Winter « (y)our food choices™

It’s Sunday morning, and there’s no better reason to sleep in. With little to do this morning, and with breakfast being a quick and easy fix, why wake up and spend the time cooking? Yesterday, I made a batch of waffles while Steve fried up some bacon. We had plenty left over and we even reserved the pan the bacon was fried in so we could sauté some pears and apples in the leftover fond. Our breakfast yesterday was a simple waffle and bacon with maple syrup. This morning though, we upped the ante for brunch with a sauté of apple and pear, a couple of waffles, crumbled bacon, with a drizzle of maple syrup and yogurt topped with blood orange segments on the side. It was such a feast we definitely needed to take a long walk in the park to work off some of the calories.

Saturday’s Simple Breakfast: Waffles and Bacon

I used Bittman’s quick buttermilk waffle recipe from How to Cook Everything, substituting ½ of the flour with whole wheat flour to make it a little healthy. Frying the bacon is a pretty easy thing to do. The only thing to remember is patience. You’ll want to render the bacon slowly so it doesn’t burn. A quick tip we picked up from America’s Test Kitchen is to roll each slice individually and then freeze the rolled slices for a latter use. This way you can purchase a large quantity of bacon and always have it on hand. If you own a microwave oven just pop a few slices in and defrost. If you’re like us, and don’t own one, just place the frozen bacon rolls in the pan on very low heat. As they defrost, unroll using two forks. It’s a bit time consuming but it’s well worth the effort.

Blood Orange Yogurt

After the bacon is cooked, pour the grease in a small ceramic container for later use. Never pour hot grease in a plastic container. (It’s great to fry potatoes in, or sauté onions, or substitute the grease for anything that you would normally fry in butter.) Add a little butter to the pan and sauté a couple apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, or chopped pineapple (whatever fresh fruit is in season that goes well with bacon). Allow the fruit to brown slightly and soften.

Enjoy your breakfast with the Sunday paper and a cup of coffee. It’s Sunday after all and there’s no better day to relax and indulge.

Cheers!

Jason & Steve

Rich Buttermilk Waffles (from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything)

2 cups all-purpose flour (or up to half whole-wheat, graham, rye, buckwheat, etc.)
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 ¾ cups buttermilk or 1 ½ cups sour cream or plain yogurt thinned with ¼ milk
2 eggs, separated
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted and cooled
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Canola or other neutral oil for brushing on waffle iron

Preheat the waffle iron and brush lightly with oil.

Combine all the dry ingredients. Mix together the buttermilk and egg yolks. Sir in the cooled butter and vanilla. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. Whisk the egg whites to form soft peaks. Gently fold the egg whites, in two parts, into the waffle batter.

Depending on the size of the waffles, use an ice cream scoop or ladle to add enough batter to fill the waffle maker, but not too much so that it oozes out the sides. Cook for 3-5 minutes and keep the waffles warm in the oven.

The waffles can also be cooked, cooled, and frozen for a quick and easy breakfast any day of the week.

Green Lentils

Weird craving confession time: I frequently crave lentils. I don’t know why. I didn’t eat them as a kid so there are no fond remembrances or suppressed memories of lentils. My first exposure to these little gems likely came as a college student living in Salt Lake City and that exposure likely occurred in a Mediterranean restaurant we frequented fairly often. Whatever the case, I love them for no particular reason except that they satisfy a hunger for something simple, earthy and filling.

Lentil soups do the trick, but my favorite use of the legume is in a pilaf or cold salad paired with brown basmati rice, diced veggies like carrot and celery and seasoned liberally with salt and pepper. Lentils lend themselves to heavy seasoning. I love to experiment with “exotic” spices to scent lentils, which means taking a deep dive into the spice cupboard. Garam Masala, cardamom, cinnamon, turmeric, cumin, dry mustard, and saffron – the possibilities are endless.

We keep green lentils on hand, but I love the look and shape of the smaller bluish-black French lentils, which look like caviar. Red lentils are beautiful, but they’re really more of a dry pea and taste like them. All are worth keeping in your pantry for a quick, delicious and incredibly nutritious main or side dish. High in protein and fiber, lentils sit near the top of most super foods lists. Vegetarians can add a complete protein to their diets by combining lentils with brown rice.

Of the beans we keep on hand, lentils are hands-down the simplest, quickest to cook. No pressure cooker or overnight soaking necessary. From dry, the beans will cook in 20 – 30 minutes at the boil. The small, dark French lentils are a bit firmer and may take more time, but not much. Like most beans, lentils should be cooked in unsalted water to prevent them from getting tough. I like to add a bay leaf to the cooking water to start the seasoning process from the beginning.

Lentil Salad

If you’re going to use them for salad or pilaf, they should be drained and set aside to cool before combining them with other ingredients. Cooked lentils are tender so they need to be handled carefully to prevent them from turning into a big mash. They firm up a bit as they cool making them easier to fold with other ingredients. I like the vegetables I mix with them to be diced small enough that they look roughly the same size as the lentils. When I’m ready for them, I’ll heat olive oil in a skillet and add the dry spices for a quick sauté to allow the oil soluble flavors to “bloom” before adding carrots, celery, onion and garlic. Be sure to keep the flame at medium heat to be sure not to brown them. Once the veggies are tender and fragrant, take them off the heat and gently fold them into the cooled lentils. I think this dish is best at room temperature, but it makes for a nice cold salad spooned onto a leaf of butter lettuce and finished with a sprinkle of sea salt, a bit of fresh ground black pepper and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

Cheers, Steve