Cooking

Baked Baking!

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An egg bake consisting of egg, arborio rice, broccoli, toasted onion, cheddar, parmesan, and a little bit of garlic with some parsley and basil.
Cheddar Broccoli Egg Bake

It’s been awhile since I’ve made a food related post, hasn’t it? Every weekend I do myself a solid and make myself a fine breakfast/brunch since I don’t really do breakfast during the work week. We’re in autumn now, which means cooler weather and an opportunity to make use of the oven! The nice thing about egg bakes is being able to mix your fave ingredients/ pouring them into a bowl and letting the oven do it’s job! I was originally going to make an Italian Broccoli Oven Fritatta, but forgot a couple ingredients. Fortunately I have plenty of other ingredients to not only improvise, but make my own tasty abomination! You can adjust the ingredients to your liking, but this is what went into mine:

  • 5 Eggs
  • Cooking Oil
  • 1 Packet of frozen broccoli (chopped)
  • 1 Cup of cooked rice
  • 1/2 Cup of toasted onion
  • 2 Small garlic cloves, or 1 big ass garlic clove finely chopped
  • 1 Cup of grated cheddar cheese
  • 2 Tbsp of grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 Tbsp of parsley
  • 1 Tsp of basil
  • 1/2 cup of milk
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

Beat eggs until well combined. Mix in herbs, cheeses and milk. Set aside.

In a medium sized frying pan place enough oil in the pan to lightly coat the entire surface and set over medium heat. Cook the onion until translucent, unless you want them to be caramelized – remember to stir frequently! Add broccoli. Stir frequently and cook until tender, then add garlic and fry for about 30 to 45 seconds. Mix into egg mixture until well combined. Grease a baking dish with butter, or cooking spray and then pour the egg mixture into the dish. Bake at 350F (176C) for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand for five minutes. Serve with a salad or some toast.

The Joy Of Brunch

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One of the gifts I received during my birthday was The Bob Ross Cookbook; a book so wholesome I was surprised it didn’t burn my hands while holding it. It features paintings by Bob Ross himself, and is written in such a Bob Ross sort of way. Is it gimmicky? Yes it is, Bob Ross is after all a living meme, and that’s ok because the cookbook actually features a lot of nice recipes. I’m on my weekend now, and wanted to try making the “Brunch Palette Quiche”. It calls for Gruyere Cheese, but I couldn’t find any to buy, so I decided to use smoked Gouda instead. It also calls for spinach, but I used a mix of spinach and kale. This is fine though, even the book talks about cooking as its own art form much like painting or anything else. I mean, look at this:

It tastes really good with slices of french bread. If I had time I would have made some form of pancakes to go with it. I’ve never made quiche before, so this was fun! It’ll also be a nice breakfast lunch to take to work with me. It was so good that I had to have two slices. 😛 I’ll have to check out some of the other recipes when given the chance.

I rate this book 420 out of 10.

Sunday Bakes While Getting Baked

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A couple weekends ago I spoiled myself with some homemade Huevos Rancheros, and today I was inspired to make another private Mexi-Brunch! It’s actually based off of this recipe I found. I used black beans instead, and I also topped it with bell peppers. I also fried up some chorizo for some street tacos on the side (or later for lunch). Everything was perfect! I did make some of my own changes though. I used Black Beans instead of Pinto, and I added on a couple different bell peppers. I also made my own ranchero sauce, the one on the website wasn’t smoky enough for my liking. I like a nice smoky tasting Huevos Rancheros. Something about a smoky salsa on a melty egg is sugar tits awesome.

Just looking at the picture is making me want to get a bedtime snack.

I basically did oriental thanksgiving yesterday

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I set a good chunk of time aside yesterday to make some of my favorite recipes, and even try a couple new ones.

I like to make a sweet soy sauce (top right) as well as a red pepper sauce (top left) but I also wanted to try another one with some extra scallions I had lying around. That on the bottom is a sweet scallion sauce, it turned out tasty for the most part… but I probably should have stirred it better when making it. I ended up with a sugary blob in the center of a bunch of vegetable oil. I managed to combine it better after taking out some of the oil, but that’s one I’ll have to practice again at a later date. On the very right I also have what remains of a salad dressing made of cider vinegar, sugar, a little bit of sesame oil and red pepper flakes for color and flavor. Most if it went into a cucumber and grape tomato salad that accompanied both my breakfast and dinner yesterday.

I made miso soup for breakfast yesterday. I like to eat it in the morning sometimes, it can be a nice change of pace from the traditional cereal or bacon and eggs. I threw in some udon noodles for something additional to chew on.

This was something new I tried. I mixed some of the pepper sauce with the sweet scallion sauce, plus some garlic soybean paste and mixed it with noodles, peppers and shrimp, sherry and a little bit of onion. It was really zesty.

Normally when I make a noodle dish I don’t follow it up with rice (or vice versa), but yesterday I basically declared it oriental Thanksgiving, and I wanted to also have the option of ham and egg fried rice… even if this isn’t fried. I boiled some jasmine rice, cooked an egg in another pan then mixed it into the rice, then added cooked vegetables and ham with a generous pinch of sea salt and some white pepper. Normally I would use just peas, but taking inventory in our deep freeze yesterday proved to me that 99% of the frozen vegetables we have on hand are in fact corn… So some peas are better than no peas at all.

This was a simple vegetable dish to make. All you do is steam some asparagus, and then take 1/4 cup of soy sauce and mix in some sesame oil. Add the asparagus to a platter and drench  the sauce over it, and let it sit for about 10 minutes and you have a tasty yet delicate accompaniment to dinner. Of course I have one person in the house that despises asparagus… which means I need to add MOAR vegetables.

I stir fried some sugar snap peas with some salt, pepper, sherry and just a few shavings of fresh ginger. I did cheat a little and pad the rest of the meal with some cream cheese wontons and chicken potstickers…

Then I awoke to find that a giant bowl of rice was not put away this morning… everything else was though, dafuq?

Touched by noodly appendage

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After a busy work day I set aside special plans to make my own variant of dinner tonight. I originally planned to buy some smoked salmon for a salmon pasta dish, but there was none to be found. I also bought a potato rosemary loaf of bread that I made my own garlic butter mix for (unsalted butter, Italian herbs, garlic powder and a small pinch of sea salt).

I didn’t realize that I was nearly out of parmesan cheese, and had to resort to making a three cheese sauce instead consisting of the leftover parmesan, plus generous portions of danish bleu and smoked provolone cheeses.

It tasted good, though feedback afterwards suggested that I add something more to the sauce in the future… I might try using wine for additional tang next time. 😛

With the addition of a bunch of carbs I felt like a nice salad would be a good balance. This is a spring mix with a homemade raspberry vinaigrette using my own homemade raspberry vinegar! There are also grape tomatoes, danish bleu cheese, and mixed nuts crushed with a mortar and pestle for additional flavor and crunch.