Cracking Up

This morning I got up at the crack of dawn. Actually, it was the pre-crack of dawn, if we're being specific about it.

This is because most of my team sits in New York and they had scheduled a training session - one that, based on the subject line, seemed incredibly crucial to my job as it covers 95% of what I do all day at work.

The session was at 9:30am. On the East Coast. For those of you who are not good at math, that's 6:30am for me. That's earlier than I get up most days, unless I'm trying to catch a flight. Not cool. Not cool at all.

I decided the only way to get over my bitterness at being totally inconsequential to the decision to schedule this meeting was to treat myself. I hauled myself out of bed at 5:50am (oh, how it hurts) and stumbled down the hill to Peet's coffee to order a LARGE cafe au lait. If they had a VAT size, I would have ordered that. The brisk walk back up the hill helped wake me up and I then dialed into the WebEx, put my phone on speaker, and got to making myself some breakfast.

My super smart friend Leslie told me something really interesting the other day: the reason you feel hungover is not because of the alcohol, per se, but because the alcohol in your system prevents you from sleeping normally, so you actually wake up incredibly sleep deprived. Which is why if you can "sleep it off," you tend to feel so much better, not that I have any personal experience in this area, Mom and Dad. Ahem.

Anyway, it logically follows that if you are sleep deprived, you feel a bit hungover, even if you didn't have a drop of alcohol the night before. Witness my morning.

Thus, hangover food was required. My dear friend Meredith texted the other day asking about migas, so I had them on the brain. Migas is this incredibly delicious Tex-Mex breakfast involving, in essence, eggs scrambled with salsa and tortillas. There are all kinds of ways to gussy them up, but those are the basics.

Here's my own migas recipe. Please, please keep in mind that everything in here is approximate and if you decide to make these, you should really adjust everything to your own taste. Play around with this, it's hard to mess it up.

Kate's Migas for One
(Can be easily doubled, tripled, or even duodectupled to meet the needs of your crowd, should you have a crowd demanding breakfast)

Seriously, this couldn't be easier.

Essential Ingredients:
2-3 eggs
1 - 4 tablespoons salsa (Any salsa you like is fine, the fresher, the better. I really like to make migas with green chile-tomatillo salsa)
1 corn tortilla, torn into 1-inch-ish pieces (precision not required) or a handful of tortilla chips (crunched up) - Note, do not use flour tortillas for this part

Optional Ingredients:
~ 1/4 cup finely diced red or green bell pepper
~ 1 tablespoon finely diced onion or shallot
Half a jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed (or keep them if you want it HOT), finely minced

Accompaniments, For Serving (all optional):
Flour or corn tortillas
Guacamole
More salsa
Sour cream
Finely shredded cheddar or jack cheese
Whatever else you want

Directions:
Saute any "optional" ingredients you are using in a bit of olive or canola oil until they are softened but not browned. Set aside to cool for a bit.

In the meantime, crack your eggs in a bowl and whisk with a fork to blend. Add salsa, salt and pepper. I recommend using about 1/4 cup of salsa for every 2-3 eggs. There aren't precise measurements here, you just have to go with it. Add the slightly cooled veggies and stir to blend. (You can also add a quarter cup of drained, rinsed canned black beans at this point if you want to.) Add the torn up tortillas and stir to coat all the bits. Let this mixture sit for 15 minutes or so, 30 minutes if you are using hard tortilla chips instead of soft corn tortillas.



Torn up tortilla example in front of the egg mixture. Sorry to provide pics so late in the process but it only occurred to me midway through the process to write about this. I blame the brain fog resulting from the early wake-up.


Then you just scramble this mixture like you would normal scrambled eggs. Once they are done to your liking, that's it!

Voila! (What's the Spanish for "voila?") Migas!

SO EASY!

I topped mine with a little cilantro (which I also mixed into the eggs) and some yogurt in lieu of sour cream which is a tasty trick taught to me by a darling 2-year old. Try it!

You can scale this up or down as needed, I have made it with two dozen eggs before for a brunch party. Anything goes, so just find the combo of ingredients you like. It is a great way to use up those broken tortilla chips in the bottom of the bag. 

Happy Friday!

Two and a Half

In a nod to the utter horror that is Charlie Sheen, this post is not about Two and a Half Men (a show that, in my opinon, used to be funny before the "half man" hit puberty, but I digress). No. This is about Two and a Half Indian dishes.

I'll explain.

I have been on an Indian food bonanza lately not least because my allergist, charming man that he is, put me on a yeast-free diet in an attempt to figure out if I have allergies to anything in the Kingdom Fungi (which includes yeasts, fungi, and molds). This eliminates a surprising list of foods - not just your typical yeasted favorites like bread and crackers, but also vinegars, wine, beer, liquor, cheese, and mushrooms (duh, fungi). And a lot of other things. A LOT of other things. It's something of a challenge to find interesting things to eat with such restrictions. Indian cuisine is proving a godsend in this regard.

The past few nights I have made three recipes which I have liked-slash-loved. One of the recipes I changed so much from the original, I'm not sure it's fair to call it Indian cuisine any longer, but it's still pretty darn tasty.

The lineup:
Liked: Blackeyed Peas with Butternut Squash (At Home with Madhur Jaffrey)
LOVED: Cauliflower with Potatoes aka Aloo Gobi (Epicurious)
Hacked but Still Loved (how can you not love your own kid?): Yogurt Sauce with Walnuts and Cilantro (Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking)

I am beginning to realize that a lot of the recipes in Indian cooking start the same way:

1. Heat oil in a pan until shimmering
2. Add whole spices, saute for a minute
3. Add aromatics (usually an onion, garlic, ginger and sometimes a hot pepper) and saute until browned
4. Add ground spices, saute for a minute

Knowing this, new recipes are starting to make more sense the first time I read them, as the process is always so similar. It's comforting, actually. I am beginning to feel like I can make anything in these books. Except maybe naan. Not quite there yet.

For the Blackeyed Peas recipe, I cannot emphasize enough how thrilled I was to take down one of the butternut squashes I got from the farm box a few months ago. It was a little on the small side, so I supplemented it with some butternut squash I had chopped and frozen from the '09 deluge of butternut. Truth be told, the frozen stuff had suffered some freezer burn and didn't taste as awesome as the fresh stuff. I think if it had, this recipe would have been outstanding.

There was one other thing I did which I think held this back from being amazing (instead of just tasty, as it was). The recipe requires soaking the blackeyed peas overnight, which I didn't do. I cheated.

Cheater, cheater, legume eater.

I know I paid the price for these substitutions in flavor, and that's a price I'm willing to pay given an acceptable end result. It's really asking a lot of me to plan dinner 24-hours in advance. I like to cook according to mood.

With those two subs, this recipe proceeds pretty much as all the others do. Again, it's published in a book rather than online, so I'm just going to give you the highlights.

Sizzle some cumin and fennel seeds in hot oil in a big pot. Add chopped onion, minced garlic, ginger, and jalapeno. I acutally used a serrano because for some reason the jalapenos at Whole Foods were gargantuan. Add a little tomato puree, handmade per Madhur Jaffrey's instructions that basically involve cutting a tomato in half and grating it on a cheese grater. Incidentally, this works great and whenever I need just a little tomato puree (1/2 cup or less) I am not opening a can ever again because all the rest of it just goes to waste. At the same time as the squash, add cayenne, salt, and butternut squash, diced. Simmer for 10ish minutes and add the canned, drained black eyed peas. Simmer another 10 minutes or so. And you produce this:

It's pretty good. The squash brings a little unexpected but not unwelcome sweetness to the dish. And the fennel seeds give it some meatiness, almost like there's sausage in here. It's really intriguing. I wish I hadn't removed the seeds and the ribs from my serrano as I would have liked a little more heat, but it was still good enough to eat for dinner and then lunch the next day.

So that was a good start for the week.

Tonight I branched out further, thanks to an unexpected farm box delivery yesterday that I thought I'd cancelled. My refrigerator is now busting at the seams with vegetables. I'm not kidding. I kind of wish I had a bunch of pet rabbits. Ok, not really, pet rabbits are totally gross. But that's how jammed full of produce my fridge is. In addition to full crisper drawers, the entire middle shelf is stacked 6 inches deep with veggies, apples, and citrus. Ah, winter.

One of the organic gifts bestown upon me this week was a head of cauliflower, which I actually love. It's so homey and hearty. Typically I like to roast mine with capers, a Martha Stewart recipe from the first cookbook I ever bought (but conveniently repeated in a 2006 magazine and therefore linked here). Sadly, capers are cured in vinegar and therefore outlawed on this yeast-free fiasco.

I was browsing Madhur's two books last night (well, the two that I own - she has written quite a few more)and ran across a recipe for Cauliflower with Potatoes. Madhur likes to use its full name so she has subtitled this recipe phool gobi aur aloo ki bhaji but when I was looking at other recipes for this online, I got clued in on its nickname: aloo gobi. Yes, I think I'll type that going forward.

In the end, it wasn't Madhur's recipe that I followed, although her ingredients are identical to the ingredients in the recipe I used. I was browsing Smitten Kitchen and found this Epicurious version of aloo gobi some time back, and it seemed far easier than Madhur's recipe which requires you both boil the potatoes and soak the cauliflower for 30 minutes. (Check out Smitten Kitchen when you have some time and are in a position to drop drool on whatever surface is in front of you. I'm not exaggerating when I say I kind of want to be this lady. I am making those goldfish crackers from today's post as soon as I can eat cheese again.)

Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes
Gourmet, February 2004

Yield: Makes 4 side-dish servings
Active Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 (1 3/4-lb) head cauliflower, cut into 3/4-inch-wide florets
1 1/4 lb Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 teaspoons minced fresh jalapeño, including seeds
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 cup water

 Accompaniment: lemon wedges

Directions:
Put oven rack in upper third of oven and place a shallow baking pan on rack. Preheat oven to 475°F.

(Off to the races, and already I'm not following the directions. Absolutely forgot to preheat the baking pan. It didn't matter. I roasted the cauliflower and potatoes for an extra 5 minutes and it was fine.)

Toss cauliflower and potatoes together in a bowl with 3 tablespoons oil, cumin seeds, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Spread in hot baking pan and roast, stirring occasionally, until cauliflower is tender and browned in spots and potatoes are just tender, about 20 minutes.

While vegetables are roasting, cook onion, garlic, jalapeño, and ginger in remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until very soft and beginning to turn golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Add ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Stir in water, scraping up any brown bits from bottom of skillet, then stir in roasted vegetables. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes.

  

Yeah, that's it. Pretty easy. This reminds me of the fourth grade.

Bear with me here.

When I was in fourth grade, we got a new student in our class. This was BIG NEWS, as most of us had been in class together since kindergarten or even nursery school. Not only were we getting a new student, but she was French. As in, moving directly to our little boring suburb from FRANCE. And she didn't speak much English. Needless to say, we were all more than a little bit fascinated. A couple of months after Raphaele showed up, I remember us asking her what her favorite food was. I think we expected her to say crepes with Nutella or mousse au chocolat (actually, that's what I would have said then) or possibly the brie and baguettes that we'd snacked on in our after-school French class. No.

I will never forget this conversation because her answer was potatoes.

Potatoes? You mean french fries?
No. Potatoes.

I obviously thought she was off her rocker. What 9 year old's favorite food is potatoes? What person of any age's favorite food is potatoes?? I was not just concerned for my new friend Raphaele, I was also profoundly concerned about France as a nation, a place where potatoes could be a favorite food. Next thing you know, I'd be discovering that those pricey Louis Vuitton bags are notleather. Oh, wait...

Well. Logo bags aside, Raphaele was evidently wise beyond her years. I spent many, many years being bored by potatoes. Mashed potatoes: boring. Baked potatoes: boring except for the toppings. But mostly boring. Fries: boring except for the dipping sauce.

But first those delicious scalloped potatoes last weekend and now this Aloo gobi and I'm hooked. Potatoes, I bow to you. And, coincidentally as I type this, the fine people on America's Test Kitchen are making aligot, which is what happens when the French get a hold of potatoes and are sans mandoline but have some fromage. How could I have ever doubted them? Naive young Kate! Again, as soon as I can eat cheese again...

Anyway. Here was tonight's dinner:

It looks a little sad on its own, don't you think? I mean, this doesn't really look like dinner.

So I added a fried egg (upper left), largely because I was too lazy to poach one. That's better.

You are probably wondering what that other thing is in the picture. That's the hacked half-Indian recipe, Yogurt Sauce with Cilantro and Walnuts, served over some Bhutanese red rice. I highly recommend picking up some of this rice if you can find it in your market. Whole Foods carries it here in the Bay Area. You cook it just like brown rice but it tastes about a thousand times better and more interesting. It's nutty and flavorful and aromatic. It's almost flavorful enough to eat plain, it's that good. In fact, the other day, I did eat it plain, wiht just a little grind of sea salt. Really, this stuff is great.

The Aloo gobi was a bit spicy so I decided to make a yogurt sauce accompaniment to eat over my leftover rice as a cooling counterpoint to my spicy veggies. I flipped through Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking (because it is not just a cookbook, it's also a picture book) and found a recipe that had at least a few of the ingredients I had on hand. That said, this had other ingredients I totally omitted, such as jalapeno and scallion. I subbed the cayenne and garlic for those. Close enough. Here's my version, which I think is delicious nontheless.

Kate's Yogurt Sauce with Cilantro and Walnuts

Makes about 3/4 cup

Ingredients

1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt

1/4 cup cilantro, minced

1 ounce walnuts, lightly toasted and chopped

1/2 small garlic clove, minced

pinch of cayenne

salt and pepper

Directions

Mix everything. Add a little water to get a saucy consistency. I like to eat it over rice, but you could also dip pita or naan in it. The end.