Huevos Rancheros
Living in Southern California there are certain things that you learn very quickly:
- Traffic Sucks
- The more someone looks like a movie star, the less likely that they probably are
- Huevos Rancheros is the best hangover food
Yes, there are more tenets to Southern California living, but these are 3 of the biggies.
If you’ve ever seen huevos rancheros, you might be surprised that the visual of all that mess can still be eaten by a truly hungover person. Let’s face it…it’s usually not a very pretty looking dish. But if I’ve learned nothing about food (and some of my food disasters), sometimes the ugliest looking dishes taste the best. And that is a truth of huevos rancheros.
Over the holidays, I found myself in the rare position of having to entertain one morning. The dreaded Brunch. Based on the crowd I knew that there would be various stages of alcohol recuperation going on…it was the holidays and all. So I tried to come up with something that would be easy to serve, but not sweet. We had all had enough sugar and butter to last us another year. So I thought tangy and spicy and the elevated huevos rancheros was born.
The beauty of this recipe is that it is nearly a make ahead brunch recipe. The only thing that needs to be made as everyone is ready to eat are the poached eggs. Okay – stop freaking out about making poached eggs. I can’t make them either. But alas, if you are making them in enchilada sauce you can. It’s genius really. I got the idea from an Italian dish that poaches eggs in tomato sauce. Did I say it was genius? Oh, and instead of using corn tortillas and standing around frying them up…I used puff pastry. Upscale baby!
Relationship Advice
Because I watched one of my single girlfriends completely miss an obvious pick up attempt by a single guy at our get together, I find it my duty to help others that may be in this boat. What made this even more humorous was that she was trying to get his attention too. Most women do not pick up signs very well, and we make fun of the guys for this (we’re just as bad). If a pick up sign was a physical entity it would look something like a woolly mammoth running right past her and she wouldn’t even blink. Stop trying to be so subtle. Just because it’s something that you and your friend’s “get” don’t assume anyone else will. Remember: If you are trying too hard to find out what you’re supposed to do, or what you think you are supposed to do, then you are too focused on yourself instead of the signals someone may be sending you.
Serves 6
Ingredients
1/2 of a 17.3-ounce Package Puff Pastry Sheets (1 sheet), thawed
1 Cup Sharp Cheddar Cheese (grated and divided)
1 15 Ounce Can Black Beans (drained)
1 10 Ounce Package Mexican Chorizo (pork)
1/4 Cup Water
1 28 Ounce Can Enchilada Sauce
12 Eggs
1 Cup Salsa Fresca or Salsa
1 Avocado sliced
1 Bunch Cilantro (leaves chopped)
Sour Cream
Directions
Heat the oven to 425°F.
Unfold the pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface. Roll out pastry into a 16″x12″ rectangle. Cut the pastry sheet into 6 equal rectangles. Place the pastry rectangles onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of grated cheese evenly onto each rectangle. Leaving a 1/4″ border around edges of pastry rectangles, liberally pierce the pastry with a fork.
Bake for 10 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. Remove the pastry from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack.
Pour enchilada sauce into a large skillet and heat until it comes to a rolling boil. Then reduce heat to just a simmer. Keep stirring the sauce while it’s cooking.
One at a time, break each egg into a bowl and gently slide each egg into the sauce. Cover the skillet and cook for 5 minutes.
Pour black beans into another skillet and roughly mash with potato masher or back of fork. Put over medium heat and add chorizo. Stir to thoroughly combine the beans and chorizo. If contents begin to stick to pan, add 1/4 cup water. Once thoroughly combined, and chorizo is cooked, reduce heat to low to keep warm.
Put 1 pastry rectangle on a plate. Spoon 2 poached eggs, with enchilada sauce on top of pastry. Serve with black bean chorizo and garnish with salsa, cilantro, sour cream and more cheese.
Boucheron with Pears and Ginger Syrup
I just could not come up with a pithy or cutesy title for this post because this sandwich (and oh so easy recipe) is just too close to my heart to even slightly mock it in any way, shape or form. I first had this sandwich on a bitingly cold and wet morning in Amsterdam back in 2002 at a little cafe called Tisfris. Unlike here in the United States, Amsterdam restaurants stick around longer than 6 months. (It’s still there.) Anything or anyone that can save me from turning blue and being utterly miserable from being cold – is my hero.
Last week was spent back in Cleveland, with my family. I’m not sure if anyone saw the weather for Cleveland, but it was beyond cold the entire week we were back there! Of course, living in Southern California for the past 14 years affects my judgement on what’s really cold (but let’s just say that the windchill was in the negative digits while we were there – that’s cold).
My first day was spent at the West Side market picking up all of my favorite Polish foods (pierogi and sausage…to name a few). But then I saw it…a beautiful vision of white, no not a Currier and Ives-esque snow drift, but a perfectly formed log of Boucheron (aka bucheron) cheese, the loveliest of goat cheeses, and I had to get my hands on a chunk of it. Then I went over to the baker and picked up a dark hearty loaf of whole wheat honey and sunflower seed bread. The final purchase was a large piece of ginger.
The next morning was my glorious breakfast – I had a hot cup of tea with warm rich bread, gooey cheese and pears all bathed in a warm sweet ginger syrup and my belly was really happy, and not so cold anymore. Oh, and what about “my man’s belly”? He slept in too late and didn’t get any. Hey, you snooze you lose!
Relationship Advice
You can lead a horse to water, but you can not make him drink. You can lay the groundwork for the perfect meal or moment, but if your significant other has other things that they would rather do, then there is nothing else you can do to change their mind or actions. So if you’ve already done everything, you shouldn’t let it go to waste – enjoy it yourself! Don’t wait for somebody else to make you happy.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 1 Loaf Dark Bread
- 1/2 Pound Boucheron (sliced into 4 pieces)
- 2 Pears (peeled and sliced thin)
- 1/2 Cup Ginger Syrup – Warmed (recipe to follow)
Directions
Slice and toast dark bread. If the loaf is not large use 2 pieces of bread to accommodate the diameter of the bucheron. After toasting the bread, lay them side by side on a large plate.
Place slice of boucheron in center of the 2 pieces of toast.
Arrange slices of pear on top of boucheron.
Drizzle liberally with warm ginger syrup. Serve
Ginger Syrup
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1/2 Cup Water
- 1 2″ Piece of Ginger (peeled and sliced into rounds)
Directions
Pour sugar, water and ginger slices into small saucepan. Over medium high heat, completely melt sugar into the water. Do not let water boil. Once melted, leave pot on heat for 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat and remove ginger pieces. Syrup is ready to serve.
*You can then put the ginger pieces onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet and put in an oven set at 150 degrees Farenheit for 2 hours for crystallized ginger.
Maple Bacon and Parmesan Shortbread Cookies
This is sheer madness, I know. But what was I supposed to do? While I was trying to clean out the refrigerator (I have to do this once a year whether I want to or not) I found some of the most disgusting things. It’s amazing what creepiness grows in those cold boxes. Anyway…while I was tossing out one science experiment after another, I ran across some sticky bottles of jelly and syrups. You know, the one’s you see in a store and think “oh how cool is this – I’ll definitely use this” only come face to face with reality and you’ve used it once and it has taken up permanent residence in the back corner of the refrigerator (because it’s stuck to the shelf by the same kind of sticky substance NASA uses to glue those space shuttle tiles on with).
After throwing out numerous bottles and jars, and putting a few back (I swear I’ll use them for something) I turned around and found that I had this sad little plastic bottle of pancake syrup still sitting on the counter. I took this as a sign that I should cook something with it. Plus it was really sticky and I didn’t feel like cleaning it up and putting it back in the refrigerator.
I could have made pancakes for dinner, Craig would have loved that, but I thought that would be too easy…too obvious. I was kind of thinking about cookies. But I was also thinking about bacon (because I was already braising some for another dish that you will be seeing very soon). Then I was trying to come up with something to marry these two soul mates with and I came up with cheese. Yeah, I didn’t get it either at the time but sometimes I just have to run with my weird thoughts. And this time it worked for the better.
I have a serious weakness for shortbread, so that’s how I determined what type of cookie this was going to be. But trust me, this cookie is really easy to make. I will admit that it is a little confused in that it doesn’t know if it is a breakfast food, a dessert or something to be passed as an appetizer in between the cheese plate and the olives. But I think that just gives you lots of options…and excuses to make these.
Words of Wisdom
Cleaning sucks! But cleaning out the refrigerator is one of life’s little curses. Unfortunately, it has to be done so here are a couple of ways to really make it work in your favor.
By the time you get done throwing everything out (because the expiration dates are long past due) you’ll see that you have nothing to eat so you can go out and buy all of those healthy foods you keep swearing you are going to start buying.
If you time the cleaning just right, you won’t have anything left in your refrigerator to cook for dinner, and no time to start anything even if there is something left in there. So you both will have to go out to eat if you plan on being nourished for the evening.
Makes 24 Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 Cups All Purpose Flour (plus additional for dusting)
- 1/2 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese + 1 Tablespoon Parmesan Cheese (separated)
- 1 Cup Chilled Unsalted Butter (cut into 1/2″ x 1″ pieces)
- 3/4 Cup Maple Flavored Pancake Syrup
- 1 Tablespoon Crumbled Bacon (cook 1-2 strips of bacon and crumble in food processor or chop by hand)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
In food processor, blend flour and parmesan cheese.
Add butter to flour and cheese mixture by pulsing blade. Keep pulsing until dough starts to come together. Add maple syrup, through feed tube, while pulsing.
Lightly flour work surface.
Turn dough out onto work surface and form a loose ball.
Divide dough in 1/2 and roll each half into a log. Cut log into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and place on lined baking sheet, space 1″-2″ apart. (You may have to lightly dust your hands with some flour to keep dough from sticking to you – use the flour sparingly.)
Flatten each ball into a 2″ round.
In a small bowl, mix 1 tablespoon parmesan cheese with 1 tablespoon crumbled bacon. Sprinkle on top of each cookie.
Bake cookies for 20-25 minutes. Tops should be dry and edges golden.
Transfer to a rack to cool completely, then store in a covered container.
Orange Glazed Cinnamon Rolls
Mmmmmm…cinnamon rolls. Fresh, hot cinnamon rolls are one of those few things that you can make that get you drooling from their smell as as much as they do from their taste (chocolate chip cookies being the other one).
However, unlike the aforementioned cookies, cinnamon rolls usually require you to plan ahead in order make the dough, let it rise, then finally bake them – ugh! Who has time for that? I’ll admit, that when I am in one of my “happy homemaker modes” (which doesn’t happen that often) I have been known to bust out the stand mixer and yeast to make overnight cinnamon rolls.
If you like cinnamon rolls, you’re really going to like these because you don’t have to make the dough – that part has already been done for you. The dough is a tube of Pillsbury Grands Buttermilk Biscuits. The only parts you have to make are the filling and the glaze. Then you can sit back and take all the credit for suffering over making a yeast dough and all the time it took to make and rise then roll it out. For added drama, you could smear a little flour on your face or on your clothes.
Words of Wisdom
These cinnamon rolls are perfect for either 1 – a breakfast the morning after the first time he spends the night at your place or 2 – if one of his relatives or good friends (if you don’t like his friend that spent the night, don’t make him breakfast – go out for food) stays over. You will get loads of kudos for spending the time to make homemade cinnamon rolls in the morning.
The beautiful thing with these rolls is that you actually get to use dough from a can, but because they aren’t those perfectly round pinwheels of brown sugar and cinnamon with the thick and gloppy glaze that you get from a can of cinnamon rolls, no one will ever know that they were almost as easy to make.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 1 7.5 Ounce Can Pillsbury Grands Buttermilk Biscuit Dough
- 3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
- 2 Teaspoons Cinnamon
- 2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter (1 Tbl melted & 1 Tbl solid)
- 3/4 Cup Powdered Sugar
- 1/8 Cup Cream Cheese
- 1 Tablespoon Orange Juice (preferably fresh squeezed)
- 1 Tablespoon Milk
- Flour
- Orange Zest (from 1 orange)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
Lightly grease and 8″x8″ baking pan with butter and set aside.
In a bowl mix brown sugar, cinnamon and melted butter. Mix thoroughly and set aside.
In another bowl mix powdered sugar, cream cheese, orange juice and milk. Mix to combine. Try to eliminate as many lumps as possible.
Separate the biscuits. Lightly flour work surface and roll out the biscuits to 1/8″ thickness. (Shape should be slightly oval to rectangular) Use a sharp knife to slice dough in half lengthwise. Cover dough with generous tablespoon of brown sugar cinnamon mixture. Starting with one corner from the long end, snugly roll the dough and pinch the remaining corner to seal the roll. Place into buttered baking pan and space 1/4″ apart.
Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes. After 25 minutes, start watching tops of rolls. The tops should turn a nice golden brown and the sugar and cinnamon should be mostly melted.
Remove pan from oven and drizzle with powdered sugar orange glaze. Top with grated orange zest.
Let rolls sit for 15 minutes to cool a bit and make it easier to serve.
Cream Cheese Swirled Chocolate Fudge Cake
We had a chocolate emergency here last week. Apparently, someone (Craig) was still going through one of his phases where if there isn’t some kind of chocolate baked good in the house, everyone (the poor dog and myself) have to suffer. In our house suffering at the hands of one of Craig’s cravings involves incessant whining, huffing, pouting and an overall crabby demeanor. So, in order to keep the peace, and my sanity, I bake.
Words of Wisdom:
Let me just interject another bit of advice (after all, this is a website dedicated to helping those who are trying to gain the advantage in the dating/relationship pool over all the other individuals out there). Instead of telling your significant other or desired significant other that their hands and feet aren’t broken and they can go to the bakery or grocery store to get something to eat. Or worse, just getting into an argument over the whole thing, take a look in your cupboard and see if you’ve got anything you can make that will satisfy the craving. This doesn’t even have to be something from scratch. When those boxed brownie, cake or cookie mixes are on sale I usually buy a couple for just such emergencies. Feeding your significant other a warm, just out of the oven brownie (even a boxed brownie) raises you up a level you can’t even imagine. If you want to get fancy with the boxed brownies…sprinkle some chocolate chips on top when you throw them in the oven or add some nuts to the batter.
Back to the recipe at hand. So I had just received the latest issue of Gourmet magazine and found a chocolate cake recipe that I was dying to try. The more I looked at it, the more I thought I could have some fun with it by adding a swirl of cheesecake to it. Because the basic cake wasn’t decadent enough. And our local diner occasionally makes these incredible chocolate cheesecake muffins. I fully intended to make this recipe into muffins, but by the time I started making it (at 9:30 p.m.) I got lazy and made it in a loaf pan. It worked out fine, but making these into muffins would have been perfect.
My version of Gourmet Magazine’s Dense Chocolate Fudge Cake. This cake will serve 8-10, but as muffins you could easily get 12 regular size muffins out of it.
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
- 1/3 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- 1 3/4 Teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- Slightly Rounded 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
- 7 Ounces of Chocolate (minimum 60 % cacao), Finely Chopped
- 1 Stick Unsalted Butter
- 3 Large Eggs, Lightly Beaten
- 1 Cup Buttermilk
- 1 1/2 Cups Sugar
For Cheesecake Swirl
- 12 Ounces Cream Cheese, Softened and Cut Into Chunks
- 1/2 Cup Sugar
- 1 Large Egg
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla
Directions
Combine in a food processor, or use a hand mixer, until well blended: the cheesecake ingredients. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Farenheit, with rack in the middle of oven. Lightly butter pan then dust with flour, making sure that the bottom and sides are completely covered. If making muffins, you can butter and flour each muffin or use paper liners and skip the butter and flour step.
Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
Melt chocolate, with butter, in a 2.5 – 3 quart heavy bottomed saucepan over low heat, stirring as it melts. (Be patient, this will take a few minutes. Do not turn up the heat to make it go faster.) Remove from heat and whisk in eggs and buttermilk until smooth. Whisk chocolate mixture into the flour mixture, then add sugar and whisk until mixture is smooth. Pour into buttered pan/muffin tin and lightly bang on the counter to eliminate air bubbles.
The time you need to bake the cake depends on the type of pan you use. If you use a loaf pan, like I did, it will take 1 1/2 – 2 hours. Muffins will take 12 – 15 minutes (for regular size muffins, not those jumbo things).
If using the loaf pan, bake for 1 hour and remove the partially baked cake to the counter. Using a spoon to break through the thin crust forming on top, trace a line down either side of the middle. Then spoon the cheesecake batter into the line you just created. Put cake back into the oven and continue baking until cake is gently pulling away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
If using a muffin tin, back for 7 minutes and remove the partially baked muffins to the counter. Using a spoon, break the thin crust forming a bit of an indentation on the top of each muffin. Spoon one tablespoon of cheesecake batter into each muffin. Put muffins back into the oven and continue baking until cake is gently pulling away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
A Chocolate Breakfast
Around our house there’s one person who gets the chocolate craving…and it’s not me. Every so often, Craig goes through one of his chocolate phases. When he does this, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I had a roommate in college, of the female persuasion, who would go on a massive chocolate bender during “that time” of the month. King size versions of Hershey candy bars, Ho-Ho’s, chocolate Zingers, M&M’s…it was unbelievable. The truly maddening part for me, was the fact that she weighed all of 90 pounds when she was soaking wet! (If I look at a bag of M&M’s I gain 5 pounds.)
Well, Craig is a lot like my old roommate. If it’s chocolate…he’s eating it. This is really only a problem for me when he finds my hiding place for chocolate chips and candy bars. I keep these things around for baking, and have learned that I must hide them from him or they’ll get eaten during one of his benders. Then of course when I’m in the middle of making something requiring chocolate, I’ll have to make an emergency trip to the grocery store – argh.
The chocolate bug hit yesterday. It starts out very slowly but quickly crescendos into a deafening climax of empty foil wrappers, plastic bags and ice cream cartons.
I thought I’d try something new, hitting him with chocolate first thing in the morning. I mixed a little Nutella with some Pillsbury crescent rolls and came up with a tasty little morning treat. While these aren’t all that pretty, they taste fantastic and go perfectly with a glass of ice cold milk or piping hot coffee. If you wanted to pretty them up, you could use cookie cutters on the dough. I was just looking to feed the beast.
Ingredients
- 1 Tube of Crescent Rolls
- 1 Container of Nutella
- 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar (optional) *
- 2 Teaspoons Milk (optional) *
Directions
Follow baking directions on tube of crescent rolls and pre-heat oven. Open tube of rolls and remove dough. On a clean and flat surface, roll out dough to 3/16″ thick rectangle. Either cut into 16 rectangles or use a cookie cutter to cut dough. Spoon 1 Tablespoon of Nutella into each shape. Fold over dough and press to seal edges. Place filled dough onto cookie sheet and bake in oven according to baking directions on the package of dough.
*If desired, mix up a powdered sugar glaze (1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar combined with 2 Teaspoons of Milk) and drizzle over the top of baked rolls.
Bananas For Banana Bread
Hmmmm…..a bowl of bruised up nasty looking bananas one day away from the grand opening of a fruit fly carnival…what to do? What to do? Banana bread!
The husband is on a pseudo health kick right now. I say pseudo because he thinks if there is a full fruit bowl in the house, that he can walk by and look at, and he’s being healthy. Notice that nowhere in that sentence did I say anything about him eating said fruit. He looks at it every morning when he’s pouring his coffee and every evening as he makes the brain cramping decision of whether to have a bowl of ice cream or inhale half a bag of potato chips. Of course, being a guy, he can do these kinds of things without looking like a horse after a couple of days. I am not that fortunate…I am the one who eats the fruit.
So the other day he’s complaining to me about the “gnarly looking bananas” in the fruit bowl. The reality hits him pretty hard that real bowls of fruit don’t always look like a still life by Paul Cezanne.
So this is how I made the “gnarly looking bananas” disappear and turn into that night’s dessert: Banana Bread.
Ingredients
- 2/3 Cup Granulated Sugar
- 5 Tablespoons (1/3 cup) Unsalted Butter at Room Temperature
- 2 Large Eggs
- 2 Ripe Bananas (aka gnarly looking bananas)
- 2 Tablespoons Milk
- 1 3/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
- 1 1/4 Teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1/4 – 1/2 Cup Chopped Nuts (walnuts, pecans, or hazelnuts work best)
- 1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon (optional)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.
