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I’m in a Lunch Rut, So I Made Egg Salad

17 Jan


What to eat for lunch? What to pack for lunch? I can’t tell you how many times I have eaten a pb&j or a turkey sandwich for lunch. School is about to start again and I need some new ideas to keep me fueled throughout my busy day.

Joy the Baker made egg salad look oh so tempting. So I made it. And now I have lunch for the next two days or so (I halved her recipe).


The first step is to hard-boil some eggs. If you don’t have your own method, I recommend using this one.


With some nice herbs and aromatics and good mustard, egg salad can go from drab to dapper in no time. I even added a touch of minced preserved lemon that I canned a few weeks ago.



Egg Salad a la Joy The Baker

Makes roughly 2-3 servings worth

4 eggs hard-boiled, peeled, and cut in half (again use this as a reference)

2 tablespoons mayo

1/2 teaspoon mustard (Dijon, whole grain…)

1-2 teaspoons minced fresh flat-leaf parsley (feel free to use another herb if you prefer)

1 tablespoon minced shallot (again you could use red onion, scallion, green garlic…)

1 teaspoon lemon juice (I didn’t have lemon juice so I used minced preserved lemon + a bit of vinegar, cider or white is good)

salt and pepper, to taste

bread, for sandwiches

1. Dump all ingredients into a bowl and break it up/mix with a fork until everything is incorporated to the consistency of your choice. Spoon onto (toasty) grainy bread for a nice sandwich.

Keeps up to 4 days in the fridge.

Cheesy-Veggie Pie, with Salami, held together by Eggs and a Splash of Milk

10 Dec


Quiche? Frittata? Cheesy-veggie pie, with salami, held together by eggs and a splash of milk.

Whatever its called, its easy, I made it up, its healthy, its got pie crust.

And it’s great leftover the next day.


Cheesy-Veggie Pie, with Salami, held together by Eggs and a Splash of Milk

1 recipe for pie crust
1 head of broccoli, cut into tiny bites
1 zucchini, sliced thin
8 slices salami
Cheddar cheese + this other amazing Spanish cheese that I had, too
6 eggs
splash of milk
salt and pepper

1. Make you crust. Refrigerate. Roll it out. Place into a pie plate or tart pan lined with parchment. Pre-bake your crust in a 400 degree F oven until just lightly colored, about 15-20 min.

2. Take your zucchini and salami and place along the bottom of the tart pan. Whisk together your broccoli, cheeses, and eggs with a splash of milk and salt and pepper. Pour into the tart pan over the salami and zucchini. Bake until done, about 30 min.

3. Let cool for about 5 minutes. Serve.

>Sprouts Cooking Club Fundraiser at Pizzaiolo

4 Feb

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300 apple fritters. 19 frittatas. Toast, jam, butter, homemade pork rillette. Straus yogurt and granola parfaits with bananas and berries. Espressos and Americanos. Volunteers arrived early Sunday morning to help prepare for the Sprouts Cooking Club fundraiser brunch held at the trendy Oakland restaurant hot-spot, Pizzaiolo.


Sprouts Cooking Club is a children’s cooking program located in the Bay Area. The program emphasizes hands-on cooking with local, sustainable ingredients and with chefs from around the area. Donations from Straus Creamery, Whole Foods Market, McLaughlin coffee, Organic Valley Farms, and Alter Eco Fair Trade supply the kids with the ingredients and materials necessary to get their hands busy and their creative juices flowing.

Here are some of the kids from the summer. They are very serious about chopping their ingredients to make homemade salsa fresca and guacamole at Picante restaurant in Berkeley:


These Sprouts go above and beyond in the kitchen—not only are they excited about all of the fresh meals they get to prepare, but they act so maturely and are not afraid to connect with all of the guest chefs, asking questions and experimenting with different textures and flavors! Going into a restaurant and seeing where their food is coming from and how it is prepared is another integral portion of the program.

Cooking and enjoying a meal together is a real treat, and in April 2010, some of these lucky kids will have the chance to travel to FRANCE to cook! This trip will provide the kids and their families an opportunity to experience first hand what another country’s culinary and cultural lifestyle entails.

At the fundraiser this past Sunday, we had Jed working the frittatas and overseeing pretty much everything. Jed is actually going to go to France with the kids in April!


Tony was manning the coffee.


Volunteers from UC Berkeley were all over the dining crowd, directing people to their seats, clearing tables, washing dishes.

And I was standing over a hot pot of oil, frying up some delicious apple fritters. Dunked in glaze, these fritters were sweet and soft, and the apples gave them a nice bite.



This blogger sums up the exciting story of how Karen Rogers, founder and director of Sprouts Cooking Club, came to start the camp and foster an ever-growing next generation of chefs and food lovers.

Hooray for young, budding kid chefs!

Warm Tortilla with Cheese and Egg

6 Jan


Oh brother. How I spoil you.

You are my little experiment. I like to test my recipes and make you eat them. Not so bad, right?

I made you the most rockin’ lunch today. It started with a warmed tortilla, topped with cheese and a fried egg. I threw together some tomato, avocado, and red onion and splashed it with lemon juice, salt/pepper, and a sprinkle of cayenne. With a dash of hot sauce! The warm, slightly browned and crunchy yet soft tortilla is out of this world! Cheesy? You betcha. Eggy? Uhhuh. Colorful? Duh.

Yes, there is a bit of butter and cheese and egg, but you get your protein, your whole grain carbs, and your vegetable/fruit serving. It fills you up and tastes so so so good. You can eat this like a pizza or cut into bite-size pieces. Warning: It can get messy!

Warm Tortilla with Cheese and Egg

tortilla (I used a whole wheat tortilla)
a bit of butter
cheese
egg
salt and pepper
salsa or hot sauce

tomato
red onion
avocado
lemon juice
salt and pepper
cayenne pepper

1. Spread the tortilla with a bit o’ butter on both sides. Heat a non-stick skillet to med-high heat. Place your tortilla on the skillet and cook for about 1-2 minutes or until browned. Flip and cook the other side. Take it off the heat and put some cheese over it. Keep in a warmed oven while you make your egg.

2. Fry your egg, scramble your egg, cook your egg sunny-side up, over-easy, poached, whatever way you like.

3. Place the egg atop your tortilla and cheese and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

4. For your “salsa,” chop up your tomato, red onion, and avocado, sprinkle with salt pepper and a dash of cayenne and squeeze some lemon juice over.

Gorgeous!

Review: The Buttermilk Truck

22 Dec


Ever since I saw TheKitchyKitchen’s post about the Buttermilk Truck, I could not wait to come back to LA to taste the sought-after breakfast wonders served from a truck.

Gosh, it has been weeks and every day I have ogled over the bite size treats on the Buttermilk website.

The owner/founder, Gigi Pascual, graduated LMU with a BA in Business Administration and shortly after went to culinary school in NYC at The French Culinary Institute for Pastry Arts. After working in a few restaurants, she decided to open up this truck.

Food trucks are just everywhere these days. You can feast on your tacos from truck A, scarf down your cupcake from truck B, and indulge in your midnight burger from truck C. My brother raves about this organic ice cream truck in NYC, and my friend Natasha won’t shut her trap about the crème brûlée cart in San Francisco’s Mission district! I just found the Grilled Cheese Truck online, and wowza does that sound cheesy and comforting!

The Buttermilk truck twittered about coming to the San Fernando Valley on Tuesday December 22, so this was the day I planned to go get my buttermilk breakfast fix.

My brother and I drove 20 minutes to get to this truck. The weather was windy, very very windy. The darn wind was not so conducive to us waiting in line for 30 minutes and then having no place to sit but the parking lot curb to eat all the while having the wind blowing my hair, my sweater, my food, and my napkins all over the place.

Due to the extreme windy conditions, I was almost too overwhelmed to take nice pictures of all the food. I managed to snap a few, but if you really want to see some nice photos, check out the KitchyKitchen or the Buttermilk website.

I ordered the breakfast sandwich—a fried egg with chicken apple sausage sandwiched between two buttermilk biscuits. It was supposed to come with a cute little hashbrown pancake, but they ran out just before we ordered. Bummer.


This little b-fast sandwich looked pretty darn delish, but honestly, it needed to be salted and peppered, and even though the yolk was nice and runny, the sandwich altogether was pretty dang DRY.

My bro ordered French toast on Hawaiian bread—it came dusted with powdered sugar and garnished with a slice of strawberry. Pretty good. Nice and crunchy on the outside. Very sweet and very fried.

Then we shared the cake donut bites. These were definitely the winners of the morning. Could have been slightly more aesthetically pleasing, but I’m kind of a food snob, so sue me.

The sandwich, French toast, and cake donuts cost $8.50. Not too bad?

Well, it took 20 minutes to drive there, 30 minutes to wait in line, 10 minutes to eat, and 20 minutes to drive back home. Plus, we were kind of in the middle of nowhere, well, we were in the middle of a bunch of warehouses. That’s a lot of minutes for windy, mediocre breakfast from a truck.


Here is my suggestion: if the Buttermilk truck happens to be in your area, yah, hit that up. Otherwise, eh, just come over to my house and I can make you the breakfast of your dreams (my brother can vouch for that).

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