her animals and she has a basic plant that is producing abundantly, along with tomatoes I already had.  

You could put any other pizza type topping on it, or serve is as a side dish.  

Sausage

I made Ma Po Tofu the other day, with mediocre results. I will make it better next time, using more and firmer tofu, and more of every spice that I put in.  

I had half the pork that I didn't use, so I made some sausage, simply by kneading in some seasonings to the ground pork and leaving in fridge over night. I used red wine vinegar, some salt, some of the peppercorns I had ground up for the tofu dish, paprika, and some fresh herbs I had from my coq au vin from the week before. I had had a sausage patty for breakfast, and it turned out nicely, very flavorful.  The possibilities are endless, and the sodium content can be varied to taste. I don't think I'll ever buy sausage again, just ground pork and make my own. I guess I could get a meat grinder, but why bother. 

I'm writing every Sunday dinner down on the calendar in the kitchen.  That's the night my friend comes over, usually.  I aim not to repeat myself in the calendar year.  

Breakfast salad 4

This one has strawberries, boiled egg, bacon, and cheese. It'd kind of ugly next to Clarissa's cucumbers and tomatoes.

Breakfast salad 3

This one is more breakfasty with avocado, grated cheese, and boiled egg atop greens.  I decided to leave the egg whole.  If you think of the same ingredients it could be an egg fried in olive oil with cheese melted on top or a California omelet with avocado and cheese.

I'm thinking of smoked salmon for tomorrow, with cucumbers.

Fruits, vegetables...

A breakfast salad could have vegetables such as leafy greens and tomatoes, fruits like berries, nuts, olives, cheese, egg, yoghurt.  I don't conceive it as an askesis, but as a pleasurable experience with a strong aesthetic dimension, not only in taste but in the plating. You can't just throw some ranch dressing on iceberg lettuce and prefab bacon bits.

Fruit salads also qualify.

You don't want to overcrowd the plate, so keep ingredients to a choice few. Once salad becomes a chore to eat it loses its appeal. My salads are quite small.

Breakfast salads can be vegan, vegetarian, or full-on meatatarian.

Another advantage is that then you don't have to have salad for dinner: that frees up dinner for gazpacho or cooked vegetables.

Breakfast salad (2)

This one has tomatoes, a very few greens, kalamata olives, Italian cheese blend, and the usual oil and vinegar.

Salad for Breakfast

Along with Olga and Leslie I am promoting their idea of salad for breakfast. Here is my first contribution: salad mix from Rolling Prairie food coop, cherry tomatoes from Beth's garden, some blue cheese and a blend of Italian cheeses, croutons, a sprinkling of white balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  Accompany with hot coffee.

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Variations: you can use hardboiled eggs if you want a more breakfasty salad. Crumbled bacon would be good in small amounts as well, but the idea is to be eating healthfully. I had cucumbers and red and green peppers but I decided to keep it simple for my first attempt.

Beef Stew

I took a pound and a half of chuck steak, trimmed the fat and dredged it in flour and a small amount of salt. I browned it in a cast-iron dutch oven and then deglazed the bottom of the pan with half a bottle of red wine and a can of beef broth. I added the other ingredients: four carrots, three potatoes, three large chopped onions, a dash of worstershire sauce, two bay leaves, a dash of cayenne, and a T of tomato paste.  I put this in a 300 degree oven for three hours. Then I transferred most of the broth to a sauce pan that had flour dissolved in water in it, and made a thick gravy out of it. The trick, I think, was using a lot of onions and wine.  The dish was very flavorful without being over salted.

Chicken Asparagus

I took some chicken breast and cut it up, marinating it in a mixture of vermouth and corn starch. I prepared a sauce of more corn starch, tamari, sesame oil, garlic chili sauce. I cooked the asparagus spears to perfection, with a little ginger and onions, then removed them from the wok. I cooked the chicken until it was almost done, added the sauce and put the asparagus back in, mixing it all together. The trick is not to overcook the asparagus and not to undercook the chicken. Asparagus in this dish should be limp yet still crunchy, never soggy. The chicken should be cooked through but no more, so that it remains tender.

Spinach artichoke dip

My assignment for thanksgiving was appetizer. I made a dip with

1 package cream cheese
1 package sour cream
some grated cheddar cheese
some parmesan cheese
1 lb spinach
1 jar artichoke hearts
1 carmelized onion
a little bit of kale


I carmelized the onion, then sautéed the green veggies and the artichokes. It all went in the blender, then baked in the oven for 20 minutes, with some extra cheese on the top. It was a big hit.

Onion

I took an onion and cut off the ends and stuck it on the grill without doing anything else to it. I put on a white sweet potato at the same time, and they took the same time to cook. When they were almost done, I put on a piece of ahi which had been marinated in tamarin and balsamic, finished with a little black & cayenne pepper. I served it (to myself) with kale sautéed with ginger and sesame seeds, with a little tamari and sesame oil to finish.

The peel came off the onion with no effort at all, so I had a cooked and easily sliceable onion as a garnish. Everything in the meal was perfectly cooked and seasoned, and the cooking itself felt effortless.

Dahl

I made kind of a sofrito with onions, hot peppers, and tomatoes and Indian spices, then added a cup of red lentils and three cups of water. That had to cook for a while, basically until most of the liquid was gone, with some stirring toward the end. Roasted peanuts and cilantro completed it. I put more hot peppers in my bowl before I ate it, but spared my dining companion those. Salad and grilled pork chop made the meal complete, with some asparagus from the night before.