Egg in Vinaigrette Toast

It's not very often that I see a recipe on the internet and immediately get up and make it for lunch.  That happened to me the other day when I saw this recipe for Egg in Vinaigrette Toast on my Facebook feed from the food blog Food52.  It's a dressed up version of a toad in the hole, with the addition of vinaigrette, which gets made richer with the runny egg yolk, and some healthy greens.

It was delicious, and super easy, which is the name of the game around here these days with the little baby causing all kinds of disruptions during meal times.  I overcooked my egg a little bit, since I got all excited about taking pictures for you people, but tonight I'm going to make it again for dinner and really get it right.  And tonight I'll also do a more substantial salad underneath with spinach as well as arugula.  I have a feeling this dish is going to be in regular rotation in our kitchen from here on out.

Recipe link here.

Lunch Idea

Good tomato season is so short, especially here in Vermont!  And even if you don't have your own garden there are still so many (probably way better looking than my funny looking ones) heirloom tomatoes at the farmers markets.  This is the only time of year that a plain old tomato sandwich with salt and mayo on crusty bread is a really appealing option.  You could even make this for yourself at work, all you need is a knife.  Fast, easy and delicious, and so fleeting.

Put an Egg on it

This is my new favorite kitchen sink style spring meal.  I call it a kitchen sink meal because you can really make it with almost any vegetables you happen to have in your fridge.  I adapted it from a Momofuku recipe I found on chow.com for roasted asparagus with miso butter with a poached egg on top.  The miso butter, poached egg combo is pretty amazing, and it is a great foil to some slightly bitter greens.  In the photos above it is made with roasted baby bok choy, broccoli, and scallions.  I also added a little sticky rice on the side to stir in, which bulks it up to a hearty and healthy main course.  I use the same basic cooking times as the Momofuku recipe, so click here to see how to make it yourself.  I highly recommend adding some scallion halves (cut lengthwise).  I have also made it with asparagus and fiddleheads, but that season is mostly past.  But I plan to keep adapting this through the summer with whatever is coming out of the garden.

p.s. My friend Holly told me that putting a poached egg on things is all the rage now in New York restaurants, so I am quietly patting myself on the back over here for managing to be so on-trend out here in the boonies!

California Part 2: At Home

These pictures pretty much sum up what we do at home with my family in California.  Play by the pool, eat good and sometimes strange food (the second photo is shad roe), play with the kids and drink wine (sometimes at the same time), go to the farmers market for gorgeous flowers and yet more food, and then sit around the table and talk, while eating, yup, you guessed it, more food.  It was wonderfully luxurious, and now we are all on a diet.

Lo Mein at Home

I know it must be the dead of winter because all I want to think about is food.  I mean, look at the last three posts!  Oh well, I'm going to go with it.  I am also working on a new line of jewelry for the Buyers Market of American Craft in February, so I'll have some new jewelry pics soon.  But for now, food.  

 One of the things about living in the boonies is that it is hard to get any kind of decent ethnic food.  We have to drive a good 45 minutes to get decent Chinese food, and that makes takeout kind of impossible.  So we make it, and with neither of us having a Chinese grandmother to pose questions to, sometimes it comes out better than others.  This recipe for lo mein was actually quite delicious, and I think tasted pretty close to the real thing (at least NYC Chinese takeout real thing, so take that for whatever it is worth).  I substituted tiny slivers of pork tenderloin in place of chicken, which I thought was very yummy. It was also pretty quick and easy, so if you live in the sticks like me, you should try it!

Spicy Egg and Avocado On Toast

I'm all about avocado for breakfast right now.  This quick and easy breakfast combines a rich farm egg cooked over easy on whole wheat toast, topped with fresh avocado slices, tomatillo salsa, and tobasco sauce.  It had a great balance between the richness of the egg and avocado, the tart spiciness of the salsas, and the crunchiness of the toast. It was yummy, and now it's gone.

This is My Jam

Actually it's Patty's Jam.  Patty's bacon jam.  You heard me.  Bacon Jam.  Bacon, onion, maple syrup and coffee cooked for hours in the slow cooker until it is the consistency of, well, jam.  Unreal.  We have only just begun to explore the many applications.  Here it is below on a grilled ham and swiss with spinach and roasted red peppers.

Sorry this photo is partly blurry.  I couldn't back away from the sandwich long enough to take a decent picture. I'm not positive that this is the recipe she used, but here is a recipe to check out.

Happy New Year everyone!  I wish you all a beautiful 2013 full of love and inspiration!

The Last of the Green Things

I am very proud of these brussels sprouts, because I grew them from seed.  Brussels sprouts have a very long growing season, so they can be hard to grow up here where the gardening season is relatively short.  So most years I try to grow a few of the slower growing things from seed, winter squash, melons, leeks, and mostly fail.  Usually my little seedlings are so puny by the time it is time to put them in the ground that they are pretty much doomed to fail.  But not this time!  Most of the sprouts are pretty small, much smaller than you'd get in a store, but they are very tasty.

The top picture is one of the leaves from the brussels sprout plant that went astray on its way to the compost pile.  I found it the next morning covered in frost.

Thankful

A quick photo recap of Thanksgiving with friends.  So thankful to have them, and that they are here for the weekend. 

Oysters and Candlelight, Richmond Style

Good times. And how much do you love that screen porch? Covet. I never think to get oysters for our parties, probably because it's not exactly a native food around here.  But it was such a fun and festive thing to do, and with a couple of expert shuckers in the house it was no problem. (another one of TH's hidden talents) And Heather made some delicious bacon burgers and homemade fries, and the whole thing was just lovely.  And the Crispin cider above was really good, I highly recommend it.  It would be so amazing if we could make anything even half that good when we do our cider making later this month.

Sorry the above paragraph is so fragmented.  I'm about half brain dead right now because I am a little swamped with work, and I am also taking another swing at selling one of my horses before the snow flies.  This weekend is the Weston Craft Show, in Weston, VT, which I am super excited about.  I've been making lots of new things, so I'll try to post a few tantalizing items up here tomorrow to hopefully tempt a few of you to come by the show.  #shamelessselfpromotion

The Last of the Tomatoes. . .

The last of the tomatoes, plus another haul of tomatillos.  And there are still LOADS of these things out there!  Aside from tomatillo salsa does anyone have any idea what to do with them?? I'm a little tired of doing the same old thing, although I made and froze a ton of salsa last year and still ran out mid-winter.  But please send any other tomatillo suggestions my way!

I haven't forgotten the rest of the Richmond posts, I just wanted to do a quick check in here at home, and I thought these colors were too pretty not to share. Oysters and candlelight are next, I swear.

OMG the Panda Cuteness

Check out Emmett's new lunchbox. A stack-able panda face bento box with two compartments and an elastic sweatband to hold it all together.   Available in a few styles here.

Garden Diary 2012: July 23

 The first garlic and potatoes of the season, before and after a quick bath with the hose.  Look out Olivia, you are next!

Also, please keep in mind that I have skipped over a post on peas, because that post is a longer one with a recipe, and it's not ready yet.  So I apologize that this garden diary isn't going to be chronologically accurate! 

Scape Cooking

I just wanted you all to know that I did actually use all of my garlic scapes.  I made fettucini carbonara with garlic scapes (top), and garlic scape pesto which is now frozen for use at a later date (bottom).  So far so good with the summer plan to be efficient with the garden produce!  Go team.

Hoisin Glazed Grilled Salmon with Sesame Asparagus

TH's parents just arrived for a visit yesterday, and in honor of their arrival, and the fact that it was fathers day we made a nice dinner.  It turned out to be really delicious, and it was so easy I thought I should share the recipe with you all!  

I got a great hunk of Wild Sockeye Salmon fillet from our local fish market.  Chopped up a few scallions and about a tablespoon of ginger and stirred it into about 1/2 cup of hoisin sauce.  I oiled and salted the fish, and then slathered a generous amount of the hoisin mixture on the non-skin side.  Then just snapped it into our fish grilling basked and cooked it over a medium grill for about 6 minutes per side, basting occasionally with the sauce.

And on the side I made a gently stir-fried asparagus dish with ginger, garlic, sesame and a poor-man's home-made ponzu (soy sauce and lemon juice).   I chopped up the asparagus, blanched it for 1 minute in boiling water, then drained it.  In a stir fry pan I heated up about a tablespoon of peanut oil with a few drops of sesame oil.  Once it was nice and hot I added 1 chopped garlic clove and about a teaspoon of chopped ginger for about 30 seconds.  Then in went the asparagus until they were crisp tender, and it was finished with about 1/4 cup of the ponzu, which made a delicious sauce with the little bit of sesame to help flavor the jasmine rice I served as a starch.

The whole thing was just yummy, and we all cleaned our plates.  The richness of the salmon was nicely balanced by the crispness of the citrus on the asparagus, and the whole thing was just great to mop up with forkfuls of rice.  I'll definitely be making this again!

Indian Night at The Country Girl Diner

This past Friday our local diner opened up its kitchen again for another guest cheffed dinner.  This time it was an evening of Indian inspired cuisine, cooked by Tate and Sarah, who are two of the owners of our great local wine shop Meditrina. 

This was such a fun event!  I loved how they wrote our names on the kraft paper covering our table, what a simple and stylish way of seating everyone.  It reminded me a little of The Diner, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where your server writes the specials for you on the kraft paper covering your table as she goes over them with you.  And I just love sitting down and being fed great creative food, without having to make any decisions, so you can just enjoy trying new things and talking to each other!  Thanks so much to everyone involved in this great evening, and please keep 'em coming! 

The Season is Upon Us!

Fiddleheads! Hooray! Not only are they fleeting and extremely local, but they are one of the very first fresh vegetables that becomes available in the spring.  They are the harbinger of more great seasonal dishes to come, and I love them both for their delicious fresh flavor and for the happy tidings they bring.

Served above in a salad of baby greens, apple, walnuts and blue cheese, with a dijon vinaigrette.