Simple Eggs with Chive & Potato Pancakes

Each morning before elementary school, I was plunked down in front of a bowl of oatmeal or cereal. Lucky Charms, Kix, Smacks, Quakers with brown sugar and butter. I couldn't complain. When it came time for annual standardized testing, though, no sugary carbs were on the menu. On those mornings, my dad would make me a fried or scrambled egg and a piece of buttered toast. I'd drown it in hot sauce and enjoy every last bite. Clearly, my father's intention was to make the day seem special, to start it off on the right foot, with a breakfast of champions. And I must say, it worked. The positive attitude that my dad and those egg breakfasts implied made me immune to test anxiety. I never felt nervous, and I always did well. Now, before big meetings, job interviews, presentations or any time I need a boost of 'the day is yours!', I fry or scramble an egg, butter a piece of toast, drown it all in hot sauce and feel less nervous.

I like eggs all forms of eggs (well... except for crunchy, hard meringue cookies). Omelets, scrambles, quiches, Spanish tortillas, fried, poached, boil or deviled. I could eat eggs any time of day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. This form of eggs for breakfast seems decadent and a little special, but is simple enough not to feel fussy.

So, next time you make eggs for breakfast, try eating them this way- lightly fried in olive oil with thin, hashbrowny, flourless, potato and chive 'pancakes' and a little hot sauce or a small dollop of sour cream or plain yogurt, and fresh cracked pepper. Serve with orange slices, coffee or tea. 

(Added bonus, each thin, little pancake is only about 85 calories!)

Ingredients:

(serves 4)

1 large, waxy potato

1 small bunch of chives (about 3 tablespoons when chopped)

4 tbsp Olive oil

1 tbsp Butter

Salt & pepper

4-8 Eggs

Toppings (optional):

Plain yogurt or sour cream

Hot sauce (I like Tapatio)

Chopped parsley 

Cooked spinach (like I make for Eggs Florence)

Directions:

1. Wash the potato of any lingering dirt. Then, skin on, grate the potato using the small side of a box grater. The small size of the potato grating will help you get the right consistency. Put the grated potato into a medium sized bowl.
2. Fill the bowl with cold water. The water will be cloudy because of the starch on the potato gratings. Swish the potato around, then drain off the water. Repeat until the water runs clear. This is an important step! Rinsing off the starch will make it easier to make your pancakes, as they won't stick and burn in the pan. 
3. To the bowl of rinsed potato, add the chives, 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper to taste. 
4. Heat a medium sized, non-stick pan over medium heat. Add 1 tbsp of olive oil and half the butter. Wait for the oil and butter to heat up (butter should not be sizzling or browning, merely gently foaming). Once the pan and oil/butter are hot, add about a 1/3 cup of potato chive mixture to the pan, form into an approx 2" across round. Make sure there aren't any large holes in your pancake. Gently press down with your spatula to achieve uniform, thin pancake. 
5. Repeat until your pan is full (don't overcrowd, though I never put more than 4 in a large pan).
6. Cook over medium heat until you notice the top of the pancakes are becoming more translucent and the bottom side of each on is lightly golden brown. Flip and cook until the bottom is golden.
7. Remove to warmed plate in the oven. Repeat for a second round of pancake. I can usually get about 8 pancakes out of one large potato.
8. Fry or poach eggs to your preferred level of doneness. I like mine fried, with runny yolks. 
9. Plate eggs and potato 'pancakes', one egg on top of one pancake. I sometimes make some cooked spinach and add that inbetween the pancake and egg. Enjoy!

Power Breakfast Smoothie

I am not a morning person. Nor am I a breakfast person. Most days, I tumble out of bed, brush my hair and teeth, pull on some clothes and head out the door with a big to-go container full of a riff on this smoothie. It keeps me full until lunch, is super fast to set up, and also makes me feel like a responsible, non-Lucky-Charms-eating, adult. Woot.

Power Breakfast Smoothie
makes enough for two smoothies (give the other portion to someone you like, they'll appreciate it)

Ingredients & Directions:
This is mostly just a basic idea of how to go about making a normal tasting smoothie that doesn't have a lot of sugar going on. I never add any sugar to mine because all the yogurt in China is already sweetened, I counteract this sweetness with a squeeze of half a lemon in there because I like some zing, but your welcome to put some honey or agave in there if it needs sweetening to you, both of those sweeteners are healthy and yummy!

Hardest part: Get a blender and assemble it in the right order for it to work. Plug it in. (MAKE SURE IT'S SWITCHED OFF FIRST THOUGH!)

In every smoothie I make, there is:

1-2 bananas, depending on how many people I am making it for. 1 banana is fine for 2 people
1/2 cup of plain, dried oatmeal, preferably rolled, but quick will work in a pinch.
a large handful of washed spinach, trust me you can't taste it at all (it's a miracle!)
1 cup of whole milk yogurt with live cultures. Plain would be best, but all yogurt in China is sweetened...
a splash of whole milk
a splash of 100% juice

Here's where you can get funky:
Add whatever other fruit you have on hand. I like my smoothie to be interesting and light tasting, so I go for puckery fruits like pineapple, oranges, mangoes, and peaches. Berry's get lost in smoothies to me, unless you put a ton in, so I just save the berries for more berry-centric things.... like tarts. If all else fails and I don't even have a measly orange to throw in, I always have lemons in the house, and I just squeeze the juice of half or a whole one in there.

Alternately, instead of extra fruit, you could add a tbsp of nut butter for a rich, thick smoothie, if you're into that sorta thing.

I like to add some 100% juice to up my fruit intake, but if you don't have 100% juice, I'd just leave it out. Avoiding corn syrup laden cereal is the goal here for me, so I wouldn't add juice that has it in it either.

If you're feeling bored, throw in some spices. If I've got bananas and peaches in there, I add some cinnamon and trick myself into thinking I'm eating a peach cobbler. If it's bananas and pineapple, cardamom would be fine. In a nut butter and banana smoothie, a tsp on cocoa powder could amp it up a bit.

If you've got a strong juicer/blender, throw in some cut up carrots instead of spinach and add a small piece of ginger, add some cinnamon and a little honey and you'll have a carrot cake like smoothie! Mm!

You could add some flax seeds or a green machine type powder to make it extra good.

And lastly, if you are on a diet, I highly recommend a tbsp of virgin coconut oil. It'll keep you full and satisfied for longer and coconut oil (of the organic, virgin variety, like Dr. Bronner's) is extremely good for you!

Basically, add things that are good for you to get the most out of this breakfast. White sugars, corn syrup-y granola, and diluted juice won't do anything for you, so just stick to whole things as much as possible for this. It'll jump start your day with a serving of fruits and vegetables and get your metabolism working without having to spend 20 minutes cooking something. Enjoy!

Spinach Ravioli with Garlic Herb Olive Oil

Tuesday is my long day. I start work at 8 and finish at 5:30.  I know, that's a normal 8 hour job. I know that 8 hours should not be a big deal. I used to regularly have a couple of jobs at a time, but now I am a working wussy. China has 2 hour lunch breaks, early closing times, week and month long national vacations.... it's kinda of awesome.

But seriously, teaching can be a tiring job!

Often times, I love it. I'm especially enjoying teaching art this year and having that creativity back in my life. Sometimes, though, trying to get teenagers to understand the basics of oil painting 5 times in one day is enough to make you want to eat the fake still life fruit, just so it can end! Enough is enough! To top it off, Tuesdays, I have a meeting at 4 o'clock that could last anywhere between 1 and 2 hours. The meetings are often fruitless and circular and by the time I get out of there I need to go do something I want to do.

Last Tuesday, I wanted flowers, so I bought some.  I wanted to eat spinach for dinner, so I bought some. I wanted rose tea when I got home, so I had some. When I got home, I rummaged in my fridge to figure out what to make. You see, for some reason, it's rare for me to actually have a totally thought out plan for dinner. This often results in my boyfriend worriedly asking me if we're ever going to eat dinner, or what exactly it is that I'm making. So last Tuesday, I had spinach and then I saw mushrooms and  jiaozi wrappers and immediately thought, ravioli. I made mushroom ravioli with thyme and breadcrumbs, and I made spinach ravioli and egg. I was a little worried that the egg would be weird or the the combo too boring. It was anything but.

These ravioli are delicious.  They are garlicky, earthy and truly rich tasting despite having zero cheese or dairy  whatsoever. I think they'd be great with Pasta Pomodoro, but I just ate them with a drizzle of some herb garlic olive oil and a sprinkle of parmesan.

Spinach Ravioli with Herb Garlic Olive Oil

Ingredients:
For the Ravioli:
A pack of potsticker wrappers, the thickest you can find, or fresh sheets of pasta dough (I used about 40)
A ton of spinach
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 a medium red onion, finely diced
salt and pepper
1 egg, beaten

For the Oil:
1/2 cup olive oil, fruity is okay
a large pinch of rosemary
a large pinch of oregano (or italian herb mix)
a medium pinch of red pepper flakes
a medium pinch of kosher salt
a tiny pinch of cinnamon
3 black peppercorns
1 clove of garlic, minced

Directions:

1. Grab all your ingredients. Trim off some of the spinach stems and rinse thoroughly. Chop finely. (Finer than I did, please!)

2. Prepare the Herb Oil: In a mortar and pestle, add all of the dry ingredients (meaning, not the olive oil or the garlic). Crush until very fine. Mince the garlic. Combine the ingredients in a small bowl to allow the flavors to meld.

3. Prepare the Filling: Dice the onion and mince the garlic. Add 1 tbsp of olive oil to a pan and heat over medium. Add onions and cook for 1-2 minutes to soften. Add garlic. Be careful to adjust according to your particular stove's heating, you don't want to burn the garlic! Season with salt and fresh ground pepper, maybe even a little nutmeg if you want to be interesting.

4. Set the spinach aside to cool just a bit, about 8 minutes. In a bowl, beat the egg. Add a small amount of the spinach mixture and stir to make sure the egg won't curdle when you add it all. Then, gradually add more and more of the spinach to the egg until all combined.




5. Fill the Ravioli: Set yourself with a little ravioli assembly line. You'll need your wrappers, a spoon, a fork, a little bowl of water and a little bowl of flour. Here are the steps:

Form a small bowl shape with the wrapper in your fingers. Brush just a tiny bit of water on the edge of the wrapper.

With a spoon add just a small amount, about a teaspoon, of the filling to the middle of the wrapper.






Fold the wrapper in half and squeeze at the top middle. Make sure the two sides actually meld, the water should help. Then, move along the edge squeezing until the entire edge has been sealed shut.








Lay the ravioli onto a dry place on a cutting board or plate. Dip the fork tines into the small bowl of flour, then gently press the tines into the sealed edge of the ravioli to give it that happy little ruffled edge. This is optional, but I think makes it look so nice.

Repeat until you either run out of filling or wrappers.***




6. Cook the Ravioli: Fill a large pot with water and salt it. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, you may add up to about 10 ravioli to your pot. The ravioli are cooked when they float to the top of the water and stay there.

7.Scoop cooked ravioli out with a slotted spoon as they finish. Split into bowls or onto plates. Drizzle the garlic herb oil  on top. Sprinkle some Parmesan if desired (you do) and eat! Excellent with a side salad and some white wine, or by themselves for a light lunch. You could even serve these ON TOP of salad and use the herb oil and a little red wine vinegar as the dressing. Enjoy!

*** These ravioli freeze really well. Dust a baking sheet with some flour and arrange the ravioli on it as you fill them. Make sure they aren't touching! Put the ravioli on the sheet into the freezer overnight. The next day, pop the ravioli off the sheet and into freezer bags, and enjoy in the next few weeks!

Pasta Pomodoro

One time, I was a freshman in college and it was only the 1st month. College was new and exciting and different, but oh man was the food situation dismal. So, I went to the closest supermarket, bought the ingredients for this sauce, started it up in the tiny little, communal kitchen in our dorm hall and sat down with a book in the adjacent common room. I knew few people at this point, but I met a lot of people that day. Because the sauce takes abut 30-45 minutes to reduce, the smell of homey, sweet, buttery tomatoes started to waft through the room and slowly down the hall. Boys I'd never seen before showed up, drawn by the smell and their stomachs, and girls who I'd only awkwardly made friendly hallway conversation with came in to see who was cooking and what it was. Later on down the road, this sauce was the first one my boyfriend learned to cook. And in my senior year, I made this same cheap and easy sauce for a huge group for less than 25 dollars.

I learned this sauce from my father, who got it from a book at some point but he's never used a recipe. We would eat it when I was a kid and it was one of the first things I remember cooking, as it's so easy. Pasta Pomodoro is the easiest pasta sauce I've heard of. It has just 3 ingredients, none of them hard to find. It's an excellent base to create more complex sauces, but the sauce that results from this is so delicious and warming and homey. Why mess with it?  The pickiest eaters eat it, it's vegetarian and it will be great on seriously any shape pasta you pair it with. Serve it with ravioli for a truly lovely meal, but with regular spaghetti, garlic bread and salad, no one would complain.

Pasta Pomodoro

makes 3-4 servings for light saucers, 2 servings for heavy saucer                                                                                         

                           

Ingredients:

**4 tomatoes or 2 15oz cans of plainm peeled tomatoes with their juice. I like Hunt's brand, and I like whole.

1/2 stick (4 tbsp) salted butter

1 large yellow or red tomato (yellow is best)

Directions:

            

Empty both cans of tomatoes into an appropriately sized sauce pan. Use a wooden spoon to sort of punch the whole tomatoes if you're using them. Turn on the burner to medium high heat. Add the butter, cut into 4 or so pieces and the peeled onion, cut into 4 pieces also.

Simmer these ingredients, stirring occasionally, squishing tomato and onion occasionally too. When the sauce has reduced by half, add salt and pepper to taste. Though the reduction takes a little time, you'll be rewarded with a silky rich sauce that's condensed all of the sweet tomato essence and imbued it with the friendly flavors of butter and sweet onion. It tastes rich, but is cheap. You can blend it if you like, but my favorite part is eating the chunks of tomato and the translucent soft onion layers. If serving with ravioli, I beg you to try a cheese one. This does not sound gourmet, but one of my earliest 'omgfood' moments was this same meal. Simple is good.

** If, like me, you don't have access to canned tomatoes...or are simply too tired to go get some, check out my Blanched Tomatoes how-to and use about 4-6 ripe tomatoes instead. Super easy and fast as well, and if you have homegrown tomatoes, you will never regret it. Just add a cup of water in with the ingredients at the beginning so that things have a little more juice to work with in cooking the veggies.