Scalloped Potatoes

Scalloped potatoes are one of my favourite holiday side-dishes. They're quite cooperative - you can generally cook them at whatever temperature you are already using for your ham or turkey or other festive fare (simply adjust the time), and require little minding once they go into the oven. Classic, simple, and satisfying.

These are the antithesis of fast food - a slow-baking, satisfying dish that yields the unexpected dividend of being a terrific breakfast dish the next day - topped with a sunny-side or poached egg, or diced and turned into Spanish tortilla (in which case, add more garlic).

Made with milk rather than cream (but no less creamy), and with a nice sprinkle of cheese at the end, these are richer tasting than they really are. If you're having a large holiday feast with many dishes, you can easily get six servings out of this, and if you're having a pared-down holiday dinner, it serves four generously.

Scalloped Potatoes

The way my mother used to make them

Makes a 9x9 inch baking dish
Serves 4 - 6

1 kilogram half-waxy potatoes (such as Yukon Gold)
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (approximately)
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup coarsely grated parmesan cheese
Kosher or coarse sea salt
nutmeg

Prepare your 9x9 baking dish by lightly buttering or oiling it. Preheat your oven to 350-375 F if you don't have anything else already requiring a specific temperature.

Peel the potatoes and slice them thinly, but not quite paper thin (I disagree with the venerable Martha Stewart on that one). Peel and dice the onion. Place 1 tablespoon of flour in a very fine sieve and have it within easy reach.

Place a layer of potatoes in the baking dish, slightly overlapping the edges like fish scales. Sprinkle sparingly with salt, add about a third of the onions, and use the sieve to dust a small amount of the flour evenly over the entire dish. Repeat until you have run out of potatoes (no need to flour the final, top of the potatoes, though a further pinch of salt there is fine). You shouldn't need more flour for the layering stage than the initial tablespoon - go easy, to prevent the dish from becoming gluey.

Shake together the milk and the other tablespoon of flour, and pour it gently over the potatoes, making sure the whole top layer of potatoes gets wet with the milk. The milk should only come up about half way through the stack of potatoes - they should not be swimming in milk!

Cover the baking dish with foil, and place in the oven (I like to put a drip tray under it, in case the milk boils over) to bake for 45 minutes to one hour (test with a knife - it should slide easily through the potatoes with no resistance). If, due to the varied times and temperatures of your other dishes, your potatoes are done earlier than you need, simply remove them from the oven and hold them aside (still covered with foil) until about 15 minutes before you want to serve them (perfect resting time for a roast chicken, or duck, for example), before going on to the next step.

Remove the foil, and sprinkle evenly with the cheese. Sprinkle a delicate, tiny amount of nutmeg over the whole dish, and return, uncovered, to the oven to cook for another 15 minutes or until the top is lightly golden on the edges (or more deeply browned, if that's your preference).

Use a flipper-type spatula to loosen the edges, cut into portions, and serve.

Breakfast at Home: Rösti (Swiss and German Hashbrowns)

Rösti are essentially a Swiss version of hashbrowns, specific to the German-speaking part of Switzerland, and differentiated geographically by an imaginary border called the Röstigraben ("rösti ditch") from its French-speaking and Italian-speaking neighbours.

Rheinisch Germany seems to enjoy rösti most often at lunchtime. These are often called Tellerrösti ("plate rösti") and are almost the size of the plate that they arrive on. To make it a complete meal, the rösti usually has various toppings: ham, mushrooms, and/or cheese are popular choices. Where cheese is added, they're usually popped under the broiler for a few minutes to melt it into bubbly goodness.

If rösti seem a bit similar to latkes or other potato pancakes (especially the smaller ones, or ones that are made with a ragged edge), indeed they are. However, there are some telling differences. The primary discrepancy is that latkes normally call for egg, and often flour as a binder, making it more of a fritter, whereas rösti rely solely on the starch in the potato to hold them together. Here in Germany there is something of an analogue for that, too, which is the deep-fried Reibekuchen (also called Kartoffelpuffer). These potato and onion fritters served with smooth applesauce or ketchup, are popular local festival fare. Not quite a latke, not quite a pakora.

There appears to be much disagreement about the perfect rösti recipe: what kind of potato to use, floury or starchy? Start with raw, par-boiled, or fully cooked potatoes? Should you add onion? Can you add tiny cubes of ham? Do you fry it it butter or oil or pork fat or duck fat? Should you leave the edges natural (ie: ragged) or should you pat them into place, or use a swirling motion with the pan to round the edges out naturally? Pan fry, or shallow fry?

The good news is that the lack of a definitive recipe means that you can lean toward your own preferences, without feeling like you're doing it wrong. And if anyone tells you otherwise, they can make their own rösti.

That being said, I like to use cold, fully cooked potatoes for my rösti, for three reasons: 1) I don't have to squeeze liquid out of the raw potato shreds; 2) the potato shreds are easier to compress into a cohesive mass; and 3) the cooking time is shorter. I just make sure to boil a few extra potatoes the night before.

Rösti

Makes 1 (6-inch rösti)
Total Prep & Cooking time: 15 minutes

1 medium* potato, such as Yukon Gold, cooked and cooled completely (overnight in the fridge is great)
large pinch kosher salt
1 - 2 tablespoons grated onion (optional)
1/2 - 1 tablespoon butter (duck fat is also nice, if you have it)

The potato can have the peel on or off, it's entirely up to you.

In an 8" skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, dry your potato well with paper towel, and grate it on a medium-large-holed grater onto a cutting board. If you are adding onions, grate them separately.

When the butter is hot, add the potato strands all at once into the pan, and spread them about loosely and evenly. Sprinkle with salt, and add any onions (you can also use finely sliced green onion here).

Using a spatula, pat the potato mass into a nice, rounded shape, pressing down from time to time to ensure good contact with the bottom. Do not "stir" the potatoes. You want the ones touching the bottom of the pan to crisp up and get beautifully golden, and that takes a little time. If you have a lot of potato, it will be a thicker cake, and may take a little longer.

Continue to press the potato cake from time to time, both around the edges and across the top, to compact the potatoes into a cohesive cake. Use firm, but gentle pressure - you don't want to mash the potato strands, but you do want them to hold together. Check the temperature and make sure that the potatoes are sizzling, but not burning. Reduce the heat, if necessary.

When the bottom has developed a golden brown and delicious crust (this takes about 5 to 7 minutes, I find), you are ready to flip it over. Use the widest turning spatula that you have and move fast, if you're confident. If you're not confident, or if despite your best efforts, the potato isn't holding together as nicely as you would like, slide the rösti out of the skillet onto a plate. Cover the rösti with an inverted plate, and flip it over so the crisp bottom side is now on top. Slide the rösti back into the skillet with the crisp side up, and continue to cook for about another five minutes. The thicker the rösti, the longer it takes to cook through, especially if you're adding raw ingredients into the mix.

Slide the rösti onto your plate and you're ready to go - add a layer of ham and cheese and give it a quick broil, or top it with poached eggs and hollandaise for a fantastic breakfast.

You can make your rösti quite large, with multiple potatoes, in which case the inverted-plate method of flipping it over is pretty much essential. The finished rösti can then be sliced into wedges or quarters, as you like. For a thick rösti, you might consider finishing it in the oven, especially if you have eggs to poach or hollandaise to stir.

I realize that none of the above tells you how to pronounce "rösti", and the pronunciation itself is somewhat regional. The tricky bits are the ö which is pronounced somewhere between the "o" in 'dog' and the "oo" in 'good'. The s is pronounced "sh". So... rushti is not that far off, while still not being all that close. I'm sorry.



*How big is a "medium" potato? I use one about the size of my fist, but your mileage (and your fist) may vary. That's about 200 grams raw weight.

Dutch Baby, aka Popover Pancake

Wow, there's a lot of names for this one. In addition to Dutch Baby and Popover Pancakes, they are also called Dutch Puffs, Puff(ed) Pancakes, Oven Pancakes, and German Pancakes, although they don't seem much like the pfannkuchen I've seen so far here in Germany. Probably a few other names that I've missed, too. It is essentially the kissing cousin of Yorkshire Pudding (minus the dripping), and is frequently served drenched in butter, and/or preserves or syrups. You know, like pancakes. A fan of the classics will want to top it with lemon juice and confectioner's sugar. Lunatics like me might periodically tend toward toppings such as thick fruit yoghurt (or breakfast fruit Quark), or peanut butter (either you'll find that sounds delightful or abominable, I'm afraid. I go one further, and add syrup on top of the peanut butter). Some versions call for laying apples in caramel on the bottom, before the batter goes in, or simply laying the apple slices on top of the batter before it goes into the oven. Those are pretty good, too.

That being said, you could certainly just fill the otherwise empty crater of the finished pancake with sausages and fried onions, and I wouldn't turn that down, either.

Pancake politics aside, these are breathtakingly easy to make. If you've got a cast iron skillet, all the better, as this is cooked at high heat (notorious enemy of non-stick and plastic handles). A steel skillet should also work pretty well. I've used my 10 3/4 inch cast iron skillet for this one.

Dutch Baby
Serves 2

3 large eggs (at room temperature)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup whole milk
pinch kosher salt
2 tablespoons butter

In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk until smooth. Add the flour slowly, whisking as you go, until it is all blended together. Add the milk and the pinch of salt, and continue to whisk until smooth. Set aside to rest while you preheat the oven.

Preheat the oven (rack in the middle) to 425 F. At the same time, preheat your cast iron skillet over medium heat on the stove-top (you could preheat it in the oven, but then the butter might burn when you add it). When the oven is fully preheated, and the skillet is nicely hot, but not smoking, add the butter, and swirl it around so that it is completely melted, and evenly coats the bottom of the pan.

Scrape the batter all at once into the hot, buttered skillet, and immediately place the skillet in the oven. Do not cover the skillet. Bake until the pancake has puffed up like a popover, and the edges are browned and start to pull away from the pan. This should take about 15 minutes, depending on your oven, so keep an eye on it. This time could be put to excellent use frying up some bacon.

Once the edges are nicely golden brown and puffed, remove the pancake from the oven and serve it up hot.

Note that this is not a soufflé, or a true popover. The middle will begin to deflate a bit as soon as it comes out of the oven, giving a softer, more sponge-like texture to the interior of the finished pancake.

Breakfast at Home: Savoury Breakfast Polenta

This post barely qualifies as a recipe - it's more of a serving suggestion. Remember the Orange Breakfast Polenta from last August? I've been wanting to do a savoury version, and sausage with egg seemed the perfect solution.

At it's simplest, the recipe is this: Make up your favourite soft polenta recipe, top with crumbled sausage and a poached (or fried, basted, or steamed) egg - or two, ideally cooked soft or medium-soft. Season according to preference - hot sauce, fresh herbs, black pepper, really, there's a lot of options. You could even dust a little parmesan over the top, although it's not strictly speaking necessary. I should note that it's easier to make if you are starting with loose sausage meat, rather than the kind pressed into casings. If you can only get the kind in casings, slit them open to remove the meat before you get started - there's a bit too much going on at once to muck about trying to squeeze sausages out of their skins while preparing the polenta and/or eggs.

For a vegetarian or vegan version, you would need a veggie ground sausage, of course, or perhaps avoid the processed option with a sauteed mixture of seasoned mushrooms, walnuts and brown lentils (and maybe a bit of green onion), plus whatever tweaks you prefer to remove the dairy from the polenta (remove entirely, or replace with non-sweet almond milk or soy milk, or even pureed silken tofu). Egg or not, depending on which way you roll.

For the traditional version, break open your soft-cooked eggs so that the yolk escapes into the rest of the dish. Each bite brings you a mouthful of hot, creamy polenta, savoury sausage, and a bit of soft egg yolk. Your bowl will be empty, and your tummy full, in no time.

Breakfast at home: Biscuits & Gravy Skillet Breakfast

Have you ever wanted to have biscuits and gravy for breakfast, but also wanted it to be super easy? The answer, which you have surely already guessed, is to cook them in the same pan. I saw a picture of this somewhere on the internet, and decided to make it using my own recipes, instead of boxed mixes.

Technically, the only real time-saver here is that you do not need to get out a baking sheet for the biscuits (or wash the baking sheet afterward) but it still feels like a win. You want to scale your batch of biscuits to just as many as will fit in your skillet, otherwise you'll have to break out the baking sheet anyway. This was a very hearty breakfast for two, using 340 grams of sausage, and half of a slightly modified version of my classic biscuit recipe (ie, a biscuit recipe calling for only one cup of flour). You can find the classic biscuit recipe in this link. Ah, but you've noticed that I said a modified version of that recipe: well, it couldn't be a simpler modification - I simply added a little extra milk (two to three tablespoons) so that you have a sticky, wet dough, instead of a regular biscuit dough. That's because I decided to go with a "drop biscuit" method rather than a rolled/patted biscuit - but I also note that you don't have to use drop biscuits for this - the regular biscuit method would also work just as well (although it does require an additional step of patting out the dough and cutting it into biscuit shapes of your choice).

So, after all of that talk about biscuits, what about the gravy? Well, you need to start with the gravy, of course, since it goes on the bottom. You can use any white sausage gravy that you like - perhaps this one from my previous, more traditional Biscuits & Gravy post.

Preheat your oven to 425-450 F (depending on how hot your oven runs), with a rack in the middle position. Make sure your skillet will actually fit in your oven - this can be a problem with larger skillets and apartment-sized ovens, and it really sucks. Make sure yours fits, even if you have to scale your recipe down to a smaller pan size.

Start with the gravy, which you make in your skillet, on the stovetop. Good white gravy takes time for the raw flour taste to cook out of it, so the gravy won't be at all harmed by continuing to simmer on low heat while you mix the biscuit dough.

So, now that your gravy is (gently) bubbling away on the stove, take three minutes (give or take) to whip up a batch of biscuits. If you're using drop biscuits, as soon as they are mixed, you can use a tablespoon to dollop the dough evenly over the top of the gravy. Try to to this quickly, so that the biscuits cook evenly. If you are patting out your biscuit dough and cutting rounds, once the biscuits are all cut out, lay them onto the gravy.

As soon as all the biscuits are in the skillet, move the skillet to the oven (uncovered), and set your timer for 15 minutes. If the biscuits are golden, like these ones, take them out and spoon them into serving bowls, along with the gravy itself, of course. If your biscuits are still pale, maybe crank the broiler on and give them another few minutes.



The biscuits will be amazingly tender, acting a bit like a steamed dumpling. The bottom of each dumpling is thoroughly drenched in gravy flavour, and you will not need a knife to cut them; just scoop up delicious mouthfuls of biscuit and gravy with a fork or spoon, as you see fit.

Now, if you're the sort of person that doesn't consider it breakfast without eggs, just poach or fry up some eggs while the biscuits are in the oven, and serve them right on top of the dished-up biscuits and gravy.

Bacon Cheddar Cauliflower Quiche

Good news! My kitchen has now arrived from Canada. Some attrition, unfortunately - my mother's ceramic bread bowl did not make it in one piece, my Lagostina Dutch Oven arrived misshapen and with a dented lid, and my 8" square tempered glass pan was shattered into fragments. The spider was bent out of shape (but has now been bent back into shape, more or less), and the plastic smoothie-blending cup was also broken. Sigh. The packers appear to have had no concept of load shift.

So now, I get to reassemble my spice collection, purchase some staple items (flour, cornstarch, yeast, baking powder, live herbs for the window sill in the kitchen, for example), draft some dinner menus, get cooking, and take some pictures!

In the meantime, please consider this delightful quiche as a brunch option:

Bacon Cheddar Cauliflower Quiche

You will need:

- Your favourite pie crust, lining the pie plate of your choice (this one is a small, six-inch (?) pie plate).
- crisply cooked bacon, crumbled finely, enough to cover the bottom of the pastry
- a layer of grated cheddar
- enough cooked cauliflower to loosely cover the layers below it (make sure the cauliflower is not wet)
- another layer of grated cheddar
- a royale mixture (eggs beaten with milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce, any any other seasoning you like)

For a 9" quiche I use a royale made from 3 eggs and 2/3 cup of 1% milk, but you can use any set-custard ratio that pleases you, sized for whatever pan you are using.

Pour the royale carefully over the other ingredients so that they maintain their positions. If you like a golden, glossy crust, dip a brush in the royale and carefully brush a little over the exposed upper portion of the crust.

Preheat your oven to 350 F and bake for 45 to 50 minutes (for a full sized quiche, a bit less for a smaller one - start checking at 30 minutes), or until the crust is golden and the filling is slightly puffed and firmly set. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before cutting, for easiest removal.

Here it is "in the raw", just before it went into the oven:

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Bacon Fat Biscuits

I'm not sure, but this might encompass all of the above principles: reduce the amount of groceries purchased (no extra purchase of solid fat for baking); reuse the fat drained from cooking bacon; recycle the fat into an entirely different dish. Okay, those last two are kind of similar, but I'm giving it points because the re-use is not for the same dish or type of cooking, and because it's actually incorporated into the recipe as opposed to simply being a cooking medium (the usual fate of reused fats, if I'm not mistaken). It's economical and delicious!

The biscuits shown above were made with unstrained bacon fat, which is why they are a bit flecked in appearance. To get a less speckled effect, you can strain the fat through a fine sieve (or possibly cheesecloth) to get a more homogenous, lard-white colour. I also was using (solid) bacon fat that was a little on the soft side, which actually seems to inhibit rising a bit; these could be taller.

You can do a straight-up substitution of whatever butter/lard/shortening etc. that you currently use for biscuits, but if you don't have a biscuit recipe, here's one to try:

Bacon Fat Biscuits

Makes 9 biscuits, or tops an 8 - 12 inch pot pie, depending on how thick or thin you want your topping.

Total prep and cooking time: 25 minutes

2 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons sugar
1/3 cup rendered bacon fat, in solid form (chill until firm)
3/4 cup milk - I use 1% milk

Preheat the oven to 450 F.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients - to be fair, I don't really sift, I aerate them with a whisk, but do whichever pleases you most. Add raisins, herbs, cheese, or any other additional flavourings at this time. Using a pastry-blender or a fork (and a lot of patience) cut in the bacon fat until the mixture is crumbly and the little lumps of fat are about corn-kernel sized. If your bacon fat is frozen hard, you can do this step in a food processor fitted with a metal blade.

Create a well in the middle of the mixture and pour the milk in all at once. Hold the bowl steady and, using a fork, stir rapidly and briefly until the dough comes together in a ragged mass. Quickly dump it out onto a clean counter, and knead very lightly and briefly until the flour is incorporated. You may need to add a little extra flour, but probably not. Go cautiously - too much flour makes tough biscuits.

Pat out the dough into a rough rectangle, and slice into the size of biscuits that you want. Place them on an ungreased cookie-sheet and bake for 12 - 15 minutes, or until they have gotten tall and golden.

If you are using the biscuits as a topping for pot pie, pat out the dough into the shape and size of your stew-pot. Stab the biscuits with a fork to make a few air-holes, and lift the entire thing (no cutting necessary) onto the bubbling hot stew. Place in the 450 F oven, and bake uncovered for about 25 minutes. It does take longer when the biscuit is cooked over a stew.

Bonus Tip: freeze your bacon drippings in a spare measuring cup until you have enough, or create a form out of tinfoil wrapped around your 1/3 cup measure, and store it (covered) in the freezer until it is full.

These would be awesome for Biscuits and Gravy, don't you think?

You can use the same technique to make pie crust, of course. Some of my friends will remember the potluck to which I brought sour cherry pie with a bacon fat crust, the leftovers of which were served with my friend Rodney's homemade gelato for breakfast.

Breakfast at Home: Orange Breakfast Polenta

This is something a little different, for those looking for a hot breakfast cereal that isn't oatmeal-based. The polenta is soft and creamy (vegans could use almond yoghurt or coconut cream instead of yoghurt), but if you make extra, it sets up quite firmly and can be sliced and fried, for a different effect, the next day. It is a little bit sweet, but not very. If you want it sweeter, you may wish to increase the honey a bit.

We served ours with bacon, because we like bacon, but broiled grapefruit halves would also make a great side. Next time I make this I might use half water and half orange juice, just to bump up the orange flavour without using the extract.

Orange Breakfast Polenta

Serves 2

1/2 cup peeled mandarin orange segments, in juice
2 cups water
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup plain Greek (or Mediterranee) Yoghurt
1/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1 teaspoon real orange extract (or orange zest)
1 tablespoon honey or sweetener of your choice

Bring the water and the juice from the mandarins to a gentle boil. Add cornmeal in a steady stream, stirring constantly with a whisk, and then lower the heat to medium; continue to stir and cook for ten to twelve minutes. (Start with a whisk, then switch to a silicone spatula or wooden spoon as it thickens). When you set your whisk aside, it helps to be able to soak it in water right away, for easy clean up later.

While the polenta cooks, somewhere around the half-way point, add the orange extract or zest, the salt, and the honey. Stir as continuously as possible, being careful that it doesn't bubble up and splash you - hot polenta clings and burns!

After 10 minutes, remove from the heat. Add yoghurt and stir until smooth. Pour into 2 bowls and arrange orange segments on top. Dust with cinnamon or clove if you like.

Pretty, easy, and delicious!

Breakfast at Home: Huevos en Cenotes

This is too good an idea not to try, especially if you find you need to use up a bunch of corn tortillas. For smaller families, those packages of 50 small corn tortillas can take a while to go through. Sure, there's the tacos, and enchilada casseroles, and other classics like migas, or chilaquiles. But this...this is a keeper. It's easy enough to do on a weekday, if you're just doing up one quickly for yourself, and it's a hearty, filling breakfast that will carry you through your morning.

I made a couple of minor tweaks to the Pioneer Woman original recipe that in spired this, the most significant being a tiny pinch of cheese between the layers of tortillas, which acts as an anchor to keep the bits from sliding around as you flip them. If you're feeling really feisty, tuck a little minced chile into the cheese mixture between the layers of tortillas. Another minor difference is that I use four tortillas per stack, because I generally stock large eggs in my kitchen. Of course, multiply these instructions by however many people are at your table.

Huevo En Cenote

adapted from Pioneer Woman's "Huevo In The Hole" recipe

Serves 1

4 corn tortillas (4" size)
1 egg
1/4 cup grated cheese, such as Edam (or Cheddar, or Jack, or Mozzarella)
1/2 tablespoon butter or corn oil (or similar, for frying)
freshly chopped cilantro and green onion (optional garnish)
Fresh Salsa (or hot sauce) to serve

Cut out the centre of the tortillas (I used a biscuit cutter, so I had to do them one at a time). Put the middles aside for another use - mini tortilla chips perhaps? Layer the tortilla rings with tiny pinches of cheese (too much, and it will run out the sides and be a bit messy). Preheat a smallish skillet over medium-high heat. Melt a bit of butter right in the area that you're going to place the stack, let it melt and foam out, and then add the tortilla stack. Swirl the stack around a bit (while holding it down firmly) to make sure that the bottom layer of tortilla all gets a little bit of butter on it. Crack an egg into the hole in the stack, and let cook until it is set on the bottom, and starting to turn opaque in the middle. Adjust the heat down to medium, so the tortillas get crisp rather than burned.



When you judge that the egg is about half way cooked through, slide a spatula underneath the stack and flip it over. As with pancakes, a quick, confident, controlled motion is best, but the cheese melted between the tortilla layers does help hold things together.

Once the egg is cooked to your satisfaction, plate and serve. I recommend using a sharp knife to slice through the firm layers of crispy and soft tortillas.



Garnish however you like. Hot sauce, avocado, fresh salsa, cilantro, pickled red onion, bacon, more cheese...really, it's customizable to the nth degree.

This is every good as bit as you suspect it might be.

Breakfast at home: Breakfast Tacos

This was inspired by the existence of Eating Well's breakfast taco, despite being quite a different creature entirely. I disapprove of using reduced fat cheeses in most contexts, so that's gone, and I generally see no reason to add chunky salsa to eggs (because either the eggs get cold, or you have to prewarm the salsa, which is an undesirable extra step) so I use hot sauce instead. I don't generally use egg substitutes, myself, but your mileage may of course vary.

So, this is what I do.

It's less of a recipe, and more of a serving suggestion, really.

Warm up some corn tortillas in a dry skillet on the stove, while you quickly fry some bacon (cut into lardons). Remove the bacon to a plate, drain some of the fat as necessary, and scramble up some eggs in the remaining bacon drippings. Serve up the eggs into the warmed tortillas, sprinkle with freshly made bacon chunks, and garnish with cilantro and sliced green onion. A quick sprinkle of cheese - Panela in this case, but feta or soft goat's cheese would also be good - a shot of hot sauce, and down the hatch it goes! Two of these babies should set you up for a busy weekend day, no problem.

If you're not having bacon, a few black beans (ideally, tossed with lime juice and some pickled red onion) add a little extra oomph. Conversely, if you have some leftover chorizo, you could use that, too.

Greek Lemon Potatoes

These are so very, very delicious. They were fantastic as dinner, and they were a miracle fried up as hashbrowns the next day at breakfast. They are unabashedly lemony, with all the crispy-edged goodness of a good roasted potato.

We started with Martha Stewart's recipe, and tweaked it to suit ourselves. Since this was a trial run, and we were only feeding two people, we halved the recipe (which provided four servings). Next time, I'd be tempted to make the full amount, just to have lemony potatoes left over for breakfast, or as a cold potato salad. We added garlic, because we love garlic. We reduced the amount of oregano, because oregano can be quite bitter, and we figured we could always bump it up with a little extra sprinkled over the top at the end of cooking, if it seemed necessary.

Greek Lemon Potatoes
Adapted from Martha Stewart (Click here for original recipe)

Serves 4

4 medium russet or other baking potatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup water
6-8 cloves garlic, whole
Big pinch dried oregano leaves
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
a few "grinds" of black pepper

Preheat the oven to 475 - 500 F.

Peel potatoes and cut lengthwise into quarters. Lay potatoes in a single layer in a metal baking dish (with sides), and sprinkle lightly with dried oregano. Toss the garlic cloves in there, too. Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and water, and pour over the potatoes and garlic. Stir around to make sure everything is evenly coated, and lying in a single layer in the dish.

Bake in the very hot oven for 25 minutes, and then remove pan from oven to allow you to turn each potato slice over onto its other side, still keeping the pieces in a single layer. Handle carefully, the potato slices can be a little fragile at this stage, and may try to stick. Gently does it. If the liquid has all disappeared (evaporated and absorbed), add another half cup of water to the pan after the potatoes are turned, and return the dish to the oven for another 25 minutes. The potatoes should now be golden brown with crispy edges, and the garlic nicely caramelized. Remove potatoes carefully, using a spatula. Serve hot, room temperature, or cold.

Enjoy them with a side of Gigantes and Briam - or maybe alongside a nice braised lamb shank or moussaka.

Dairy-Free Breakfast Smoothie: Choco-Banana Peanut Butter

Still life with smoothie.

If you've been following my breakfast posts, you'll know that my usual pattern is a quick, simple breakfast on weekdays, and a more comprehensive breakfast on weekends. I am inordinately fond of toast, so a lot of my breakfasts are simply toast with some manner of topping. I don't have cereal more than a couple of times a year (other than my oatmeal at work), and I almost never have sweet things for breakfast (especially not without a savoury side). However, one sweet thing that I've always loved at breakfast is fresh fruit.

Smoothies incorporate my love of fruit into breakfast in a way that makes me incredibly happy. But! The thing about having fruit for breakfast is that I sometimes get quite hungry before I even arrive at work, and have to get into my first planned snack of the day right away, throwing my schedule off. So, I like to add a bit of oomph to my smoothies up front, which in this case is provided by peanut butter, and that usually does the trick of adding enough staying power to keep me in good shape until snack time.

I use an immersion blender for this, which is quick and simple to clean (or to simply rinse and leave for later, if you're that pressed for time). You could use any blender/food processor, large mortar and pestle that you have on hand.

Oh, and the dairy free bit? I have been experimenting with Almond Coconut "milk", and it adds a lovely Caribbean note into this particular version. You could absolutely use dairy milk of your choice, too, or one of the many other drinking-milk substitutes on the market.

Choco-Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie

Serves 1

1/2 medium banana
3/4 cup unsweetened almond-coconut "milk"
1 tablespoon natural peanut butter (smooth)
1/2 - 1 tablespoon dark cocoa powder

Break the banana into chunks and place in your blender cup.

Add the peanut butter, cocoa powder, and then the "milk" last.

Blend until smooth and a little foamy.

Taste, and add sweetener to taste if necessary (may depend on your banana's ripeness).

Decant into drinking vessel, if necessary, and enjoy.

I don't usually sweeten this one, but my suggestions for a mild sweetener would be a teaspoon or so of maple syrup, agave syrup, or honey, depending on your needs. I once used some whiskey syrup that was leftover from weekend pancakes. Your call.

What to do with the remaining half banana, you might ask? I generally just put a cover on the cut end, pop it into my banana keeper and take it to work as one of the aforementioned planned snacks. The short time between slicing it in half in the morning and oh, say, ten o'clock, makes it a perfect follow up. Or, of course, you could just make two servings of the smoothie, and use up the whole banana. You can also add the whole banana to a single serving, although it does make it much thicker, and more...banana-ier(?). I have done this on occasion (usually whilst half asleep).

Breakfast at home: Shakshuka

Shakshuka (aka Shakshouka, Chakchouka) is a dish of eggs poached in sauce, that sauce primarily consisting of a combination of at least any two of onions, peppers, and tomatoes. It is often credited as having originated in Tunisia, but versions of it appear all across Northern Africa, the Middle East, and the eastern Mediterranean, with variations that can include fava beans, artichokes, zucchini, or even diced potatoes. It is almost a wet hash, by North American standards, and is customizable to take advantage of whatever ingredients you need to use up. Serve with bread, for a filling, delightfully comforting meal.

I like versatile. It makes it that much more likely that I'll be able to throw it on the table on a Saturday morning without having to have done any specialized shopping.

Most of the versions that I've seen have been vegetarian ones, with any meats served separately as a side. However, I like a good one-pan dish, so I went ahead and added my merguez right into the pan (although it could have easily been served as links on the side).

The method is delightfully easy, particularly for someone who hasn't yet had their first cup of coffee: essentially, you just chop up the vegetables and saute them in a bit of olive oil until they become a bit saucy, and then crack eggs into little hollows that you make in the vegetable mixture (the back of a serving spoon does a good job at this). Continue to simmer gently until the eggs are cooked to your preferred level of doneness, decorate with parsley, then serve.

For optimal presentation, use a small skillet for each portion, and serve in the skillet at the table. Otherwise, be prepared for it to look a little raggedy as you separate the servings from a single pan.

Shakshuka

Serves 2

1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
398 mL diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 cup parsley
2 - 4 eggs

Heat the oil over high heat in a medium-large skillet. If you're using sausage, brown them quickly and remove to a plate. Stir in the garlic, onion, and bell pepper; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, paprika and jalapenos, and reduce the heat.

Stir and cook until heated through, using the back of a spoon to break up the tomatoes, about 10 minutes. If you're going to add sausage, slice up your browned sausages into chunks and throw them in now to finish cooking.

Make a nest for each egg by pressing a large spoon into the mixture in the pan. Add an egg to each nest. Cook until desired doneness of eggs. Finish under a broiler if you want it piping hot with a crisp top. Serve with bread - pita bread makes a great choice, but so does focaccia, sangak, or a nice French loaf.

Some versions use a little salty cheese, as well. I think this is quite a lot of food already, but a little crumbled feta, for example, would be very nice as a finish (especially for a meat-free version).

Breakfast at Work: Coconut Apricot Oatmeal

I'm a big believer in breakfast, as you may have noticed. However, like everyone else, on workdays I'm usually just trying to get out the door on time, preferably with everything I need and wearing matching socks. High standards, I know.

My weekday at-home breakfast is generally a cup of coffee and a piece of toast with something on it (usually cheese, sliced tomatoes, or avocado). Not really the sort of thing that can carry you all the way through your busy morning, but easy to knock together while you're waiting for the coffee to brew. I save the more elaborate breakfasts for the weekend - Monday to Friday, my solution is to rely on a baseline of toast and cheese and then supplement my morning with planned snacks - fruit, almonds, yoghurt - that sort of thing.

Packets of oatmeal are another solution. Not being a fan of paying huge amounts of money for things I can easily and cheaply make myself, I tend to make my own.

Another reason that I don't generally buy the store-bought packets is that the sweet ones are too sweet, the oatmeal is usually cut too fine (and becomes paste-textured, as a result), or they taste artificial to me (even if they're not).

Sometimes I make a bunch up for the week, and sometimes I just make one for the day that I need it. Because it's easy.

My current favourite is Coconut Apricot Oatmeal, but I also like using dried sour cherries and clove, or plain raisins. If you have a bunch of little containers like these (or even sealable plastic bags) it's easy enough to make your own variety pack. Like maple? Use maple sugar. Like walnuts, or almonds, or pumpkin seeds? Toast 'em up and add them to your mix (you'll want to slice or chop the nuts so the pieces are not too big). In fact, maple sugar and toasted walnuts sounds like a pretty tasty option. Go easy on the amount of nuts if you don't want the calories to stack up, though.



Here is the formula:

Coconut Apricot Oatmeal

Serves 1 (makes one packet)

40 grams quick oats (not instant), or old-fashioned rolled oats
1 tablespoon unsweetened coconut
3 dried apricots (scizzored into bits)
1 tablespoon raw sugar
teeny tiny pinch of salt (literally, about 10 grains of kosher salt)

If you are a fan of spices in your oatmeal, you may also want to add a pinch of cinnamon, or ginger, or nutmeg, or other spices (or blends) in the apple/pumpkin pie family. I usually leave them out of this one, because I think they mask the coconut flavour too much, but your mileage may vary.

To make up, empty the contents into a microwave-safe bowl, and add boiling water to about an inch above. Microwave on medium or low power (keep an eye on it - even in a large bowl, it can try to crawl out and down the sides, if the heat is too high or goes on too long). You can add more water if it looks too thick.

If I am using quick oats, it usually only takes about a minute or two at 50% power, then I give it a quick stir and drag it back to my desk. By the time it has cooled enough to eat, it is completely cooked. You can add milk or cream, if you like (I don't - I've never gone for milk on my porridge).

An online recipe calculator gave the results of this recipe at around 160 calories, which is about perfect for a mid-morning snack for me. If you want something a little lighter - use less. Use 30 grams of oats, 2 teaspoons of coconut, 2 apricots. Or just divide the above amount into two containers - the directions are the same.



The ready-to-eat picture doesn't do it justice; camera phone, lousy office-tower lighting, and utterly uninspiring placemat. But it tastes so good.

Breakfast at home: Chile Corn Breakfast Casseroles

These are individual breakfast casseroles adapted from "Mini Chile Relleno Casseroles" recipe from Eating Well magazine. It's really not that much work, but it does take a bit of time in the oven (time to have a shower, and make coffee, perhaps?) so is best suited for weekends. Chorizo would make a lovely side dish, as would tortillas, johnnycakes, or cornbread.

Chile Corn Breakfast Casseroles
Serves 2

1/2 cup pickled green chiles
1/3 cup frozen corn
1 green onion
1 cup shredded Pepper Jack cheese
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup 1% milk
3 large egg whites
2 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch dry mustard
Tabasco pepper sauce to taste
1/4 teaspoon paprika (or ground chipotle)

Preheat the oven to 400 F with the rack in the middle of the oven.

Prepare two ramekins (295 ml/10 oz.) by spritzing very lightly with olive oil. Place the ramekins on an edged baking sheet for easy manoeuvring.

Drain the chiles very well, squeeze dry with a paper towel, and mince. Rinse the corn in a strainer under very hot water until thawed. Drain very well, and squeeze dry with a paper towel. Finely mince the green onion. Divide the chiles, corn, green onion, and cheese equally between the two ramekins. Sprinkle with the cumin.

Combine the eggs, egg whites, milk, salt, dry mustard, and Tabasco sauce, and whisk or blend until smooth. Pour the egg mixture over the vegetables and cheese in each ramekin. Sprinkle with paprika (or chipotle, or ancho).

Slide the baking tray with the ramekins into the oven for about 25 - 30 minutes, or until the top is domed and the dish appears set when jiggled. Serve in the ramekins.

Breakfast at home: Arepas (rellenas de queso)

I've been wanting to make these for ages, so I finally decided to get to it. After all, they didn't appear to be terribly difficult, and they are an absolute staple of the cuisines of Colombia and Venezuela (with other corn cakes variants throughout the rest of South America).

Naturally, there are an awful lot of versions out there, but I went straight to one of my favourite recipes blogs, My Colombian Recipes, and chose the one that best suited my purpose: arepa rellenas de queso.

As you can see, I was using yellow masarepa, instead of the prescribed white, but as I understand the only difference to be the colour of the resulting arepa, I wasn't worried about it. In fact, the golden colour of the finished arepa looks quite pretty to me, although if I had been eating white ones all my life it might look a little strange. Still, the very fact that the manufacturer makes yellow masarepa, which is, after all, specifically flour for making arepas, gave me all the permission I needed to go ahead.

This is a very simple recipe. In my online perusals, I found versions that had cheese (and sometimes egg yolk) mixed right into the dough, but I thought that it would be better to go with a "straight up" version, and add the cheese after the fact. I can't give you better directions than Erica does over at My Colombian Recipes, so skip on over to this link to get the recipe.

I made a half-recipe, which was three arepas, because I didn't want to have leftovers. Now I understand that they hold up rather well for a day or two (and can be re-purposed to dip into soup, or split, dipped in egg and re-fried), so I will probably make a full batch next time. I also made a note that I could easily turn a half-batch into four arepas (or a full batch into eight), to portion-control the sizes a little more. They are rather filling! The uncooked dough can also be kept in the fridge for a few days, if well wrapped and sealed to prevent it from drying out.

I note that the middles took a little longer to cook than the recipe expressly indicates, but it may have been that my skillet temperature was a bit low (or my arepas were a little thick). It didn't take much longer to get them to a point where I could split them, although splitting hot corn cakes is a tricky business if you want the result to be tidy. I clearly need more practice in this regard. I also note that other recipes suggest covering with a lid at the end or popping the fried arepas into a hot oven, briefly, to ensure that the middles are cooked. If I'm making more arepas with the same amount of dough next time, I suspect they'll be a bit thinner, and cook a bit faster. There's also the temptation of arepitas, which are little bite-sized arepas. Perhaps a fun party food?

As you can see below, we went the "benedict" route for our arepas rellenas de queso. I filled the arepas with monterey jack cheese, and we topped them with steamed eggs and hot sauce. That's fried garlic sausage on the side - hardly culturally accurate (a nice chorizo would have been preferable) - but we had some that needed using up, and we both gravitate toward fried meats at breakfast. Scrambled eggs would have also made a good topping, or avocado slices. Or more cheese!

Khachapuri: Georgian Cheese Bread

There are quite a number of types of khachapuri, and this one is generally referred to as Ajarian (Acharuli/Adjaruli). There are also round Imeruli, kubdari (which also contains meat), Megruli (which has extra cheese on top), Ossuri (also contains potato), and many other intriguing looking variations.

I'd been wanting to try this for ages. As a lifelong fan of all combinations of bread and cheese, and as someone who enjoys a nice eggy filling, in retrospect it's kind of a surprise that it took me this long.

I usually bring freshly made bread to housewarming events. However, I had been eyeing a few recipes with intent* prior to my friend Lisa's housewarming / birthday party, and decided that this Khachapuri recipe (from Everyday Russian) was the perfectly over-the-top bread to bring to the a housewarming party that was also a celebration of a significant birthday.

* When I say "with intent", you can imagine the same sort of intent that a kitty has, when crouched low, eyes fixed on target, and tail twitching with increasing agitation. That kind of intent.

So, in order to prevent myself from chickening out at the last moment, I told everyone that this is what I would bring. And so, I did. Here's the various stages of first-time Khachapuri-making, in pictures:

Mix up the dough (link for recipe) and let it rise - the dough is quite similar to a rich challah dough, full of egg and quite yellow (although, that may depend on your eggs):

Meanwhile, mix up the filling of cheese (I used a combination of grated full-fat mozzarella and crumbled feta), butter, and hard-boiled eggs, mashing everything together into a crumbly mass:

Divide risen dough into four pieces.

Roll out one piece of dough into a large circle, as though you were making a thin pizza crust, and cover the dough with a quarter of the filling, leaving a bare dough perimeter.

Beginning at the near side, start to roll the dough up over the filling, as though you were making a jelly-roll. Stop rolling just before you get to the middle:

Beginning from the far side, roll the dough up over the filling, again stopping before you get to the middle, so that there is a little window of filling:

Pinch and fold the unrolled ends to make a little boat shape:

Place the boats on a foil-lined baking sheet, and let rise for another 20 minutes or so (this step seems to be missing from the original recipe), then brush with beaten egg so that the finished bread will have a shiny golden brown glaze to it:

Bake at 425 F for approximately 20 minutes, or until puffed, golden, and delicious looking.

I failed to take a close up of one of the breads once it was sliced and ready to serve at the party, but I can say with confidence that they were very well received indeed, and definitely take a place of pride as a fun and somewhat unusual (in these parts, at least) item to bring to any event. I'm quite keen to make this again, hopefully soon. I might even devour them all myself!

Apparently, in many places there is a further step of sliding a raw egg into the middles, and putting them back in the oven until the egg is cooked to your liking. This seems to be a breakfast iteration, and is very popular in cafes - which makes perfect sense, as someone else gets to get up early to make the dough. I imagine you could cobble together some sort of advance preparation and hold them in the fridge until ready to cook, but frankly even the idea of that makes me a little nervous, and would take up a lot of precious real estate in my tiny fridge. Perhaps some of the more adventurous bread bakers out there can let me know if they've had success with such a method.

Pork Breakfast Sausage

We wanted to have breakfast in, today. However, it was already quite late, and while we had eggs, we had no bread-stuffs (not even tortillas!), no potatoes, no bacon or sausage, and no mushrooms or tomatoes to grill. We had eggs and cheese, but nothing else to round out into omelettes, for example. Last week's "clean the fridge" efforts had been a little too effective.

However, all was not lost! On my way home last night I impulse-purchased a package of fresh ground pork. Because that's the kind of impulse-buying I do - not candy, not chips, oh no. I buy raw meat. And sometimes broccoli, but that's a different story.

We live close to a lovely Italian bakery, so I sent Palle out for bread (to serve as a toast raft for scrambled eggs, as you can see from the picture). While he was gone, I put the coffee on and started mixing up some homemade sausage. It didn't take long at all, and I had a nice ball of sausage meat ready for shaping and cooking when he arrived with a fresh loaf of Tuscan bread.

These have a fairly pronounced fennel flavour - if you do not want fennel to be quite so prominent, reduce the fennel seeds to 1/4 teaspoon. If you are aiming for a spicy sausage, add a 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne (depending on the level of heat that you want), and a big pinch of chile flakes to your spice mixture.

If you are watching your sodium, you might want to cut the kosher salt back to 3/4 teaspoon, but these are already lower in sodium than many sausages on the market.

Pork Breakfast Sausage

Makes six patties, or 9 sausages (about 3 servings)

500 g medium ground pork
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Combine the salt, paprika, fennel, granulated onion, and peppercorns in a spice grinder (or molcajete) and grind until fairly smooth (if you like a bit of bite from your fennel and black pepper, stop grinding sooner, so that there are chunky bits). Combine spice mixture with the ground pork, mixing well with your fingers to get it all worked through. The paprika will slightly darken the overall colour of the meat.

You can use this right away (as I did this morning), but it would be even better to make it up the night before, and let the flavours combine in the fridge overnight.

Divide into six pieces, flatten into patties (or roll into sausage shapes) and fry in a medium-hot skillet until cooked through, turning as needed to get a nice golden-brown colour over the whole surface.

So there you have it! Rather simple, and easily made even before the coffee has brewed: delicious sausage without preservatives or bread fillers, just pork and flavour.

We were pretty excited by how well the sausage turned out, and are already plotting and scheming future sausage endeavours. I am planning to make some up for the freezer - after all, sausage is good to have on hand: pizza, pasta, sausage & potato dinners, and skillet dinners of all kinds, as well as the breakfast applications. I think I might make some up as meatballs, too - can you visualize a sausage meatball breakfast platter? I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it!

Breakfast at home: Breakfast Dog!

Okay, okay. Not a recipe, more of a serving suggestion, really, but in the spirit of the recent spate of breakfast-at-home posts, I couldn't really resist.

Here we have basic bakery hotdog buns filled with European wieners, scrambled eggs, grated aged cheddar, and green onions. You could use ketchup, be we chose sriracha for a little extra kick. Of course, you could tweak the contents to your heart's delight.

For optimal results, I suggest gently steaming (or microwaving) the buns briefly just before filling, which makes them tender and pliable enough to grip all of the fillings.

This was embarrassingly delicious. I would make it again in a heartbeat, if I had the buns and wieners at hand.

Breakfast at home: Blintz-ish Casserole

I was looking for an at-home breakfast to make that stepped outside our regular fare, and stumbled across this recipe for a baked casserole that somewhat resembled a giant blintz. Since our breakfasts are usually savory, except for the odd pancake here and there, it was definitely outside our repertoire. Just to be safe, we added some bacon on the side to ensure we didn't collapse from an all-sweet breakfast.

The casserole was pretty easy to put together - it was ready to go into the oven by the time the oven had finished pre-heating. Essentially, you mix up a crepe-like batter, and layer it in a greased casserole dish with a ricotta-based creamy layer baked right into the middle. On its own it is mild and perhaps slightly bland, but with fresh raspberry sauce spooned overtop (and some bacon on the side), it's both unusual (for us, anyway) and kind of fun.

Now, I think a true "blintz casserole" would involve making up individual blintzes and baking them in a sauce, but the name does sort of capture the spirit of the ingredients, if not the labour-intensive work ethic.

Blintz-ish Casserole
Adapted from The Big Book of Breakfast by Maryana Vollstedt
Serves 4

Filling
70 grams cream cheese (light is fine)
200 ml ricotta or drained mild cottage cheese
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Batter
1/4 cup melted butter
2 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup orange juice

Fresh Raspberry Sauce
1 cup raspberries*
1 tablespoon sugar (or simple syrup)
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon brandy (or orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier)

Prepare an 8" square baking dish by buttering it, or spritzing it lightly with canola oil. Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Mix together the filling, using an electric mixer, and set aside. If you want an extra bump of flavour and you have a lemon lying about, stir the zest into the filling. A touch of nutmeg might also be nice, but don't go overboard.

In a medium bowl, mix the butter, sugar and eggs and beat well. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and orange juice, and beat until smooth. Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan. Gently spoon the filling over the batter, in small dollops, smoothing together gently into a single middle layer. Pour the remaining batter over the top, making sure all of the filing is covered. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Cut into squares, and serve with raspberry sauce spooned over.

To make the raspberry sauce, mash half the berries with the sugar in a small saucepan. Combine the orange juice and cornstarch, and mix until smooth. Add to the crushed berries. Heat the mixture, stirring constantly, until bubbly and thick, and the cloudiness from the cornstarch is gone. Remove from the heat, and stir in the whole berries and the brandy. Allow the sauce to cool while the casserole cooks, and serve in a dish or sauceboat for people to serve themselves. Leftover sauce makes a great smoothie base, too.

*Obviously, you can pretty much substitute the berry of your choice here: blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, huckleberries - peaches or nectarines would be nice, too.