Delishytown

Smoked Turkey Benedict. Yum! this was easy and delicious, involves a bit of multi tasking though. Poached eggs, toast, seared turkey and #Meyer lemon hollandaise #sunday #food #brunch

Vegetarian Breakfast Scrapple (aka, home made frozen food)

I've been experimenting with making my own version of vegetarian breakfast sausage - type products. I love the taste of the ones in the frozen food aisle, but some of them are made with GMO soy. I'm not eating that.

I used fennel seeds in this recipe to get a nice sausagey taste. This came out so good! It takes a little time, and uses a few ingredients, but you know exactly what's in it, and that all the stuff in there is good for you. Also, it makes a whole loaf pan of scrapple, so it'll serve a large brunch crowd. Or you could sliced the pan up and wrap individual breakfast servings for your freezer. So you'll have breakfast protein for days. I enjoy making home made frozen food.

Here are the ingredients I used for this:

1 cup orange lentils

1 tablespoon olive oil  1 finely diced shallot 3 cloves garlic 8 to 10 finely chopped mushrooms 2 stalks of finely diced celery 1 large finely diced carrot 1 teaspoon dried sage pinch red pepper flakes fresh grating of nutmeg, about 1/8 to 1/4 of a nutmeg pod 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 tablespoon maple syrup kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

3/4 cup whole oatmeal 

1 cup cooked, cooled rice 1/2 cup flour (I used Quinoa flour)  2 large eggs 

Heres how to make Vegetarian Breakfast Sausage

Cook 1 cup small orange lentils in 2 cups of water seasoned with smoked salt, pepper, a few fennel seeds, smoked paprika and garlic powder. Cook for 25 minutes until just cooked, but not mushy. Drain, cover and set aside to cool.

In a skillet, saute 1 grated carrot, 2 finely diced celery stalks, 1 minced shallot, chopped mushrooms, minced garlic cloves, in a little olive oil.

in a mortar and pestle crush 1/2 tsp fennel seeds with coarse salt, fresh ground nutmeg, 1/2 tsp sage, and a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Smash or food process the dry spice blend together with 3/4 cup uncooked whole oatmeal. I used my hands, just grinding the oatmeal around to make smaller bits.

Mix the spices, oatmeal, rice, sautéed vegetables and cooked, cooled lentils with 1/2 cup (I used quinoa) flour, 2 eggs, and the maple syrup and soy sauce. It should have the consistency of thick oatmeal.

Pour into a buttered loaf pan and set in the fridge to cool and firm up. 

Once it cooled, you can slice it and saute the slices in a little butter or oil. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with over easy eggs and toast. Yum!

Jalapeño Kale Hash with Sunny Side Up

This was our delicious lunch today. We had a leftover baked potato from dinner the other night, and peppers and Tuscan kale growing in the yard. So I decided to make a "free" lunch. This was spicy, smokey, very cheap and easy. You could serve this for breakfast, lunch, brunch or dinner, make the hash as a side with any kind of grilled fish or meat, or just serve with eggs like I did.

I've been keeping the kale growing healthy through the drought by spraying the leaves thoroughly each time I water. It washes away any aphids or what not, and also seems to keep the leaves tender & hydrated. I harvest the new leaves at the top of the plant for cooking, and remove and compost the bottom leaves, which get tough in the heat as they get larger. The drought sucks. Most of my yard is hibernating right now. I only water plants that are established and have deeper roots. I'm also watering tomatoes, basil and other summer crops because they're valuable and delicious. I hope to see our garden spring  back to life soon with lots of rain this fall and winter. Fingers crossed and wishing on my Good Luck Charm.

Here's how to make this easy, inexpensive & yummy lunch:

In a cast iron skillet, add 1 tblsp olive oil and a little bit of butter, or a lot, depending on if you worry about such things. My husband called me "Skinny" today as a nickname, I'm not. But I now have a false sense of skinniness, so I'm having butter. Chop 1 leftover baked potato, 1 shallot and 1/2 jalapeño pepper. Sear in the skillet, season with salt and pepper. Cook for a minute or two on each side. You only need to get them hot and caramelized because the potato is already cooked. If you start with raw potatoes, cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, flipping and turning as you go. 

Wash and chop any kind of kale or greens and add them to the pan. Cook until wilted. Scoot everything to the side, add a tiny bit more butter and cook an egg or two, over easy or sunny side up. You could poach the eggs to save additional calories. It's faster to cook it in the same pan and saves on water from washing two pans. 

Season with smoked paprika. Yum!

Lemony Apple Pancake

This was our delicious breakfast today. Our friends gave us two huge bags of apples from the tree in their front yard. And we have a bunch of lemons from another friends garden. So I thought it might be a good idea to make this Apple Pancake again. Yum! This is delicious and easy! You make this using the same batter as a Dutch Baby. It's good to do the batter first and let it rest while you slice and cook the apples because the apples cook so quickly. I've done it the other way around and screwed up the texture of the pancake because I rushed through the batter.

Heat oven to 400.

In a blender, 4 eggs, 3/4 cup milk, 3/4 cup sifted all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, dash of salt, a sprinkle of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tblsp sugar, 2 tblsp melted butter. Blend for 30 seconds. Let the batter rest.

Meanwhile, sauté 3 or 4 peeled & sliced apples in 2 tblsp butter for a few minutes. Add a sprinkle of cinnamon, some fresh grated nutmeg and a little salt to the cooking apples. Spread into a single layer, sprinkle with a tsp of sugar, pour the Dutch Baby batter over the apples, and bake for 15-20 minutes or so at 400. Garnish with powdered sugar and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

Happy Saturday Tumblrs!

New Potato, Leek and Chard Frittata 

We made this Potato, Leek and Golden Chard Frittata mostly from the garden. It was so fresh, bright and delicious. Both my husband and I couldn't stop saying how good it was with every single bite. There's nothing tastier than freshly picked food. The eggs, bread, bacon and cheese are from the grocery store, but the leeks, new potatoes, Swiss chard and cherry tomatoes have been growing in our garden since winter. The cherry tomato plant is in a pot near a south facing wall. It never died all the way down, and now it's come back to life and is giving us a few tomatoes each day. The blackberries are from our thornless blackberry vine which is three years old and has started producing lots of fruit this year. This is the biggest harvest we've gotten so far and the berries are so delicious. We have several pots of Swiss chard growing. It's delicious and mild, easy to grow and very versatile. And don't get me started on how much fun it is to grow potatoes. Because I won't stop. It's really fun and easy to grow potatoes. And free organic potatoes. Harvesting them is like winning a prize. Congratulations, you win potatoes.

Here's how to make a Garden Chard Frittata:

Heat oven to 400. 

Cook some bacon until crispy and set aside on paper towels. Bacon. 

In a skillet, sauté sliced leeks (or shallots or onions) in a little olive oil or butter. Add diced new potatoes, about 1/4 cup or 1 small potato. Cook together, season with a little salt and pepper. Once the potatoes start to soften, add washed and spun chopped Swiss chard, stems and all. Once the greens cook down, about 4 minutes, add 4 scrambled eggs, a few chopped cherry tomatoes, and your favorite grated cheese. Place in the oven until the eggs firm up and the cheese melts. Serve with crumbled bacon on top and a side of toast and fruit. 

Yum! 

Strawberry Almond French Toast

 Can you see the rain on our porch in the background? We're finally getting rain. This cool rainy weather is so refreshing. It's been a hot dry Winter here in the Southwest. I don't like hot dry Winter. Not at all. I'm from the Midwest, winter is supposed to be cold and wet. So, I'm happy that it's finally raining. This weather makes me hungry though, hungrier than my usual starving self. When I wake up really hungry, I go to my kitchen & look through the fridge, pantry and garden and try to come up with something good. I opened the crisper drawer and there was the container of organic strawberries I splurged on while grocery shopping yesterday  ($5.00, Yikes!). I have strawberries growing out back, but they're still small and green. Other things we had were a few small loaves of day old French bread from weekend sandwich making, eggs, real Maple syrup, and the rest of the almond slivers from making toffee the other day. I decided to make some French toast. The combo of the almonds and berries with lots of real maple syrup turned out to be deliciously amazing. I like the grade "B" Maple syrup from TJ's because it's not as cloyingly sweet as the grade "A", and has a nice bit of earthiness to it.

In a shallow wide bowl scramble 2 or 3 eggs with 1/4 c. milk, a pinch of salt, and 1 tsp vanilla extract. Slice day old crusty bread and soak it in the egg wash, turning to coat thoroughly. Heat a skillet to med high. Add a little butter or coconut oil to the pan. Cook the French toast slices on both sides until cooked through. Serve with sliced strawberries, sliced almonds and real Maple syrup. Yum!!

Brown Sugar Bacon BLT with Kale & Fennel Salad 

The kale and fennel in this salad are from our winter garden. Yum! I love fresh garden greens. And I love a good BLT! BLT with kale salad gives you  healthy vitality from fresh greens, and amazing decadent flavor of brown sugar bacon with tomato and creamy avocado slices. Mmmmm, food is my second best friend.

For Brown Sugar Bacon: Line a cookie sheet with foil. Place nitrate free bacon strips on it, sprinkle the bacon with 2 tblsp organic brown sugar. Bake at 375 until crispy, about 10 to 15 minutes. Check on the bacon and remove any that are done before others so they don't burn. Let the bacon rest on paper towels, sugar side up or it'll stick to the paper towels. I found this out by eating way more teeny bits of bacony paper towel than I ever thought I would.

Make the BLT by toasting bread, dress with a little organic mayo, crispy bacon, sliced tomato, sliced avocado, & lettuce.

For Kale Fennel Salad:

Thinly slice fennel. Wash and spin kale, any kind you have. Make a vinaigrette by whisking 1 tblsp red wine vinegar, juice of 1/2 lemon, juice of 1 tangerine, 2 tblsp olive oil, 1 smashed open garlic clove, a drizzle of honey, and salt and pepper. Garnish with the feathery fennel fronds.

Sweet Potato, Cinnamon Apple Hash served with Brown Butter Cheddar Eggs

The Chicago Bears are on and that means that it's officially Fall! I love Fall. September is my birthday month, it's back to school time, football season starts, and Halloween is coming up! This is the best time of year. It's time to cook delicious Fall flavors. Apples, cinnamon and sweet potatoes are so good together!

This delicious breakfast hash is easy and inexpensive, and it's the perfect thing to make  on a crisp autumn morning when you're super hungry. 

Dice one organic sweet potato, one red potato, and one onion. Saute in olive oil, flipping and stirring for a few minutes. Add one diced apple and 3 chopped celery stalks. Season with celery salt and pepper, a sprinkle of coriander powder, a pinch of smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, a dash of onion powder and a shake of garlic powder. Cook, flipping and stirring, until caramelized and cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes. Taste it when it's done and add more celery salt and pepper if it needs it.

Remove the hash from the skillet. Scramble 4 or 5 eggs with 1/4 cup white cheddar cheese, grated.  Add 1 tblsp butter to the skillet. Let it sizzle & turn a little bit brown, on med heat, for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add the scrambled eggs. Stir and fold gently until cooked through, about 1 minute. Garnish with smoked paprika.

Baked Brown Sugar BLT with Kale Chips and Crudités 

I made these delectable BLT's with baked brown sugar bacon, small green and red striped garden tomatoes, and served them with homemade kale chips & crunchy delicious crudités on the side. This was so delicious! I look forward to home grown tomatoes all year long so I can have this sandwich. Yummmm.

This post is about cooking the bacon in the oven, with a little brown sugar and black pepper sprinkled on top. This way of cooking bacon is very easy, and it doesn't mess up the stovetop. Yay for not having to clean something!

I like to use organic, nitrate free bacon. It's more expensive, but much better for you, as far as eating bacon goes. Since I rarely eat bacon anyway, it's worth it to buy the best I can get.  

Heat oven to 375. Place bacon strips on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Sprinkle with about 1-2 tsp brown sugar and freshly ground black pepper. You don't need to add salt because bacon is pretty salty already. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until crisp, turning once. Drain on paper towels.

While the bacon cooks, slice cucumbers, carrots, and celery into strips for crudités garnish.

On another cookie sheet, sprits olive oil spray and add freshly washed, dried, and stemmed kale. Spritz with a little more olive oil spray. Season with kosher salt, pepper, and smoked paprika. Toss the kale around on the cookie sheet to coat evenly. Bake for about 3-6 minutes at 375 until they crisp up. Keep a close eye on them because they cook pretty fast depending on how dry it is outside.

Toast whole wheat bread. Add a little mayo, salt and pepper, sliced garden tomatoes, lettuce, avocado slices, and the brown sugar bacon. Serve with the kale chips and crudités. 

Yum!

Banh Mi Steak Sandwich & Potato Salad

This isn't a traditional Banh Mi, because I made it with beef instead of pork, and didn't garnish with pate or pickled daikon. I did make pickled cucumber, onion and carrots for a garnish. And I marinated the steak with Asian flavors. I was out of cilantro, so I used fresh basil from the garden instead. Well, I guess I changed almost everything from a traditional Banh Mi, so you could say this is a Banh Mi inspired steak sandwich. Anyway, Yum! Delicious! You will like this a lot!

Marinate steak with the juice of 1 tangerine, (or lemon or lime), 1 tblsp rice vinegar, 1 tblsp fish sauce, 1 tsp fresh grated ginger, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1/2 tsp red chili paste, fresh ground pepper, 1 tsp soy sauce and 1 tsp sesame oil. Cover and refrigerate for 2 or more hours.

For the pickled garnish: Slice cucumbers thinly, slice green onions, shred carrots and slice jalapeños. In a saucepan, heat 1 cup white vinegar, 1/2 cup water, and dissolve 1 tblsp sugar and 1/2 tsp kosher salt. Add pickling spices, I used 1/4 tsp coriander seeds, mustard seeds, dry dill and red pepper flakes. Cover the vegetables with the hot pickling liquid and refrigerate while you do the potato salad.

For the potato salad: Peel and boil 6 or so red potatoes until al dente. Dress with a mixture of 1/4 cup mayo, 1/2 cup greek yogurt, 1 tblsp red wine vinegar, 1/2 tsp dried dill, 1/2 tsp dry mustard, 1 small minced garlic clove, sliced green onions, sliced celery, celery salt and pepper.

Grill steak, let it rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Slice French Bread and dress both sides with a little mayo. Layer your ingredients, top with fresh torn basil or cilantro, and enjoy your Banh Mi! 

(Ok, autocorrect, I get it, you want me to call this a Bank Mi. I get it. No, Your ideas are good. Yeah it's great that you have opinions about fixing the stuff I write. Thanks autocorrect, thanks for stopping by.)

Buckwheat Waffles

Yum! This was our delicious breakfast today. I used a combination of Organic Buckwheat waffle mix, whole wheat flour, and fine pastry flour. I also added a little bit of corn starch to make them nice & crispy. You can serve these with fried chicken, fresh fruit, butter and maple syrup, or make them into a breakfast sandwich with eggs. 

Here's how:

Heat waffle iron to med-high.

Sift together dry ingredients: 1 cup buckwheat flour or buckwheat waffle mix, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup pastry flour, 3 tsp baking powder (only 1 tsp if you're using waffle mix), 1 tsp corn starch, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tblsp sugar.

Mix wet ingredients, 2 cups milk, soy milk, water or almond milk, 2 eggs, 1 tblsp olive oil, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 1 tblsp honey. 

Mix dry ingredients into wet.

Spray hot waffle iron with olive oil spray or non stick spray. Pour in just enough batter that your waffles touch the iron on both sides, but not so much that waffle batter erupts like a volcano out the edges of the waffle maker, like I did. 

Cook until the little green light come on, about 3-4 minutes.

I served ours with mangoes and 1 strawberry from the garden. My cousin Katie got to enjoy this dish. She said that that tiny little garden strawberry had more strawberry flavor than she's ever had.

Spicy Cheddar Scramble

This was our delicious lunch! The potatoes, kale and strawberries were from our garden.  I like this dish a lot because it's delicious, cheap and easy.

In a skillet, 2 tblsp olive oil, add two or three diced potatoes and 1 minced shallot. Season with celery salt and pepper, and let them cook together until the potatoes start to get some color, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add 1 diced celery stalk, 1 diced red jalapeño pepper, 1 cup of fresh chopped kale. You could use any other veggies you might have on hand, like zucchini, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots or summer squash.

Cook until the potatoes are tender and other veggies are done to your liking. I like my potatoes cooked through, but the other vegetables crisp-tender. 

Scramble 2 eggs per serving, add grated cheddar to the eggs. Push the vegetable hash to the side of the pan and add the eggs. Cook, stirring with a spoon or spatula, until they firm up and come together, then incorporate the veggies.

Garnish with grated cheddar, paprika, fresh ground pepper and maybe a side of fresh fruit.  Yummy!

Tomato Poached Eggs

This is my favorite summertime breakfast. I posted this recipe a long time ago, but recently told my friend Molly about it because she was looking for something easy and healthy. She tried it and loved it, so I'm sharing it again. The simmering tomato liquid poaches the egg and makes it taste fantastically delicious!

This is so easy, takes only about 4 ingredients, and uses up all those garden tomatoes.

Heat oven to 375.

Chop any fresh tomatoes you have on hand, about 1 cup, and place them in a small casserole dish. Add 1 minced garlic clove. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss it all together.  Bake until bubbly, about 10 minutes. 

Remove the dish from the oven and scoot the tomato pieces to the edges. Crack an egg into the center, add fresh chopped basil, (optional). Bake for an additional 5 minutes or so until the egg is done to your liking. 

Serve with crusty sourdough toast to soak up all those stewed tomatoes. Yum!

Bing Cherry & Apple Pistachio Crisp

My Mom used to make Apple Crisp all the time when we were growing up. I think it was her way of getting us to eat more fruit and oatmeal, but we loved it.  Brown sugar, vanilla, apples, salt, butter and cinnamon? Name something not to love about this.

This is a variation on my Mom's recipe, with cherries added because they were on sale at the store yesterday, and crushed pistachios because I love pistachios. This came out so delicious that I couldn't stop eating bite after bite. Yum!

Pre heat oven to 350. Butter a casserole dish.

Peel and slice 3 Granny Smith apples. Squeese the juice of 1 whole fresh lemon over the apples. This becomes part of the sauce and also helps prevent the apples from browning.

Pit 1- 2 cups bing cherries. I don't have a cherry pitter, so I just used a paring knife and went around the pit of each cherry. This took only about 10 minutes. It sounds like a  tedious job, but to me it was fun, and delicious because you get to eat as many cherries as you  can while you perform this task.

Mix the cherries with the apples & lemon,  along with 1 tsp  vanilla, sprinkle of cinnamon, 1 tsp corn starch, and a bit of salt.

Shell some pistachios, about 1/2 cup. Crush them with a mortar and pestle of food processor into big crumbs.

Mix the pistachios with 1 cup oatmeal, 1/4 c butter, 2 tsp sugar, 1/4 c brown sugar, dash of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp kosher salt. I use my hands, freshly washed, to combine the butter with the oatmeal, pistachios and spices. 

Bake for 25 - 30 min at 350 until bubbly and sweet. Serve over ice cream for a real treat!

Vegetarian Breakfast Sandwich with Tomatoes and Basil

This was a delicious breakfast! The carrots & basil were grown in our back yard.

Cook veggie sausage, fry an egg, top the cooked egg with a little grated cheddar cheese and let it melt. Toast some sourdough bread or any kind of bread you have. Serve with tomato slices and fresh chopped basil, salt and pepper. Garnish with carrot sticks and more basil. Yum!

Homemade Blueberry Waffles

 This morning my husband was looking for something to eat. He opened the fridge and the pantry, and finally said, "I wish we had some waffles."  You want some waffles baby? I can make you some waffles.

The waffle iron lives in a cabinet in the dining room. Our friend Dee gave it to us for a wedding gift. I hardly ever break it out because I don't often cook sweet things as much as I love cooking savory. But today is a new day! I'm going to be making waffles more often now that I'm reminded how easy and delicious they are. The waffles in this photo only took about 10 minutes to make. Here's how:

Heat up the waffle iron to medium hot. 

In a large bowl, whisk 2 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 4 tsp baking powder, 2 tblsp sugar.

In another bowl whisk 3 eggs with 1 cup milk, 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp vegetable oil ( I used olive oil) Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined, do not over mix. Fold in 1/2 cup blueberries, optional.

Pour into a waffle iron and bake for appx 3 minutes or until the little light comes on. 

Serve with butter and syrup, jam, powdered sugar or just plain. I hear these are great with fried chicken too, I might have to try that soon. Yum!

Rainbow Chard and Potato Quiche with Whole Wheat Crust

This came out delicious! When you grow a vegetable garden, the biggest challenge is figuring out what to do with all the fresh produce. I give my neighbors a lot of the chard that's growing in the front yard and try to cook it into anything I'm making.

 At first I was just going to use leeks and chard, but then I remembered the bag of red rose potatoes I'd bought on Friday. I love potatoes.  And potatoes with cheese? Yes please. 

I used whole wheat flour and coconut oil for the crust so that I can pretend that this is super healthy. 

For the pie crust: In a bowl combine 1/4 c. butter and 1/2 c. coconut oil,  mix with 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1/2 tsp salt until pea sized bits form. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water just until combined. Form into a disk and rest in the fridge.

Pre heat oven to 350. Once the pie crust has rested for an hour or so in the fridge, roll it out, place in a pie pan, crimp the edges, and blind bake it by covering the crust with foil and pie weights. I use dry beans that are only for the purpose of blind baking. Bake at 350 for 12 - 15 minutes while I cooked the other ingredients. Once the pie crust comes out of the oven, cover the bottom with a little bit of the grated cheese.

In a skillet, saute 1 chopped leek *, white and light green parts only, 1/2 chopped sweet onion, 2 red rose or any other kind of potato, sliced and quartered. Let the onions and potatoes cook together and caramelize. Then add 6 or 7 large chard leaves, stemmed and chopped. Season with fresh grated nutmeg, salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of your favorite dry herb, I used a pinch of basil, but thyme or tarragon would taste very nice in this dish.

Grate 1 cup of your favorite cheese. I used cheddar, mozzarella, and parmesan.

Add the cooked veggies on top of the cheese and top with the remaining cheese. Mix 1 cup milk and 3 or 4 eggs seasoned with salt, pepper and a bit of the grated nutmeg. Pour the custard over the veggies and cheese.

Bake for 1 hour until cooked through. A toothpick inserted int he center should come out clean.

(* Leeks are a little tricky to clean since they can have sandy soil stuck between the layers. I just chop off the dark green and bottom ends, remove the tough 1 or 2 outer layers, and then slice the whole thing in half lengthwise and rinse away any grit before chopping.)