Asparagus and eggs

Asparagus and eggs, originally uploaded by mysterybridgers.

Spring has sprung and it is time for asparagus! Two weeks in a row we have gotten asparagus in our csa box. Not long ago we ate at Outerlands and we had a fantastic asparagus dish with poached eggs on top. As it turns out, this is fairly easy to make. We roasted the asparagus in the oven in a baking pan with olive oil and salt and pepper. Then we poached the eggs in some water with a little vinegar. I'm sure we've talked about poaching eggs before: add apple cider vinegar to water and bring to a boil in a medium size sauce pan, reduce from a boil to a light simmer, break egg into a small dish, create a whirlpool in the simmering water by stirring in a circular motion with the wrong end of a wooden spoon, stop stirring and plop the egg into the center--then let it cook for a few minutes (about 3) until the white is cooked through and the yolk is still runny.

Put the poached eggs on top of the asparagus and sprinkle with a little bit of gray salt and shave some parmesan on top. This is delicious. We recommend very fresh eggs for this--as fresh as you can get. We recently switched to very fresh locally farmed eggs and it makes quite a difference. The yolks are orange rather than yellow and taste fantastic.

Anyway, this is a delicious simple dish. The Crusader made his fake rice a roni again and it was a good compliment to the asparagus and eggs.

Oscar Night Snacks

Oscar Night Snacks, originally uploaded by mysterybridgers.

Cara cara oranges, cheddar cheese, piave torro del tempo stravecchio cheese, strawberries, honey, dates stuffed with goat cheese and pistachios, some extra goat cheese to eat with crackers, and cajun peanuts in the back.

Roasted Chicken and Fennel

Roasted Chicken and Fennel, originally uploaded by mysterybridgers.

This is one of the best things we've made in a while. We found the recipe on the ever useful "Kitchn" from Apartment Therapy. The original recipe calls for chicken thighs, but we used chicken breast. We just put a probe into the chicken while it baked and took it out when it came up to temperature. The Crusader also made some wonderful mock riceroni to go with it by toasting some orzo and rice in a pan with some olive oil and then cooking it like regular rice--very tasty.

Blueberry Danish

blueberry danish, originally uploaded by mysterybridgers.

I used to make this blueberry danish quite a bit, but it relies heavily on a food processor and when our old cheapo food processor died several years ago, we didn't replace it. However, thanks to Costco, we now have a fantastic new food processor and we have been using it almost every day. I don't know why we just didn't get one as soon as the old one broke because we really do use it a lot.

The danish is from a food magazine from years go. It is fairly low fat, using low fat cottage cheese in the crust and low fat cream cheese in the filling. The dough and the filling are both made very quickly and easily in the food processor. What really makes this recipe is the blueberries--it requires a lot of fresh blueberries. The recipe specifically says "use only fresh blueberries." I was surprised to find fresh blueberries at this time of year, but they were very tasty. Perhaps I will make a few of these now that I have the tools to make it.

Favorite Breakfast

favorite breakfast, originally uploaded by mysterybridgers.

As you may already know, I am a big fan of potatoes. I have discovered the fastest and tastiest breakfast that perfectly satisfies my potato jones.

The ingredients can vary depending on what you have one hand--onions, green onions, garlic, fresh herbs, etc.

But the basic recipe involves 1/2 bag of frozen hash browns, an egg, olive oil (maybe 1/2 a tablespoon) and some spices (and I always include catsup, but that is up to you).

Heat the olive oil in a pan on medium/high heat until shimmering. If you are going to add onions or some other kind of fresh veggies, this would be the time to add them in the pan and soften them before adding the potatoes.

Add the potatoes and then add herbs and spices of your choice--one combo that the Crusader likes is a pinch each of cayenne, garlic powder, and paprika. Add salt and pepper to taste and then cook until the potatoes are done all the way through and slightly browned.

Then, crack an egg over the potatoes and then mix it in until the egg is cooked through. I just crack an egg in there, but the Crusader likes to lightly beat the egg before adding it to the potatoes.

When done, you will have a potato/egg mess that is pretty tasty. I then slather it with catsup as shown.

Egg, cheese, and chutney sandwich

egg/cheese/chutney sandwich, originally uploaded by mysterybridgers.

This combination may sound odd, but it is pretty good. We originally had something similar many years ago on a British Airways flight to Italy. Once again, it may sound odd that we are trying to emulate airplane food, but I think that it is just really a British influenced food.

The sandwich is very simple and contains only cheddar cheese, a scrambled egg (seasoned lightly with salt) and mango chutney. We've used a lightly toasted Oroweat potato bread, but you could really use any bread. I bet this would be good on a bagel too.

Long Time No See

Kitchen Dahlias, originally uploaded by mysterybridgers.

Wow! It has been a little while since we've blogged here. Sadly, we have no new food to talk about. The Crusader has been cooking meals regularly, but we just really haven't been thinking about taking pictures of our food. So, for this post, a picture of lovely dahlias in our kitchen will have to suffice. Dahlias are one of the only sign that it is summer around here. The weather has been rather gray and cold here in San Francisco, so perhaps that is dampening our interest in taking pictures of our food. I'm not complaining through since I way prefer 60 degrees to 100!

In somewhat food related news, we finally got a dining room table for our formal dining room, so perhaps we should start eating at it--although we still need some more chairs if we are going to entertain visitors. I've been obsessing about what color to paint the dining room. I tried a sort of muted pink--which we both decided that we hate. So now we are going to try a dark blue. We'll see if that works out.