Category: Endlessly Adaptable

Easy Garden Frittata

by Maria

Late August is a cook’s favorite time of year. Especially if you happen to know a gardener with an overflowing veggie patch.

We’re out on the farm this week, and we were so lucky to get baskets and baskets of gorgeous produce from a neighbor. We had insanely delicious heirloom tomatoes, corn, every color and shape of pepper, leeks, fresh dug potatoes, cantaloupes, lacinato kale, curly kale, purple beans, and cukes. Man, it is good to be in with a gardener.

photo (78)

But the best part of all was the farm fresh eggs. Oddly shaped, blueish, orange-yolked eggs.  I dream about these eggs all year. No matter how much I spend on cage-free, organic, humanely raised, pampered and petted eggs from the store, they never come close to these. You just can’t buy this kind of freshness.

afterlight

The only thing to do with a bounty like that? Garden frittata! We sautéed the peppers, leeks, and tomatoes in butter with s&p, added some store-bought chopped portobellos, and then covered the veggies in beaten egg with a splash of half and half. I like to cover the pan so the top can cook, or you can just pop it under the broiler for a few minutes to cook the top.

I meant to take a picture, but Jarrett ate the whole thing too quickly. That’s how most of our meals end.

Hope you have delicious meals and relaxing days ahead of you over the long weekend! I’ll be back next week with more book news and thoughts on publishing.

Healthy Pantry Pasta Salad

by Maria

Pantry Pasta Salad004

Lately, life’s been busy. So I’ve been reaching into my stack of homemade meals in the freezer or into the pantry for ingredients for a quick pasta. We all have those days, weeks, even months, when you don’t have the time for a big grocery store trip, or you want to pinch a few extra pennies at the end of the month.

Read More

Wintertime Farro Bowl

by Maria


Farro Bowl005

One of my favorite things to have my grandma cook is arroz cubano. When she and my grandpa come to visit from Brazil the menu usually looks something like this:

Tortilla de Patata
Paella
Pollo Tia Ely
Arroz Cubano
Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

One of these things does not fit. But that’s a long story.

Arroz cubano is pretty fancy. It’s white rice shaped into a mound using a mug, then topped with tomato sauce and a perfectly fried egg. Definitely a classic stretching-the-grocery-budget meal, and definitely a kid-pleaser. Anything is immediately more exciting when it looks like a volcano and can be smashed. That’s a fact of life.

Luckily, these days I’m about 1% more sophisticated than my rice-volcano-smashing 8-year-old self, and so I came up with this warm farro bowl that has all the nostalgic goodness of arroz cubano. This is the perfect starter meal if you’ve never cooked farro before—it’s quick cooking, simple, and pretty darn foolproof. The key is to keep tasting your farro and adding more liquid if it needs it—it’ll be done when it’s firm but not crunchy.

Farro Bowl002

Read More

Salmon Bacon

by Maria

Salmon bacon is really just crispy, fried bits of salmon skin. And it’s insanely, crazy good! It has all the salty, crunchy, fatty goodness of bacon, but it actually won’t kill you. Salmon skin is chock full of omega-3 fatty acids that keep your heart healthy, so you don’t have to feel guilty about this bacon. This is great on any type of burger, but especially on top of healthy salmon burgers.

Salmon Bacon

Salmon skin (make sure it’s been scaled!)
2 tablespoons kosher salt
Liquid smoke (optional)
Vegetable oil

1. Scale side up, slice the salmon skin into thin strips. You’ll need a very sharp knife. Put the strips into a bowl and add several splashes of liquid smoke, if you’d like a more smoky bacon flavor. Let sit for 5 minutes, then drain the excess liquid and cover with the salt. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Read More