Tag

easy meal

Wild Mushroom Breakfast Strata

written by Ali

Wild mushroom breakfast strata would be a perfect dish for your New Year’s Day brunch. You might have noticed that I dropped off the blogging radar for a few days right around Christmas. Everything was fine – I was just relishing my vacation time, cooking just for the hubby and me, quilting, and reading. I’ve done lots and lots of reading. It’s been glorious. However, with the new year around the corner, I’m ready to get back to sharing my recipes.

I made brioche for Christmas this year. Brioche is an egg-y, buttery, beautiful bread. It turns out that it’s probably easiest to make it with a stand mixer. But since I don’t have one, I risked some shoulder stiffness to hand knead my dough. It was totally worth it. My brioche braid was beautiful, soft, buttery, and amazing for grilled cheese sandwiches and eggnog french toast. However, three days after Christmas, and I still had half a loaf left.

I’ve been thinking a lot about food waste lately. While I’m not likely to make it a full out resolution for the new year, I do want to be more conscientious about leftover food this year. We do compost, but I want to be even more thoughtful. I came to this realization last night as I was yelling for the dog to leave alone the critter that was raiding our compost pile at midnight. Critter got away – could have been a possum, raccoon or vole. Regardless, waking the neighbors at midnight is not cool. We’ll be building a real compost system immediately. And I’m going to be more conscious of the veggies we toss out.

All of this made me want to do something amazing with my brioche leftovers. I opted for a wild mushroom breakfast strata. In addition to the brioche, I had a handful of wild chanterelles in the fridge, along with leftover bacon. The resulting strata is creamy and tastes perfectly decadent. What a great way to start the new year!

Yum

Wild Mushroom Breakfast Strata

Ingredients

8 - 9 wild mushrooms or cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 cups stale bread crumbs (from a sturdy loaf of bread - challah, brioche, etc.) Cut the bread into 1 inch squares to make the bread crumbs.
6 eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
3- 4 strips cooked bacon, crumbled into pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat the olive oil in a cast iron or non-stick pan. Add the onions and mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is lightly caramelized and the mushrooms are soft. Set aside.
Add the eggs and milk in a bowl and stir.until frothy and combined. Add all but 1/2 cup of the cheese and stir. Lay the bread in a single layer in a 9 x 13 pan. Pour the egg/milk/cheese mixture over the bread and stir until all the bread is coated. Stir in the bacon and onion. Add salt and pepper to taste. (I found just a pinch of salt was more than enough). Top with the remaining 1/2 cup cheese.
Refrigerate the strata for at least thirty minutes. Alternatively, it can be refrigerated overnight. When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Bake for 25 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Broil for 2 minutes to brown the top.
Serves 6. Enjoy!

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December 28, 2017 0 comment

Farmer's Market Lunch Recipes Main Dishes Quick and Easy Vegetarian

Asparagus Tofu Green Curry

written by Ali

We’ve been moved into our new place for almost three weeks now and I’m almost at a point where I can sort of find enough of my cooking utensils to make my lunch – this asparagus tofu green curry. I’m really happy about having a full week of lunch. The last two weeks, I’ve done a combination of leftovers and the occasional Amy’s frozen entrée – fine, but not optimal. We’ve been spending a lot of time just trying to figure out the basics, like where to shop for groceries and who has the best produce. The farmer’s market where we live is held on Wednesdays, and, theoretically, I could make it to the market and back on my lunch break. And once I’ve been on the job for more than a few weeks, this might go from theoretical to reality. For now, however, I’m making the most of our natural foods co-op’s produce section.

I’ve made variations on this asparagus tofu green curry in the past. It’s a versatile recipe – you could throw just about any veggie in here, as well as could add chicken instead of tofu. You could also make your own green curry, but given that I can’t find anything, including my immersion blender, I went with store bought.

I used a half-block of extra firm tofu for this asparagus tofu green curry. I went through the process of actually pressing and draining it to get it a bit firmer and then browned the cubes in olive oil in our cast iron pan. I froze the other half of the block of tofu – no idea what I’m going to do with it. I probably could have used the whole thing for this recipe, but I didn’t want a disproportionate amount of tofu to asparagus. I’m weird about things like that.

Here’s to a well-fed week.

Daisy thought the asparagus tofu green curry smelled great!

Yum

Asparagus Tofu Green Curry

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
½ block of extra firm tofu, pressed and drained, and cut into 2 inch cubes
½ pound of asparagus, cut into 1 or 2 inch pieces
3 teaspoons of green curry paste
1 can of low-fat or lite coconut milk
2 cups cooked rice

Instructions

Heat the olive oil in a cast iron skillet or non-stick skillet. Brown the tofu on at least two sides. Move the tofu aside and add the asparagus. Saute for two-three minutes.
In a saucepan, combine the green curry paste and coconut milk. Heat to a low simmer and add the tofu and asparagus. Simmer for 3 minutes.
Serve over rice.
Serves 4. Enjoy!

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May 15, 2017 0 comment

Lunch Recipes Quick and Easy

Preserved Lemon Tuna Salad

written by Ali

I have just one day in the office this week before the holiday break, so decided to make preserved lemon tuna salad as a quick one-day only lunch. I’ve had quite a bit of lemon going on these last few days. I’m preparing to make a sparkly New Year’s Eve cocktail for Fix Me a Little Lunch, which I’ll post later this week. To do this, though, I needed limoncello. Limoncello is one of my favorite liqueurs, but I hesitate to pay the hefty $20 plus for a store bought bottle when it is so easy to make at home. So – I stocked up on ten lemons, with the only purpose to peel them and saturate the peels with vodka. But then, of course, I had ten naked lemons to contend with and couldn’t stand the thought of wasting them. Naturally, this led to my hubby requesting a lemon meringue pie, which is something I’ve never, ever made. As I’m writing this, it’s cooling and I’ll confess that I’m pretty afraid to cut into it. I don’t fully trust that the meringue set quite like it should have, which will only make me determined to try again. Good thing I still have plenty of lemon juice left from those ten naked lemons!

Good thing, too, that my preserved lemons are ready to use and could be chopped up for this preserved lemon tuna salad so I could have a quick and easy sandwich ready to go for lunch tomorrow. I did make the baguettes in the photos for this lunch. I opted for a more traditional baguette that required a starter and an overnight period of time for the starter to bubble and rise. It’s safe to say that I’m ready for vacation and getting a head start on baking and cooking. The recipe for the baguette, by the way, is on the King Arthur Flour site (here). If you have the time, it’s definitely worth it to make fresh baguettes. If you don’t – a store bought baguette will work fine, too, for a preserved lemon tuna salad sandwich.

Yum

Preserved Lemon Tuna Salad

Ingredients

1 can water packed tuna
1 tablespoon preserved lemon, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/4 - 1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Black pepper to taste

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Serve on a baguette or lettuce leaves. Enjoy!

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December 19, 2016 20 comments