A Better Breakfast

I think it's no secret by now that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.   So when I heard of the Build A Better Breakfast with Eggs contest put on by Kitchen Play and the American Egg Board, I knew I wanted to come up with something delicious to enter!

My inspiration came from a recent (delicious) brunch at Zaftigs.  In my take on their Empire Eggs, a potato pancake is topped with spinach, smoked salmon and a poached egg.  The restaurant intends theirs to be served with a hollandaise sauce, but I opted to let the runny yolk be the sauce.  My taste buds were swooning again, and I'm glad I can recreate this at home any time I want :)

Potato Pancakes w/Spinach, Smoked Salmon & Poached Eggs
Recipe by Shannon, inspired by Zaftigs
Yield:  3 stacks

Feel free to use your own favorite recipe for potato pancakes, or use the traditional frying method if you prefer!

For the potato pancakes:
1 lg potato (Mine was ~14oz and I left the peel on)
1 sm onion (I used a ~4.5oz white onion)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1t kosher salt  (I might cut this back to 3/4t next time)
1/8-1/4t freshly ground black pepper
1/4t smoked paprika
1/2t baking powder
3T flour (AP or white whole wheat)

For assembly:
handful of baby spinach
3oz smoked salmon
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 400deg.  Bring a large pot of water to just under a boil over medium heat.

Using a box grater or your food processor, shred the potato and onion.  Using cheesecloth (or towel), squeeze out all the liquid you can from the potato/onion mixture.

Once the potato/onion mixture is good and dry, transfer mixture to a medium bowl.  Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.  Form mixture into 3 patties (~1/2cup each).

Heat a cast iron skillet (or your favorite nonstick pan) over medium-high heat.  Once the pan is good and hot, add bit of oil (extra virgin, canola, coconut...) and once that has heated up, the potato pancakes.  Cook the pancakes 3-4min/side.  At this point, they should have a good crust on them, but as I formed them a bit thick I put them in the oven for another 3-5min to make sure they were cooked through.  (These potato pancakes can be kept in a warm oven until assembly)

While the potato pancakes are cooking, begin poaching the eggs in the water (should be barely simmering).  Add a little bit of white vinegar to the water (I didn't measure, this is supposed to help keep the white together).  Crack an egg into a small dish or ramekin, and slowly add it into the simmering water.  If your pot is big enough, repeat with remaining eggs.  For a nice runny yolk, cook for 3 minutes.  Remove eggs from the water with a slotted spoon.  If you do this ahead of time, the poached eggs can be transferred to cold water until you're ready to serve.

To assemble, transfer potato pancakes to a plate, top each with a handful of spinach, 1oz smoked salmon and then the poached egg.  Served with fruit for breakfast or a side salad for lunch or dinner!

Don't you want to dig in?

Rocko's Gourmet Bloody Mary Seasoning Blend

Back in January, I got an email from Rocko's Gourmet about trying out their Bloody Mary Seasoning Blend.  Since Rocko's Gourmet is a local company located in Ashland, Massachusetts, and since I also adore Bloody Mary's, I was definitely on board!  This past weekend, I finally got a chance to open up the bottle and I was  seriously impressed.  I've often complained to my friend Meghan about how so many restaurants and food companies advertise something as being spicy but never actually follow through with the heat that I'm looking for.  Well, Rocko's Gourmet definitely didn't disappoint. 

I filled a glass with lots of ice and added one part seasoning blend, one part ice cold water and a splash of vodka.  Rocko's Gourmet recommends using tomato juice but I thought using water was just fine.  I'm glad I diluted the blend with water because it is really spicy.  I could taste generous flavors of horseradish and cayenne pepper which made my cheeks burn up (in a really good way).  And for you gluten-free lovers, this blend is a gluten free product.

I also love how Rocko's Gourmet can be used for cooking and they even share some recipes on their website.  But for me, I'm going to stick to drinking the blend the old-fashioned way as a Bloody Mary on the weekends!

Full disclosure: Rocko's Gourmet Bloody Mary Seasoning Blend was fully complimentary, but as always, my opinion is honest and completely my own.

Totally Useless

Today I’m taking the train down to Providence, Rhode Island, for my first official public speaking gig. It’s not a huge deal—just a panel of young science writers talking about our work. But it’s the first time I’ll be getting up in front of people—real people! people I don’t know!—and talking about my book. I suppose I’ll get used to it at some point. But right now, that feels far off.

I began to grow nervous about the event over the weekend—on Saturday afternoon, to be exact. That was right about when I realized that I should write down my thoughts in order to avoid rambling for fifteen minutes on stage. Lets just say I’ve been a bit on edge.

Saturday morning had been nice, though. I went for a run along the Charles River. It’s been months since I have been able to run outside. But this past week the weather relented just a bit, the ice melted off the sidewalk, and I took full advantage. I’ve missed the feeling of the sun on my face, even if it’s a sun that comes with the cold bite of winter wind.

When I came home, I showered and dressed. I made myself a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table with a blank Word document open on my computer. I took a moment to collect myself—noticing the angle of the photographs hanging on the wall (perfectly straight, thanks to Matt’s obsessive use of a level) and the stems to the white orchids growing in a pot on the table (dipping delicately to the right). The living room was filled with afternoon light. I could feel the steam of my tea on the soft flesh of my palm and could hear the whine of our refrigerator, the distant clop clop of shoes on the street. Generally I love that moment of stillness, of almost-silence, before I begin to write.

But as it turned out, I was too anxious to do much of anything. No writing. No reading. I felt too jumpy to even surf the ‘net. I decided to bake. 

I found the recipe for Alice Medrich’s “New Classic Brownies” on the New York Times’ website. They looked crazy good, and so I immediately pulled an apron over my head and got to work. In the kitchen, I melted some butter with thick squares of unsweetened chocolate over a double boiler. Off the heat, I stirred in sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour. I poured the batter into a foil-lined pan, which I then plunked into the oven. 

It was only after a good fifteen minutes—right about when the kitchen began to smell like chocolate perfume—that I realized my first mistake. I had doubled the amount of butter. Two sticks instead of one. 8 ounces instead of tablespoons. Whoops.  

But I rationalized: butter is delicious. These brownies will be okay. They had to be. Because if they weren’t, then not only would I be too anxious to write a speech, but I would be too anxious to effectively procrastinate on writing a speech. And where would that leave me? Totally useless!  

When I pulled the brownies out of the oven, I was happy to find that they looked intact despite my gaff. I placed the sizzling-hot pan into an ice-cold water bath, as Medrich instructs. And that’s where I committed my second crime: I turned my back. 

I returned to the kitchen a good ten minutes later to find that water from the ice bath had somehow seeped into the brownie pan. Half of them were totally soaked. They were sloppy and soft, like a soggy piece of bread. Gross.

Of course I quickly yanked the brownies out of the pan, holding onto their foiled edge. I did the only thing I could do: I used my chef’s knife to amputate the waterlogged chocolate limb, a desperate attempt to save the rest. The survivors kind of fell apart in the process of rescue, but I still had hope that they would taste all right.

They didn’t.

But let me tell you, anxiety plays strange tricks on your mind. Because I ate these brownies. And objectively, I knew that they were subpar. But at the same time, they were perfect.

Cafeteria - Easy Night Out

Finally, Nick and I went to Cafeteria down in Back Bay.  I had been hearing about Cafeteria for a while now as an easy go-to for a cheaper dinner.  Walking in, the restaurant is fairly open and airy with a trendy flair.  It was bustling for early on a Thursday night.

They had a pretty big drink menu, including many vodka lemonades, sangrias, and beers.  Taking advantage of that, Nick went with the Chocolate Stout.

Beer

Going a bit more out there I had a Rose Sangria. 

Rose Sangria

The drink itself was great, however, I thought there would be more fruit in the drink.  I actually chose this one because of the fruit in it - if this is your thing, my recommendation would be to ask for the fruit if possible.

Rather than traditional specials, Cafeteria does daily dishes that they have each week.  On Thursday's, the special is Chicken Parmesan.  Cafeteria had actually sent me a tweet before heading out recommending this dish, and when we sat down we saw someone at a nearby table with it.  It looked so good that Nick had to go with it.

Chicken Parm

The dish was HUGE and the chicken was great - very moist and the breading was tasty.  However, the sauce was a little thing.  It just was not thick enough to really stick to the pasta or chicken.

Having heard things about the menu, I decided to test out their burger.  They have a number of types including grass fed beef, lamb and Tuna, that you can add a variety of toppings to.  I decided to go with a beef burger with Cheddar, fried onions and avocado.  If avocado is ever an option I will add it!

The Burger

Generally the burgers come with Cafeteria sauce, but not being a big fan of creamy dressings, I asked for it on the side.  It looked like Thousand Island so I steered clear, but Nick said it was good.  The burger was good, especially for the price of about $12, but it just did not do it for me.  The beef was tender and flavorful, but something seemed to be missing.  I was enjoying the toppings more than the burger itself.  I will say the fries and onions were great.  They had a lot of flavor.  The batter on the onions was great - it actually had some taste to it.

Overall Cafeteria makes for an easy night out.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Mousse Tart

Last week I had a craving, and I couldn't shake it. I think Elizabeth is partially to blame. Elizabeth and her goober pie. The pie has a graham cracker crust and is filled with peanut butter mousse and topped with chocolate ganache.

Peanut butter mousse.

I could not get peanut butter mousse out of my head. So I googled "peanut butter mousse" and scanned and clicked on recipes until my craving and my energy level agreed on a recipe. Rose Levy Beranbaum's chocolate-peanut butter mousse tart was the clear winner.

It was after work, about 6 pm, and Jeff was just about to leave to take Gunner for a walk. We didn't have all the ingredients for the recipe, and usually when that happens, I'll accompany the boys on their walk and run into the Whole Foods on Prospect Street along the way. (This is the only Whole Foods I don't like, but I deal with it in emergency situations such as this one.) So I asked Jeff to wait a few minutes while I whipped up the dough for the peanut butter cookie crust. (Oh, and I don't care what the recipe says: Use Skippy!) It needed to refrigerate for 1 hour, and I couldn't waste any time.

I got the dough in the fridge, bundled up, and headed out with the boys. I grabbed the missing ingredients (heavy cream and cream cheese) as well as a few things to make pork fried rice for dinner at Whole Foods, and we headed back home.

The dough may not have been in the fridge for an entire hour at that point, but I decided I could still roll it out and followed the directions to roll it out between two sheets of plastic wrap and transfer it to the tart pan. It stuck a little to the plastic because it should have been chilled longer, but it still worked out. Back to the fridge it went for another hour, while I threw together the pork fried rice.

As we were finishing dinner, I preheated the oven and retrieved the tart from the fridge. I baked it off, let it start cooling, and made the chocolate ganache.

Here, I recommend not bothering with all the complications in the recipe. Measure out milk chocolate chips and bittersweet chocolate chips, and put them in a heatproof bowl. Bring the heavy cream to a boil on the stove and pour it over the chocolate chips. Whisk until smooth, and whisk in the vanilla. (If the ganache sets up too much before you have a chance to pour it over the peanut butter mousse, just microwave it for 30 seconds.)

With the ganache ready to go and the tart nearly cool, I set to work on the much-anticipated peanut butter mousse. It's simply a mixture of peanut butter, cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla, lightened with lightly whipped cream. So easy. So ridiculously good.

I heaped the peanut butter mousse into the cooled cookie crust and spread it evenly and smoothed the top.

Then I poured the rich chocolate ganache over the mousse and used a baby offset to spread it evenly. You have to work very fast here because the ganache starts setting up pretty quickly. And then it's back to the fridge for another hour!

At about 10:30 pm, I served us some slices of the chocolate-peanut butter mousse tart. I know it was kind of crazy of me to make such a decadent dessert on a weeknight, but when I took that first bite, I knew exactly why I went through all that trouble: peanut butter mousse.

The next night, when we had a little more time, we took out one of my new kitchen toys. Actually I've had it for many months now but just haven't had a chance to use it yet. Back when Snappy Tuna was still cool and sold stuff at discounted prices -- rather than the bidding wars it holds now -- I got an iSi Gourmet Whip for $40. (It retails for $140.)

I simply took 1 cup of heavy cream, whisked in about 2 teaspoons of confectioners' sugar and a splash of vanilla, and poured it into the canister. Jeff did the fun part and attached the cream charger and shook the canister after the gas released.

Within seconds we had fresh whipped cream to go along the chocolate-peanut butter mousse tart!

Have you ever had such a strong craving that you had to stop whatever you were doing to satisfy it? What was it for?

Maggie and Paul's Wedding Weekend

I am seriously recovering from an AMAZING weekend!  If you may remember, I was asked to be a bridesmaid in my friend Maggie's wedding.  As a bridesmaid, I helped throw her a bridal shower, along with a bachelorette party.  Well, the big day finally arrived and we had a whirlwind weekend starting on Friday evening with the wedding rehearsal at the Hotel Marlowe and rehearsal dinner at Midwest Grill...leading to Saturday morning appoints at Pinckney Nails and Jean-Pierre Salon....to the actual wedding at the Hotel Marlowe on Saturday evening!  I was so happy to celebrate the marriage of two of my friends and the wedding was a ton of fun with lots of dancing. 

Here are just a few photos from Saturday evening:

My friend Angie was in town for the wedding so it was nice to spend some time with her last night and this morning before she had to fly back to Indianapolis.  My friends Kara and Matt were also in town from Oak Bluffs for the wedding so we spent the day with them (including brunch at the Friendly Toast) before they had to head back to the island.

Tomorrow is a jam-packed day and I've got lots of fun food-related events this week so this blog will be a little light on home cooking.

How was everyone's weekend?  What are you most looking forward to this week?

Brooklyn for brunch - Le Gamin

After a bit of a rough night in New York (where I enjoyed more than my fair share of red wine) and a bit of a later start, my friends and I were off to Brooklyn to visit CAC's neighborhood and get a taste of life across the bridge.  I was surprised at how much more of a neighborhood feel Brooklyn has - I found it similar to Boston in that way.  There were plenty of cute shops and restaurants to take advantage of.

At CAC's suggestion we headed to Le Gamin to enjoy a later brunch.  Le Gamin is very cute inside, all shabby chic in a french countryside way.  Everything about the restaurant stays very true to its french roots - even all the dishes on the menu were in french!  The kitchen was so small that I really could not believe how they managed to make everything with not much in the way of equipment.  Regardless, the chefs and servers worked magic.

I ordered a cappuccino, which came in a fantastically large mug.  Interestingly, they actually served cafe au lait, which you do not see at most places.  The warm milk is always so nice in those!

My cappuccino

For what ended up turning into more of a lunch, three of us went with a crepe dish.  Wow - these were impressive.  Having an undying love of brie, I got a crepe, made with buckwheat, that had brie, mushrooms and caramelized onions. 

The Lunch Crepe

Words cannot describe how great this dish was.  It was so satisfying but also really light.  The combination of the textures of the crepe with the fillings was great.  The greens were a nice side to the dish and added a bit of color and variety to the plate.

AK went very traditional french and got a croque-monsieur.

Croque-Monsieur

Needless to say this sandwich was beyond cheesy goodness!  Adding the fresh bread to the mix was the icing on the cake.

While we were are more than full, we had to have one the dessert crepes - the savory ones were great, but we could not leave without trying on the of the sweet ones!  While I do not have a photo - we took bites that fast! - it was a "simple" dessert crepe with butter and sugar.  Again, this dish did not disappoint!  It was really nice and light and the perfect end to a great brunch.  There was a nice hint of lemon in the crepe that went well with the butter and sugar.

All in all, this was a great meal that just topped off a NYC weekend of great food and friends!

Pan Seared Duck Breasts with Mushroom Sauce

This wonderful pan-seared duck breast recipe is a follow-up to the duck confit recipe that I posted last June on using all parts of a duck. Shame on me for taking 8 months to complete the second half of the post. Discipline has been my strong suit, and gets harder these days as I am more tired than a Whole Foods paper bag reused 10 times over.  I have only 9 more weeks until my due date, and lethargy has set in early.

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A Night Out in Beacon Hill

Out and about on a Friday night....
My sister took me out for sushi at Ma Soba in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood. You can read my original review here. A summary of my experience from last April: With eight individual rolls per order we had plenty to eat and for the most part tasty palatable combinations. Overall, taking into account the non existent hard alcohol drink menu, the lackluster edamame and miso soup, and the poor execution of the maki, Ma Soba leaves much to be desired. It pains me to say, knowing the praise received by others in the past, I have tasted much better sushi in this city. Unfortunately, they didn't live up to the hype and I see no real reason why a return trip would be warranted.Yikes, I was harsh! So why did I return? Because my sister had a Groupon and I believe everyone deserves a second chance. The edamame and miso soup were served hot, so the expediting of the plates went in our favor this round. Yet the service was still painfully slow; they were super busy and it is obvious how severely understaffed they are. My opinion still stands, the sushi at Ma Soba doesn't live up to favorites. I still feel as though they don't serve as high quality of fish. The expectation wasn't high going into the meal and the second time around, they didn't exceed by any means. But for an incredibly inexpensive meal and multiple carafes of hot sake with my sister, we still managed ourselves a good time. Afterwards, we made our way down the street to The Liberty Bar. We stayed at The Liberty Hotel back in December, and you can read all about the hotel, the bars, and our stay here. Besides a local overnight indulgence, it has become quite the nightlife scene for upper-twenty-somethings plus to mingle over cocktails. If you're past the club scene, the intense nightlife of a crowded bar, or looking for a low key evening (relatively speaking) you can come here! We were carded at the door of the hotel and planted ourselves on an empty couch in the far side of the lobby to sip expensive cocktails (all $15) and take in the scene. Quite the people watching experience it is. And apparently a good spot if you're playing the field aka single and ready to mingle. Which we are not. But just throwing it out there, in case you are. We thoroughly enjoyed our corner of the lobby and our first round of drinks, a Sapphire Darling Bombay Sapphire, Patron Citronage, Vanilla Bean Syrup & Lime for me and a French Kiss Grey Goose La Poire with Cassis, Pineapple & Champagne for Leah. Drink envy prompted a second round, this time with Leah ordering the Sapphire Darling. It is quite a tasty drink, but I was content to move onto the Winter Sangria Calvados, Local Apple Cider & Red Wine at the waitresses recommend, who by the way was attentive and super nice.This was after our "we can only afford one drink here" statement. Seems we've made ourselves right at home.Adam met up with us for a nightcap, which for me was a Stella Artois ($7). It was a slow start to my Saturday, but I managed to be productive and a post on the days adventures is sure to come!