Breakfast Outdoors

Isn't it nice to have breakfast outdoors? Listening to The Beach Boys singing "Kokomo" on my iPod.

A Light Supper

Herring in wine sauce, poached eggs with za'atar, rye toast, kalamata olives, carrots, and iced tea.

Gaeran Tost-u for Breakfast

Today, I decided to make gaeran tost-u (Korean egg toast) for breakfast. The bread was rye sandwich bread. The cabbage was chopped kimchi. The onion was sliced green onion. The carrot was just carrot. We were out of ketchup, so the toppings were HP sauce and light brown sugar.

 

I toasted and buttered the rye bread. Then, I sauteed the vegetables in a little butter. I poured on one beaten egg, and squared it off to fit on the bread, flipping it to finish it off.  I poured on HP sauce and sprinkled a little light brown sugar on that.

Here it is ready to eat, with some orange segments on the side. It went great with a mug of French roast coffee.

Salmon Japchae

I saw a photo of japchae, a Korean noodle and vegetable dish. and decided to try to make it. Well, when you look for it around the Internet, you discover that there are hundreds of variations, some with meat and some vegetarian. The standard items appear to be sweet potato noodles (called dangmyeon), carrots, onions, soy sauce, sesame seeds, and sesame oil. Commonly, spinach is added and often sugar and beef.

So, how to make it my way, whatever that is? There are too many types of noodles and pasta in our cupboard. I didn't want to buy more. I substituted saifun (a cellophane noodle made from mung bean starch) for the dangmyeon. I also would rather have seafood, so I substituted fresh salmon for the beef.

First, I boiled a few cups of dashi (using hondashi powder in water). I soaked the saifun in it for 20 minutes. Then, I drained the saifun, putting it into a bowl with some soy sauce and sesame oil. I used kitchen scissors to cut it into bite-size sections

I stemmed and sliced a few shiitake mushrooms, cut a peeled carrot into matchsticks, cut up some red onion into rings, sliced a green onion into 1" sections, and minced a garlic clove. 

I skinned and sliced a salmon fillet. In a ziplock bag, I poured in some sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar, ground black pepper, minced garlic, and sesame seeds. In went the salmon. I mixed it up with the other stuff in the bag and let it sit for 15 minutes.

In a wok, I sauteed the mushrooms for 3 minuted in sesame oil, then put them on a plate. Then, I sauteed the carrots and onion in the wok in sesame oil until soft and translucent. They went in the plate. I sauteed the green onion until slightly browned -- for about a minute -- then it went into the plate. Finally, I sauteed the salmon pieces until cooked through.

The vegetables were mixed in with the salmon in the wok. Then, the saifun was mixed in. Finally, I mixed in some baby spinach leaves until they wilted. When it all got hot, I emptied the japchae into pasta plates and sprinkled sesame seeds on top. Maybe next tine, I'll toasted the seeds first.

It tasted pretty good.

On the plate

Dear Cherry Tree:

Hardly worth the effort, isn't it?

Enchiladas From Mother's Day Leftovers

More from the "what's in the pantry?" file.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. Our big celebration was going out for a fancy brunch with two of our sons, my wife, her Mom, and me; along with two other couples and their grown daughter and sons. We've been doing this with them for about 30 years.

So, Marsha and I were home with our youngest son at dinner time. Boston Market was running a Mother's Day special; plus we had a coupon expiring yesterday.

Today, lots of chicken leftovers. We also had their garlic spinach side dish. There were corn tortillas and scallions in the fridge. Enchiladas for Monday's dinner!

What to use for cheese? Aha, Israeli sheep's milk Kaskaval, ready to be grated. All we needed was sauce, so I picked up a bottle of enchilada sauce at Trader Joe's, the only thing I had to buy.

I softened the tortillas in canola oil, and filled them with a chicken, spinach, scallion, and cheese mix. I spread a little sauce in the baking dish and put in the rolled filled tortillas, topped by more sauce and more cheese. Baked for 20 mins. in the oven at 350° F.

Here's the picture before it went in:

Enchilada casserole done:

On the plate:

Breakfast Tacos

The last of the ranch beans was mashed in a hot pan and refreshed with a little more sautéed minced garlic and green pepper, then topped with egg and Texas Pete hot sauce and placed into corn tortillas.

Afternoon Snack

Omigosh, my afternoon snack is leftover Passover matzo with chive cream cheese and chipotle; with an iced coffee.

Ranch Beans on Toast

I put the Texas ranch beans I made today to excellent use tonight! They were on buttered whole wheat toast and topped with poached eggs. Broiled tomato on the side. A nice glass of cabernet sauvignon washed it down very well.

Texas Ranch Beans

I made Texas ranch beans today using the Hilah Cooking recipe. I made a few changes, using olive oil instead of bacon fat and canned chipotle instead of serrano pepper. I'm thinking of having my Texas ranch beans on whole wheat toast tonight for supper, with a broiled tomato and maybe a poached egg. [Addendum: I did it! See here.]

Mise en place: rinsed canned cannellini beans, minced onion,
minced garlic, minced green pepper, minced chipotle,
chili powder, cornstarch, and water (salt not shown).

Onions, peppers, and garlic are sautéed 5 minutes.
Beans and chili powder briefly sautéed for a minute.
Water and cornstarch added for 15-minute simmered sauce.

In the bowl, ready to eat

Softshell Crab Sandwich for Lunch Today

Took myself out for a soft shell crab sandwich today at Coastal Flats in Fairfax VA (Ozzie's was not serving them today. Here is my first course, a Blue Moon beer.



Then, a delicious soft shell crab sandwich and broccolini at Coastal Flats.