Scrambled Eggs

Yesterday, as I complained to Blaire that eating cereal for breakfast inevitably made me hungry an hour later, she suggested I start my day out with eggs before carbing it up.  I was thinking about that this morning, when I realized I had an hour to eat something before running with Emily and Kjersti.  So I decided to make scrambled eggs.

(Was all that explanation unnecessary build-up?  I mean, I did title this post “Scrambled Eggs.”  I could have just said, “I made scrambled eggs this morning.” and you would know just as much - and maybe care just as much - as when I explained all that other stuff.)

I think that scrambled eggs are one of those things where everyone has their own “way” of making them.  I mean, they’re simple enough that you don’t really need a recipe.  And everyone has their own preference in the way they like them.  When everyone gathered together for brunch after Mark and Emily’s wedding, I remember being reluctant to help make them.  Brian, I don’t care that you’re trying to flip the pancakes, cook the sausages and mix Bellinis at the same time!  You do the scrambled eggs!  You can’t trust me!    Scrambled eggs are serious business!  I didn’t want anyone to hate me if I made them incorrectly.

So I am going to explain how I make my scrambled eggs and hope readers will respond in kind.  Maybe I have yet to hit the Holy Grail of Scrambled Eggs and this post might set me on the right path!  Someone will reveal an amazing scrambled egg secret!!

Scrambled Eggs, Melanie-Style:

First, I crack a bunch of eggs.  If it’s just for me, as a meal, then it’s usually 3.

Then I whip it all together and add a dab of some kind of heavy dairy, like cream or half-and-half (definitely NOT skim milk).

I heat up the skillet, pour in the egg mixture, and start sliding my cooking utensil around.  I’m not too graceful about it.  I just start shoving the eggs around to make sure they don’t cook too much.

When the eggs get to that tipping point where they look about ready to tip from “somewhat shiny sheen” to “dull matte cooked eggs”, I pour them out on a plate before they lose that sheen and let them sit for a minute.  Then I sprinkle with a bit of salt and a lot of freshly cracked pepper and eat.  Yum!

And that is how I make eggs!  To contrast, my Dad just takes a bunch of eggs, mixes them together (no additions!) and cooks them (no seasoning added!).  Until they’re very hard.  Which is great, he likes them that way, that’s what makes him happy.  But this is how I eat my scrambled eggs and I like them this way much, much more.

And now I’m wondering - how do you like your scrambled eggs?

Wine and Tomato Braised Chicken

Here we have something that I like cooking with a lot - chicken thighs!  I recently, semi-unofficially, gave up chicken breasts.  I was tired of the chicken always coming out really dry and it was always so hard getting it to retain flavor.  Down with chicken breasts, I’d say, unenthusiastically cooking with it.  And then I realized … I am in charge of this here kitchen.  If I don’t want to cook with chicken breasts, who’s to say I have to?

No one, that’s who.  And this is why I kicked them out of my kitchen once and for all.

Amy suggested this recipe to me, in my usual early morning “I have this, this and that.  What can I make?”  quest.  Amy, you’re my greatest inspiration!  Martin, in contrast, is not helpful at all.  Sometimes, I even ask him basic decisions like “Chicken or pasta?” and he gives me a blank look.  I just need some direction, please!  Amy understands this and always points me towards a good starting point.  And, Amy, that is why you need to move to this area.  Seattle won’t love you the way I do!

I’m just going to link to the recipe I used, as I don’t think I made too many substitutions.  Here we go, here we go, here we go now.

Now, some notes.  The sauce was more watery than I was expecting.  I kept it simmering for a long time, uncovered, trying to cook off a bunch of the liquid, before giving up.  The flavor was tasty and strong.  And it might be better to go the boneless thighs route, as it was pretty hard to cut the meat off.  But that’s me and Martin’s laziness at work!  Go include the bones, if you feel like it!  It went well over pasta, as I can demonstrate here:

I thinly sliced some green onions to sprinkle on top because I had green onions chilling in the crisper.  I also like the extra snap green onions add.  Overall, delicious and I will make it again, when the weather cools down!

Broiled Salmon with Sweet Pea, Sun-Dried Tomato, and Lemon Fusili

Yes, that was a mouthful and so was meal that goes along with it.  Namely, this:

It doesn’t look too appealing, all red and saucy like.  Piled high.  Warm looking on these hot summer nights.  But I really liked it.  It had salmon and sundried tomatoes, two of my favorite foods to eat.  And pasta, from the Santa Cruz pasta man that comes to the farmer’s market, which is sneaking up on my list of favorite foods.

This was another dish where I thought, “What do I have in my refrigerator?” aka “What needs to be eaten right now?”  And then I searched around and found this recipe!  I had everything right on hand, except for Emeril’s Essence and peas.  So I made a few substitutions, tweaked it a bit to suit my taste and came up with this dish that I now present before you.

So, what are my thoughts?  My thoughts are that I can’t really remember this dish, as I made it awhile ago.  I really need to do a better create / picture take / relate turnaround  (and by the way, did you see how I managed to make all of that rhyme?  Freakin’ sweet …) so when I talk about foods, I can say more than “It done tasted good.”

I remember the sauce being a little on the thick side, because the pasta is coated in the sauce.  And not understanding what Emeril meant when he said to shingle 1/2″ slices.  Perhaps this works better if your salmon is more towards the center and not the tail (my favorite part and, therefore, the part I buy), so your “shingles” will be a bit longer in length. I did like how it incorporated sundried tomatoes.  And was a different way for me to prepare salmon.

With that said, I end this entry with a plea.  I love salmon and I probably buy it 1 - 2 times a month.  But I need new ways to prepare said salmon!  So if you have a dish that you made recently that made your heart skip a beat and features salmon, please, pass it my way!

Here’s the one I gift to you. 

Shrimp Salad

If there’s one thing I love, it’s my Parker House rolls.  Sometimes, I wonder how other food bloggers can write so much.  How is it that they can keep trying the new?  What about returning the beloved tried and true every now and then?  How can we fit in new and exciting things, when I want my darned comfort foods too.

Parker House rolls are pretty much the only bread I make nowadays.  I am so-over my rye bread phase and just haven’t re-caught the bread bug.  Except for rolls, those light, fluffy, oh so delicate puffs.  I was really craving them the other day so I tried to figure out a meal that would pair well with them for when our friend Michelle came over.

I came up with:  shrimp salad!  Martin had insisted on tiny baby shrimps on a recent grocery trip and the package came labelled as “salad shrimp.”  No joke.  I took that as a sign.

I know it’s not much to look at, but the rolls so totally made the salad.  I wish I could say it was my awesome shrimp salad, but it wasn’t.

I think I picked the shrimp salad recipe because it had slashes and umlats decorating the o’s (the recipe’s official name is Shrimp Smorrebrod).  The description was open-faced sandwiches over rye bread - so Swedish sounding!

Well, it turned out to be Danish but Martin liked it anyway.  I made a few substitutions but was overall very happy with the result.   You go, rolls!!  This was a great, light summer meal.

Shrimp Smorrebrod, Melanie Style

1 lb. salad shrimp
1/4 cup chilled heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons horseradish, cream-style
2 firm-ripe California avocados
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 small Italian red pepper, diced
Parker House Rolls
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
Whatever salad greens you happen to have

1-  Defrost salad shrimp (yes, it’s true, they were frozen but really, can you imagine shelling shrimp this tiny yourself?)

2-  Whisk heavy cream until it holds soft peaks, then whisk in sour cream, horseradish, and salt and pepper to taste.

3-  Halve, pit, and peel avocados, then slice crosswise. Drizzle slices with lemon juice.

4-  Slice rolls.  Arrange shrimp, avocado, and onion over it. Spoon dollops of horseradish sauce on sandwiches.  Be happy as you stuff your face and bask in the summeryness.

Servings:  6

Chicken with Pappardelle

What is that, you might be asking yourself right now.  I mean, it doesn’t look too appetizing.  It’s a plopful of noodles along with a plopful of red stuff.  But it’s mighty tasty, if I do say so myself.

I can’t take credit for the crazy looking pasta.  It comes from my pasta man.  Well, he’s not my pasta man.  He’s just the guy who sells fresh pasta at the Farmer’s Market, who I buy pasta from.  He’s super nice and his kids, who can’t be more than 12, are adorable as they weigh my pasta and take Martin’s money.

Just kidding.  They just re-stock the bins!

This is herb pappardalle, I do believe.  (See, I told you I am officially in love with pappardelle and you didn’t believe me).  And I loved the tomato-based sauce that went on top of it because it was thick and chunky and had texture and chicken in it.

So let’s get started on how to make this chicken, shall we?

First, I used chicken thighs.  I used to buy chicken breasts breasts, before I realized I actually hate chicken breasts.  No matter how carefully you cook them, they always taste really dry and stringy.  No thank you, chicken breasts.  If I wanted dry and stringy food … well, when have I ever wanted dry and stringy food?

So I made an unofficial decision to only use chicken thighs, if I am eating chicken.  And I haven’t looked back since.  And here is something I’ve made while looking forward:

Chicken with Pappardelle

4 – 6 boneless skinless chicken thighs
Olive oil
Salt
Fresh cracked pepper
½ - 1 medium onion, chopped
2 – 3 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup white wine
2 (28 oz.) cans crushed tomatoes
Pinch of sugar
3 – 4 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
8 large fresh basil leaves, chiffonaded
¾ lb. long noodle pasta
Fresh grated parmesan

1-  Bring pot of water to boil and cook pasta until al dente.  Drain.

2-  Heat olive oil in a skillet.

3-  When oil is hot, brown chicken thighs on both sides.  Remove to plate.

4-  In same pan, add onions and garlic and stir to combine.  Cook until softened.

5-  Add white wine and bring to a simmer.  Loosen browned bits of chicken from bottom of skillet.

6-  Add tomatoes, sugar, salt and pepper.  Let simmer for 15 minutes.

7-  While sauce is simmering, dice chicken.  Add chicken and sauce on plate to tomato sauce.  Let simmer for 15 more minutes.

8-  Add fresh herbs and ladle over pasta.

9-  Sprinkle with Parmesan and serve.

Servings:  4 - 6

PS.  I feel like I didn’t used canned tomatoes, as I haven’t kept that stocked in my pantry for awhile.  I think what I did use was 4 - 5 medium-sized de-seeded vine-ripened tomatoes, coarsely diced.  But it’s hard to prove / remember by looking at the picture.  And there you go!  Try it!  Enjoy!

Scallops with Avocado

I saw this recipe online and immediately wanted to try it.  I like scallops and guacamole, what could be so terrible?

Well, I think I messed up on several key points.  The original recipe called for lightly toasted bread, but all I had was crackers so I made the substitution anyway.  Not a smart idea.  The crackers crumbled at the first bite and the whole structure just collapsed!

Also, I made my guacamole the way I normally like it, on the chunky side.  I think for a recipe like this, a smoother guacamole would be in order.  I think it would help everything adhere together.  As it was, the guacamole was so chunky that it sort of plopped off the cracker after biting into it.  And the copious amounts of diced red onion I added didn’t help either. 

Otherwise, this was just okay.  I felt a slight disconnect at cold, creamy guacamole and warm scallop but I think this would have been corrected by the toasted, buttered bread on the bottom.  I served these for a light dinner for Martin and I but was not overly thrilled with them.

It’s so easy to make, I won’t bother posting a recipe.  Just butter bread and slice rounds from it.  Spread toast with (a smooth!) guacamole spread, made according to personal taste.  Top with a halved pan-seared sea scallop.  Serve!

Your full potential was never realized, scallop bite-lets.

Pan-Fried Scallops

So here are some scallops that I made recently:

I am a very big fan of scallops.  Love them, always have.  Baked, fried, cooked by pirates … there’s really no way I don’t like these things.

Martin, however, is not so big a fan.

But I took advantage of the fact that he graciously eats anything I make and decided to try to make them anyway.

So I researched a bunch of recipes, mashed them all up into one and fried them up one night.  They came out crispy and garlicky and not rubbery at all, perfectly cooked thanks to paranoid vigilance.

Martin?  Still not a fan.  Guess you can’t win them all.

But if your tastes are more like mine than Martin, then perhaps you will like these too. Here’s what you need to make Pasta with Veggies and some Pan-Fried Scallops.

Easy peasy, no?  That’s a lot of ingredients.  One of them is pappardalle pasta, which I have recently discovered and declare my new favorite type of pasta.  I like how it’s wide and thin, much like the noodles my dad uses to cook one of my favorite dishes.  I don’t know what kind of noodles they are, but it is known fact in my family that I hate thin noodles.

True story:  When I was little and we made our trips up to NY, we would always pack up noodles to eat on our journey down.  These noodles were those typical super-thin noodles, in broth, served with vegetables and either sliced barbecue pork or won tons.  I would always eat the toppings and take a couple obligatory bites of the noodles.  Leaving New York meant gross, thin noodles on the way home and I hated them.

Then, one year, my parents switched to wide, thin.  Same broth.  Same toppings.  My serving was demolished.  For the longest time, I thought I hated noodles.  Then I realized … I just hated those noodles.

That was a really long story just to explain why I am predisposed to like pappardalle.

So here we go.  Follow my three easy steps to success:

1.  Buy ingredients and assemble on counter.
2.  ???
3.  Profit!  Err, scallops!

Just kidding.

Here we go, for realz:

Pan-Fried Scallops

4 tbsp. butter, melted
1 lb. sea scallops
½ cup seasoned dry bread crumbs
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. paprika
1 tsp. seafood seasoning (like Old Bay)
½ tsp. dried parsley
3 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

1-  Heat skillet with thin layer of oil.

2-  Combine all the dry ingredients in a shallow pan.

3-  Dip scallops into butter and coat with dry ingredients.

4-  Place on skillet and fry for 3 minutes.  Bottom side of scallops should be nicely brown.  Flip and repeat on other side.

5-  Serve hot.

Servings: 4

As a side note, I used panko crumbs because I thought it would create a better crunch.  Instead, they just decided to fall off the scallops.  So I think I might use finer crumbs next time.

For the pasta, I just boiled the pasta, steamed the broccoli, changed my mind about mushrooms, chiffonaded the basil and tossed everything in a big pot.

Barbecue Ribs

I’m kind of a freak about not getting my fingers dirty.  Hate it, always have, always will.  So the best part about my dad’s ribs growing up is that they were so off-the-bone tender, I never had to dirty my fingers to consume them.  The second-best thing was that they tasted pretty good.

One day, I decided I too wanted ribs but didn’t want to wait until getting back to North Carolina to have them.  I’ve heard my dad tell my uncle hundreds of times how to make these, who claims every time that he will definitely try making these himself whenever he goes back to New York.  (Times he’s made ribs:  0).

I wanted to make sure I got the cooking time just right, so I did a little research on the internet and realized that there are two basic schools of thought:  to smoke or not to smoke.  Some people were positively  poetic about the importance of smoking the ribs for authentic flavor!  I didn’t have a smoker so the decision was made for me.  Decisions made for me are my favorite kind of decisions. 

Without a smoker, the key to tender ribs is lots of steam.  My dad boils his for awhile, but you can also seal the ribs up nice and tight and bake them in an oven for a long time (2+ hours) on low heat (300-degrees F or lower).  I didn’t have any barbecue sauce, so I was going to try to make my own, but each recipe called for ingredients I didn’t have on hand.

And this is how I found Alton Brown’s Who Loves Ya Baby-Back ribs, which used a dry rub and a white wine glaze.  These were my first glazed ribs, as opposed to saucy ribs, and I really enjoyed them.  I am definitely going to make these again, especially now that I have proven to Martin that ribs are meant to be enjoyed, not feared.

The only change I made to the recipe is using soy sauce, rather than Worcestershire sauce.  I could have sworn I had some in my pantry, but didn’t, and was forced to make a last minute adjustment.  I think the difference in taste was negligible and eight kinds of yummy.

So there you go.  I now open up the floor for “to smoke or not to smoke” debates.  What are your thoughts on this?

Pot Stickers, Take 2

I tried making pot stickers again recently.  I felt a little disappointed at my last attempt, mostly because my attempt at frying / steaming and steaming / frying did not come out so well.  I suspect it was because I didn’t put a lid on top of my skillet.  And, according to my dad, I didn’t use a nonstick skillet, which are the BEST for releasing those sticky pot stickers.

Well, I wasn’t going to run out and buy a nonstick pan just for pot stickers.  But I was going to try again.

This time, I tried a much simpler method of forming the potstickers.  I wanted them fat and plump and full of pork-and-mushroom goodness.  The squares, while pretty to look at, could not hold very much filling.  So let’s take a look at my second attempt, shall we?

Lay a nice chunk of your stuffing on top of your won ton wrapper.  Shape roughly into a triangle because you’re waiting for your boyfriend to take an in-focus shot.

While we’re on this picture, don’t my hands look really weird?  I mean, REALLY weird?  CLAWS!

Brush the bottom half of your triangle with water.  Growing up, my uncle and father finished the edges of their egg rolls with egg.  But the internet says water.  I guess you can pick it however you want.

Fold in half and pinch together to make plain and simple triangular pot stickers.  Not only do these take less time, but they store much more easily in the freezer, if you needed another reason.  My dad would wake up in the morning, take some out of our freezer, fry them on both sides and then steam ‘em.  In his non-stick skillet.

Build your army of pot stickers.  When I was finished, this entire cookie sheet was filled with them.

Then I had a conondrum.  My last attempt at one-stop steaming and frying didn’t work.  So I could either just steam them and save the calories - and the pain of frying.  Or I could suck it up and dirty that second pan, because ain’t nothin’ better than perfectly crisp pan-fried pot sticker.

You can guess which side won.

Tuna Melts and Penzey Sandwich Sprinkle

Lots of rye bread equals the perfect recipe for … sandwiches!  Were you expecting something more creative?

Me too.  Me too …

Everyone has their own way of making tuna salad, so I thought I’d throw mine out there too.  It’s got the usual suspects in there:  red onion and relish to add crunch, eggs for a touch of warmth and then something that not every tuna salad recipe has:  Penzey Sandwich Sprinkle.

Side note:  Penzey’s has been a great source of inexpensive, quality spices for me.  I was seriously impressed with how bright green the spices were, compared to the dull color of even organic spices.  These aren’t organic, but they have everything imaginable and for reasonable prices.  Go Penzey’s!

So there you go.  Tuna, boiled eggs, red onion, sandwich sprinkle and sour cream, all mixed to taste.  Put on lightly buttered rye, top with a slice of cheese and broil until melted.  I prefer provolone, because of its nicely stretchy quality when melted.  But just put on whatever you feel like putting on.  You’ll get something like this:

And receive something like this:

But only if you feed it to a Swede named Martin.