scromelet

Or, how Alex eats when Ed is not home. I know I should eat things like vegetables and some source of protein, so I try not to just have a bowl of cheerios for dinner. Though in summer, corn on the cob and a few peaches seems like an acceptable dinner. Anyway, usually those quick meals with no thought come from eggs. Either an omelet or a "scromelet", which is just when your omelet gets a bit more scrambled than you like. It's a pretty straightforward meal, but does require that you have gone grocery shopping at some point in the last week, if you want fresh veggies.

Chop the things you can find in your fridge. In this case, carrots, peppers, asparagus, tomatoes, sausage, cheddar. Other options for when you haven't been shopping in a while include onions, canned beans, random jars of pickled veggies, and mysterious frozen things from the back of your freezer.

Saute the various vegetal things until they're cooked. They usually require different amounts of time, so I tend to start with the meat, add in the heftier veggies, and finish with anything leafy. It appears that I added a handful of spinach to this mix. Then mix together your eggs (depending on the level of hungry, its 2-3 for me), with a dash of milk or water (because I usually don't have milk on hand), get that pan hot and dump it all in. Wait a few seconds until it just starts to set, give it a twirl to give it some volume, then let it set another 45-60 seconds. Now's a good time to add some salt, pepper, maybe some oregano. Now dump your stuff in the middle, fold it over, and have a tasty meal!

(it didn't all fit)

Curtido and pupusas

This is an old post that never got posted, but let's talk about something delicious here - curtido! It's an El Salvadorian slaw, consisting of cabbage and red onions and jalapenos and lime, with a little bit of natural fermentation, and it's pretty durn amazing. I don't *exactly* remember what went into our curtido, but there are a lot of recipes out there. And if it's not obvious from the photo, we have a lot to learn about making our pupusas, but that didn't stop them from being amazing! 

Curtido

(ingredients are all estimates)

(this recipe looks close, and might make sense to follow instead of mine)

~ 1/2 a head of cabbage (any cabbage), thinly shredded

1 red onion, thinly sliced

2 carrots, thinly sliced

1 jalapeno, seeds removed, diced

a handful of cilantro

~1 tbs dried oregano

juice of 3 limes

1 tbs kosher salt

Put everything in a big bowl, and thoroughly mix it around. Preferably with your hands, make sure all the veggies get thoroughly salty and lime-y. Then smoosh it into jars, and let it sit in the fridge for 4-7 days. It'll ferment just a bit, and it'll taste delicious. 

Pupusas

There are much better instructions for how to make these than how I did it. We filled the pupusas with quesa fresco, but I think any cheese would have been delicious, as would refried beans or pulled pork. I think our masa dough was a little too dry, hence the cracking on the sides. And, I don't think we fried them in enough oil, they didn't brown up as much as they should. All the more reasons to redo this meal! 

I would suggest this recipe.

Nachos

For those nights where your entire dinner comes out of a can or a bag... 

Bagged elements:

Tortilla chips

Shredded cheese

Canned elements:

Olives

Black beans

Pickled fiddleheads

Salsa

Pickled jalapenos

Worth it. 

Spaghetti squash

I haven't posted anything in a while, but then Sam went and posted some food, so I figured I may want to remember delicious things, too. This meal was basically a case of putting everything into the oven and just taking it out at the right time, but it was pretty tasty. The only part that required any real thinking was the spaghetti squash. First you have to hack the thing in half, then roast it, then mix together a bunch of flavors with the spaghetti strands. For the first time maybe ever, I managed to shred out the innards without burning my fingers!

Spaghetti squash is amazing stuff. Mostly, that's because it looks like spaghetti. But also, it's not as sweet as other squashes. Something about the sweetness of squashes tends to make me only tolerate them, not love them. It also has texture - nice and crunchy! I find it pairs well with savory flavors, things like sausage and sage, but also things like caramelized onions and toasted garlic. In this case, I had some hot turkey sausage, that I squeezed out of its casing into chunks and fried up, and a pile of shitake mushrooms. And, for good measure, some chiffonaded collard greens, all in the same pan. Then a touch of grated mozzarella on top, into the oven again (in the half-squash "boats", if you want to get fancy!), just to melt the cheese. Cheese is pretty awesome. 

The other stuff is roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts. My oven does a great job of heating from the bottom heating elements, so things brown very nicely when put with a little olive oil on a metal sheet pan!