Potato Cake with Fried Eggs

I have gotten out of the habit of posting here lately, mostly because my cooking has not inspired any post ideas. Either I’ve been making tried-and-true recipes that I’ve practically memorized and that I’ve already posted on the blog, or I’ve been trying out new recipes from cookbooks, which I’m not likely to share until I’ve cooked them enough times to make them my own.

I’m going to try to get back in the habit of posting simple dishes as I make them, especially if they are easy enough that they don’t require a formal recipe. This potato cake is one of those dishes. This is more of a technique than an actual recipe, and once you learn it, you can fancy it up all kinds of ways. I topped it with a fried egg for a breakfast-for-dinner dish. A simple green salad would make a good accompaniment.

I used 1 medium Yukon Gold potato per person. Peel the potatoes and shred them using the shredding disk of a food processor. Rinse the potatoes to remove excess starch, then wrap them in a dishcloth and squeeze well to get rid of the excess moisture. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium with a couple of pats of butter in it. For 2 potatoes, a 10-inch skillet is a good size. Once the butter has melted, add the potatoes and smooth them out to fill the skillet. Cover the skillet and cook for about 5 minutes. Remove the skillet and let cook another 5 minutes or so, until the potatoes are browned on the bottom.

Slide the potatoes out onto a plate and add another couple of pats of butter to the skillet to melt. Place another plate upside down on top of the first one with the potatoes, and then invert the plates. Slide the potatoes, uncooked side down, back into the pan, and cook another 5 minutes or until the bottom has browned. Let the potatoes cool off the heat for a minute or two, and then slice into wedges to serve.

Breakfast Bites

I eat a lot of eggs, so I’m always looking for new and interesting ways to prepare them. Here is something different for breakfast or a light dinner. Cooking the eggs in a muffin tin results in single-serving frittatas that you can even take with you for breakfast-on-the-go. These keep well for a day or two, so they are a good option when you want to make weekday breakfasts ahead. The recipe makes enough for 6 “muffins.”

Breakfast Bites

• 1 tsp. oil
• 4 oz. sausage, casings removed and crumbled
• 2 tbsp. diced red onion
• 2 tbsp. diced bell pepper
• 5 lg. eggs
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Nonstick cooking spray
• ½ cup shredded cheddar or cheddar-jack cheese
• ¼ cup diced tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook the sausage, onion and peppers in the oil over medium-high until the sausage is fully cooked, 4-5 minutes. Whisk together the eggs, salt and pepper. Stir in the cooked sausage mixture. Spray a 6-cup muffin pan with cooking spray. Fill each cup evenly with the egg mixture and sprinkle with the cheese and tomatoes. Bake until the eggs are firm, 15-20 minutes.

Notes: This recipe seems very adaptable, by replacing the sausage and vegetables with whatever you like. Or omit the meat altogether for a vegetarian version.

An Easy Rolled Omelet

I eat eggs a lot, and I’m always looking for new ways to cook them. This is a favorite new recipe. It’s a quick and easy way to make a fancy rolled omelet — and really, anyone can do this.

The recipe advises cutting the omelet in half to serve two, but I think it would be okay to eat a whole one by yourself. It’s just enough for a light breakfast or even lunch, but I don’t recommend it as “breakfast for dinner,” as I don’t think it’s hearty enough. This is also a good recipe for those of us who are trying to cut back on their carbs.

Easy Rolled Omelet

• 2 lg. eggs
• 2 tbsp. water
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 1 oz. cooked ham or bacon
• ¼ cup shredded cheese

Preheat the broiler. Whisk together the eggs, water, salt and pepper. Melt the butter in a small, oven-safe skillet over medium heat. If using ham slices, add them to to the pan and heat through (1 minute). Remove the ham to a plate, and pour in the egg mixture. Let sit without stirring until the bottom starts to cook. Place the skillet under the broiler for about 1 minute. Remove the skillet from the oven and scatter the cheese over the top. Arrange a single layer of ham or bacon on top of the cheese. Broil again to melt the cheese (about 1 minute). Remove the skillet from the oven and use a spatula to roll the omelet up.

Notes: Serves 1 (or 2, cut in half, as a really light meal). The finished omelet can be garnished with some cooked vegetables, such as roasted red peppers or sauteed mushrooms.

Update: I originally specified a nonstick pan for this recipe, but I have since changed that as it may not be safe to put nonstick pans under the broiler.

Making Granola at Home

On most mornings, my breakfast is a bowl of Greek yogurt with granola and fresh berries. I used to buy granola, but it became way too expensive, and store-bought granola is surprisingly high in calories. Granola is so easy to make at home, and best of all, you can control what goes in it. You can choose what nuts to add, whether to throw in some coconut or dried fruit, and how much fat and sweetener to use.

I’ve tried many granola recipes, and I’ve finally settled on this one as my weekly go-to recipe. It is adapted from a Cooks’ Illustrated recipe. It’s easy, very adaptable, and always results in a golden-brown, slightly sweet granola that tastes great sprinkled on yogurt.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In a big bowl, combine 3 cups rolled oats (not instant), ¼ cup wheat germ, 1 cup chopped nuts (any kind or a combination), ½ cup sunflower seeds and ½ cup shredded coconut. In a small saucepan, heat 1/3 cup vegetable oil and ¼ cup honey until warm. Pour this mixture over the ingredients in the bowl and stir until well-coated. Spread the granola mixture on a baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until golden-brown and fragrant. After baking, add up to ¼ cup dried fruit, if you like. Let the granola cool and then store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

My favorite nuts to use in this recipe are slivered almonds, but I have also tried walnuts and pecans with good results. Of course, the coconut or sunflower seeds can be omitted, or additional nuts may be substituted for them. In the winter, when berries aren’t in season, try different kinds of dried fruit other than raisins. Dried cranberries and cherries are both delicious.

Sunday Morning Scrambled Eggs

I had the idea that last weekend’s cooking challenge was going to be an easy one. It was for a Country Scramble, a scrambled egg dish that contains a lot of other good stuff besides, most importantly, pan-fried potatoes. I make scrambled eggs with stuff almost every weekend, so I thought this one would be a breeze. I even planned to make biscuits to go with it.

What I ended up with was a “plate of fail.” That’s what I call the plate where food goes before burial in the trash can. In this case, it was 3 pieces of charred bacon — I’m blaming their demise on my toddler, who distracted me during the frying process — and an entire batch of biscuits. More on that later.

The eggs themselves didn’t go on the plate of fail, and my husband said he really enjoyed them, but they were not my favorite dish. I think there was too much stuff in them. When I researched Country Scramble recipes online, most of them contained similar ingredients: diced potatoes (cooked like hash browns), bell pepper, onion, cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon. I planned to add all of these, plus some scallions for freshness and color. I diced the potatoes, onion and pepper pretty small and added them to a hot pan with some of the liquid bacon grease. (By the way, 2 slices of bacon were rescued and made it into the final dish.) I mostly let them alone, turning them with a big spatula now and again until they were browned on all sides and the potatoes were tender. If I had stopped at this point, I would have had some pretty darn good hash browns.

I pressed the hash browns into a flat layer and poured over 5 eggs beaten with some salt and pepper. I sprinkled over some grated cheddar, the 2 crumbled rashers of bacon and some sliced scallions. After letting it set for a few minutes, I began to scramble. Well, the finished result tasted good, but it wasn’t really eggy enough for me. I think I could have doubled the number of eggs used and it would have been much better, but I already had made way too much for the two of us to eat.

I think I prefer my normal Sunday morning scramble, which has more egg and less stuff. I’ll put the recipe — such as it is — at the bottom of this post. By the way, my husband did take pictures, but I’m not going to post any of them, as this was not the most appetizing-looking of dishes. Judging on looks alone, the picture probably better belongs here.

As for those biscuits… I have made a lot of biscuits, from a lot of different recipes, and they usually turn out great. Biscuits are the easiest and tastiest breads you can make, after all. But I tried a new recipe called, ironically enough, “The Best Biscuits Ever.” These biscuits were a lot of work, and I think that was their downfall. I’ve never made a biscuit where the dough was worked so much. The first batch came out looking very much like hockey pucks: hard and flat and black on the bottom. To rescue the second batch, I had to pile three biscuits on top of each other for a layered effect. They were certainly flakey, but they did not rise at all. Lesson learned. I will return to my tried-and-true buttermilk biscuit recipe next time.

Here is how I usually make Sunday-morning eggs. This recipe is designed to use up little bits of leftover food before going grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday-Morning Scrambled Eggs

1. Go through the refrigerator and find 1, 2 or 3 things to put in the eggs. Leftover cooked veggies or potatoes are good, or a stray tomato. Onions, mushrooms or peppers will all work. Also, that last bit of cheese. If you have a little smoked salmon, prosciutto or bacon, even better. Cut up everything into bite-sized bits.

2. Beat together 2 eggs per diner, plus 1 egg for the bowl, until just combined. Stir in a dollop of cream (or half-and-half) and some salt and pepper.

3. Heat some butter in a nonstick pan over medium. Heat through or cook, if necessary, the filling ingredients you chose (except for the cheese).

4. When the filling is ready, spread it out in a single layer and pour the eggs over. Sprinkle with crumbled or grated cheese and some herbs, if you have any. Let the eggs sit for a minute or two, until they start to set.

5. Using a rubber spatula, scoop and fold the eggs to create big, fluffy curds. Keep scooping until the eggs are cooked the way you like them. I like mine a little wet, but some people prefer them to be entirely dry. Serve immediately with toast of some sort or biscuits.

Blueberry Popsicles and Syrup

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It seems that blueberry season is upon us. We haven’t even been blueberry picking yet, but my fridge still overflows with fresh, cheap berries, or as my son calls them, “boobrees.” As in “mo boobrees. Peeeeze?” Here are a couple of ideas of what to do with excess blueberries.

Popsicles are always a tasty treat and super-easy to make, if you have the molds. Here is my master recipe, but it’s as simple as pureeing the fruit, mixing in enough water to thin and sugar to taste, and freezing. A food mill works well for pureeing berries as it strains out most of the seeds and stems for you.

As a special Sunday morning treat, make blueberry syrup for pancakes. You can use fresh or frozen berries for this syrup. Not only does it taste good on pancakes, but you can stir leftovers into yogurt or oatmeal to liven up your breakfasts all week. I expect it’s also very nice on top of ice cream or pound cake. (The recipe comes from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.)

Blueberry Syrup

Serves: 4 or more
Time to make: ~15 minutes

• 2 cups blueberries, fresh or thawed
• 1 tbsp. cornstarch mixed with 1 tbsp. water
• additional water as needed to thin (about ½ cup)
• sugar and lemon juice to taste

Combine the blueberries, cornstarch, water and a tablespoon or two of sugar in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until the sauce thickens.  This takes about 10-15 minutes. Add more water as needed to thin, if necessary. Stir in lemon juice to taste and more sugar if needed. Refrigerate up to 1 week.

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Asparagus & Eggs

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We are in the midst of that brief season when we must gorge ourselves on asparagus, for all too soon, it will be gone. Overindulgence is the key so that we don’t miss asparagus too much once its season is over, but rather let our longing build up slowly until the next spring.

Asparagus and eggs are a classic combination, and I celebrated Mother’s Day by eating a variation of this dish twice. Of course, the classic asparagus-and-eggs dish is crisp-tender spears topped by a fried egg and Parmesan shavings, which is always satisfying, but I encourage you to try something new.

For brunch, mix chopped, crisply cooked asparagus with fluffy, cheesy scrambled eggs. For dinner, try blanched, chilled asparagus spears drizzled with red wine vinaigrette and chopped hard-boiled egg.

I’m sure there are many other ways to combine these two great ingredients. How many can we try?

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Dutch Baby & Focaccia

A genuine Dutch Baby.

For Sunday breakfast yesterday, I made a Dutch baby. This is a kind of pancake that is cooked in the oven so it puffs up like a giant popover. Once you take it out of the oven, it deflates quickly, but it is very light and sweet, delicious with powdered sugar and fresh strawberries. I’ve made something like this before, but I didn’t realize then that its real name was Dutch baby.

For my Sunday afternoon baking project, I made rosemary focaccia. I love focaccia and will eat it for breakfast, sandwiches, snacks, anytime. It’s like pizza without all the stuff. The recipe I tried was from Cooks Illustrated and called for a potato. I’m not sure it was the best recipe for focaccia out there, and I would like to experiment with other takes on it before committing to a go-to recipe.

Couscous for Breakfast? Pasta and Potatoes?

So when you’ve forbidden yourself from buying packaged cereals, granola, English muffins and bagels, what do you eat for breakfast? Mark Bittman has some unusual suggestions in his book Food Matters. Today I tried one of them: couscous. Why not? It’s a cereal, and it’s fast and easy to prepare. I dressed it up like I would oatmeal. Bittman also suggests treating bulgur or leftover cooked grains like rice the same way. Polenta would be good too, I’d bet.

Speaking of Bittman, I tried an unusual but very tasty recipe of his from How to Cook Everything last night. It combines pasta with potatoes. I wouldn’t normally build a meal based on two starches, but the resulting dish is very hearty and satisfying. It starts with a little minced bacon crisping in olive oil. Add some garlic and red pepper flakes for flavor; then add diced potatoes and let brown. Next, throw in a can of diced tomatoes, a can of water and about half a box of cut pasta. Let simmer over low heat for 30 minutes or so, adding more water if necessary, until the potatoes are cooked and the pasta is tender. The resulting mixture should be a little soupy. This was definitely a “go back for seconds” type of dish.

Sweet Potato Hash Browns

Dice bacon. Saute until crisp and remove to a paper towel. Dice onion. Saute in the bacon fat until browned. Dice sweet potato. Add to the onion with salt and a small amount of water. Cover and simmer 10 minutes or so. Uncover and raise heat. Boil away the remaining water and brown the sweet potatoes. Remove to plate. Top with bacon and a fried egg. Umm, breakfast for dinner.