The Beauty Is In Its Simplicity

As I'm sure I've mentioned on this blog before, I love breakfast. Save for oatmeal there aren't many breakfast dishes I dislike, but eggs in almost any form rank right at the top of the list, often in sandwich form. So, it was some surprise to me a month or so ago when I was contemplating a bacon'n'cheese sandwich a realised I didn't really want one. I wanted all the components of it, for sure, but not in the way I ususally constructed and consumed it.

I took a minute to think about it and began deconstructing the sandwich: eggs, cheese, bread. Simple. How could I reconfigure these in an equally delicious way, that sounded more appealing than the old-standby? Thankfully the answer struck me within a minute or two, and it was so obvious that I couldn't believe I'd never thought of it before. Take the egg out of the sandwich, use the cheese and bread to make grilled cheese, fry the egg over easy, dip the grilled cheese in the lovely, runny yolk, then enjoy some fried egg and grilled cheese. Simple, delicious, and absolutely satisfying, especially when doused with a little hot sauce.

I'll assume the average reader has grilled at least one cheese in his/her life so I'll skip that, but if you've only got one decent pan to your name I like to pop my grilled cheese in a 250 degree oven for a minute or two while I fry the eggs. Now, the only hitch is making a proper over easy egg, which I finally, after years of broken and over cooked yolks, discovered the secret to: a well oiled, screaming hot frying pan, non-stick if you got it. Crack the eggs into the hot pan and allow them to cook until they're set just enough to flip them. Once they've reached this stage quickly, but carefully, flip the egg and kill the heat. The pan is certainly hot enough to cook the top of the whites and lightly seal the yolk without totally cooking it. Let them sit this way just long enough to pull the the grilled cheese, then halve the sandwich and plate. Again, hot sauce is a nice addition, but completely optional. I think provolone and/or Swiss make for great grilled cheese, but Muenster and/or pepper jack are excellent, too. And a few strips of bacon couldn't hurt either right? And if one were to fry the grilled cheese and eggs in the rendered bacon fat, that wouldn't be too terrible either, right? Right.

great condiment... or the *greatest* condiment?

I was at Kuma's Corner this afternoon (we were in Chicago and Erin had never been to Kuma's, so we decided to grindcore off our hangover) and, completely on a lark, threw together the world's best condiment...

Sriracha ketchup.

Start with ketchup. Add sriracha hot sauce to taste. I liked it at about a 10:1 ketchup-to-sriracha ratio.

It's that easy, and it's mind blowing. Sriracha by itself is a fantastic condiment compliment for just about anything you would contemplate adding hot sauce to. It also makes a good addition to mustard, but sriracha ketchup trumps them all.

Do it now.


(Also, it should be noted that we got an Iron Maiden, a Motorhead, a Neurosis, and mac 'n'cheese for lunch.)

Dip-licious!

My friend Tim's birthday was last week and he celebrated by way of a cook out. I definitely wanted to bring something to share with the crowd, but what. Tim's wife, Becky, is vegan so i wanted to make sure what I brought appealed to all in attendance both in taste and content. I remembered some drunken conversations I'd had with Tim in the bast regarding a mutual love of Indian food and it hit me: spinach avocado dip with Indian spices!
I love this recipe. It's so simple and easy and it turns out great every time. I originally had this at Justin and Lisa's Indian thanksgiving a few years ago when Kyle's then girlfriend, and current wife, brought it to share. I loved it instantly. I hunted down the recipe and first made it for a vegan thanksgiving feast I attended about two weeks later.


This is one of the easiest things to make, especially if you have a full size food processor and don't have to work in batches:

INGREDIENTS:

1. 4 cups (about 6 oz.) spinach leaves


2. 1 large avocado, peeled, pit removed


3. 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice


4. 1/2 tsp seasoned salt


5. 1 clove garlic, peeled


6. 1/4 tsp curry powder


7. 1/8 tsp minced fresh ginger


8. Dash chili powder


9. Dash cayenne pepper


10. Dash cumin

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. And not only is it simple and ridiculously delicious, but it looks amazing too, like a leftover Double Dare substance, making it great for holiday parties, especially Halloween!

Having made this several times, I've done some tinkering with the formula. Some great additions and changes I've made in the past:

• Lemon juice is fine, but I prefer lime for flavor. An acid is needed to keep the avocado from oxidizing and turning brown.
• Add in a hand full of cilantro to round out the flavor
• A few dashes of hot sauce will kick this into authentic Indian territory, I use a sauce made from Scotch Bonnet peppers that adds a ton of heat but doesn't skew the flavor.
• The smokiness of chipotle is also a welcome addition to the party
• If you don't have seasoned salt use your favorite herb/spice blend, but if it's sodium free like the Two Brothers' season mix I used you'll definitely need to add some salt
• If your food processor is bitsy, like mine, you'll need to work in batches and mix thoroughly at the end to incorporate all the flavors

And how does one serve this? Any dippable side will do: chips, crackers, etc. But I like to whip up a batch of home made pita chips thustly:

• Cut pita rounds into: quarters for small pitas, eighths or sixteenths for full sized
• Place on baking sheet
• Brush with a 1:2 mixture of lime juice and water
• Sprinkle with salt
• Bake at 350 for about ten minutes, flipping about half way through. They're done when they're crispy, golden-brown and the moisture has baked out

This would also make an interesting pesto if one were to sub olive oil and some sort of nut--traditionally pine nuts--for the avocado!

simple, tasty breakfast

Breakfast may or may not be the most important meal of the day, but it's certainly the tastiest! I love the cuisine of breakfast almost completely across the board and unlike lunch and dinner breakfast is good anytime of day (save, of course, for cold pizza).

However, I must constantly reconcile my love of a.m. eats with my severe hatred of getting up too much before 10 or 11. What's a boy to do?

Anyways, I thought I'd share one of my favorite, and simplest, breakfast treats today: the honey nut English muffin!

For this application you will need:

• 1 English muffin
• butter or margarine
• honey
• about 1/3 cup of raw nuts, coarsely chopped (I like a mix of pecan, almonds and walnuts)
  
• toaster oven
  
• small piece of foil

Directions:

• split your muffin and place it in the toaster
• chop nuts and place them in a small vessel made from folded foil (I like a square, play pen shaped device, but anything walled with an open top will do)
• start your toaster!
• after a few minutes toasting, about 2 on mine, but use your judgment based on knowledge of your own toaster, place the foil container of nuts in the toaster oven.
• when the nuts just begin to smell toasty and take color remove them.
• butter the English muffin, top with the toasted nuts, then drizzle honey over top

This is an amazing flavor combination, a little salty from the nuts and butter, sweetness and a touch of gaminess from the honey, and the texture of the toasty muffin and nuts is amazing. Plus it takes about four minutes to make with very little clean up!

If you don't have a toaster oven gently toast the nuts in a small skillet on your range over medium-low heat. Whatever heating implement you use keep an eye and nose on the nuts as they go from toasty and delicious to burnt-to-a-crisp in just a few moments due to their high oil content.

Enjoy!