Cleaning out the fridge

Half a dozen Plum Creek eggs, leftover troll caught King Salmon and asparagus, Farmers Market parsley, shredded Gre de champs and Valbert Vieux, a little 2% milk, and some salt and pepper. I consulted one of the finer food blogs around for frittata technique and got to work. I kept the oven at 425 (not 450), and just threw everything together in a pretty warm, buttered nonstick 8" pan. Once the eggs started settling I placed the pan in the hot oven. It firmed up in less than ten min.

Also on the plate are slices of a Frog Hollow Farm kiwi and some bread with the homemade rhubarb preserves from a few posts ago. A nice dinner, especially considering it was made with scraps.

Spelt Flour Pancakes

As good as regular pancakes. This is a slightly revised recipe from one I got off the web quite some time ago. There are a lot of good pancake recipes out there, along with a bunch of not so good ones. This one works for me.

Ingredients:
- Buttermilk, 1 cup (I used 2% milk mixed with a little lemon juice.)
- Egg, 1
- Flour, 1 cup
- Baking Powder, 2 tsp
- Baking Soda, 1/2 tsp
- Sugar, 1 tbs
- Fat, 1 tbs (I used a light olive oil. The recipe calls for melted butter.)
- Salt, pinch
- Butter (for greasing pan or griddle)
- Butter and Maple Syrup (for enjoying the finished product)

Method:
- Preheat pan or griddle
- Mix dry ingredients
- Add wet ingredients to the dry ones
- Whisk everything together briefly leaving the batter lumpy
- Add butter to hot pan/griddle/skillet
- Pour batter on the hot pan (I use a 1/2 cup measuring cup to keep batter distribution somewhat even and neat.)
- Once bubbles appear on the uncooked surface of the pancakes flip them (Also, if the part of the pancake on the pan is darkening too quickly lower the heat and flip.)
- If making a bunch they can be kept warm in a 200 degree oven (And the oven can be used to heat the syrup at the same time.)

I trust the recipe and instructions were likely not necessary, but I'm snowed in, so I had the time. They're good.

Breakfast Potatoes

Potatoes, onion, paprika, cayenne, cumin, salt and pepper, and rosemary. I started by briefly sauteing the onions in duck fat. I added the potatoes and seasonings, sans rosemary, and put everything in a 425 degree onion for a bit, then cranked it up to 500 for a little extra browning. Towards the very end I added the rosemary. It was very nice with eggs over easy and some toast. Who doesn't love breakfast potatoes?

As for the weather:

L.E.O.

Lox, eggs, and onion . . . not quite, but close.

Ingredients:
- Eggs, well beaten (2 per person, I use a fork to mix them)
- Shallots, peeled then cut in half root to tip and sliced
- Smoked salmon, flaked (here, hot smoked sockeye salmon)
- Goat cheese, crumbled
- Butter
- Heavy cream (optional)
- Salt and pepper
- Lightly buttered toast
Method:
- Add butter to a heating nonstick pan
- Once butter is melted, add shallots and some salt and pepper
- When shallots are softened (but not browned) add flaked smoked salmon
- While salmon is heating through (it's already cooked) mix cream (if using) and eggs
- Pour eggs into salmon-shallot mixture, add a little salt (the salmon has plenty) and pepper, and stir continuously
- When it just about to your liking add and mix in goat cheese
- Remember that the eggs will continue to cook off the heat (both in the pan and on the plate)--I tend to turn off the heat once the eggs are just more than half cooked

Grab some coffee, turn on Meet the Press, and enjoy a leisurely Sunday.

Omelet

There are a lot of omelet styles. Some are good. I like a thin omelet surrounding a good filling. Some people prefer the thick egg patties folded over and a separately cooked filling.

There is also "the" way to cook an omelet. Julia Child describes it (and the recommended equipment for it) in an excerpt from Mastering the Art of French Cooking here: http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/child/recipe.html. There's also a great, albeit passing, omelet scene in Tampopo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampopo), a great Ramen Western movie that anyone interested in food would likely enjoy. It's not Ratatouille, so you may want to think before choosing this for family movie night. All I'll contribute to the omelet discussion is that I use a 8" nonstick pan, and this is the only time I'm pretty fearless about preheating it on high heat (because of the whole fumes thing). Also, I add the salt and pepper while the eggs are cooking, not before adding them to the pan. I've done it both ways, and prefer the former.

Omelet:
Ingredients:
- Eggs (2 per omelet)
- Cream (just a bit if it's laying around)
- Smoked trout, flaked
- Bacon, cooked and broken into pieces
- Butter
- Salt and pepper
Method:
- Preheat nonstick pan
- Beat eggs in a bowl and add maybe a tablespoon of cream
- Have everything ready to go
- Add butter to a hot pan
- When butter stops foaming add eggs
- Add some salt and pepper
- Add trout and bacon
- Roll according to Julia's instruction (or as close as you can get)
- If things don't look too good, you can shape the omelet using a paper towel for grip

Toast:
- You're on your own

That's it. No cheese, but that's just because I didn't have any I wanted to use on hand. It wasn't missed, but a small bit of Gruyere could have been nice. Filling additions, omissions, and swapping options are endless.

My favorite place for an omelet in the Cleveland area--Irv's Sandwich Shop at 2164 South Taylor Rd. in Cleveland Heights. There's nothing fancy about the place, so be ready for that if you go. They make the omelets on a griddle, spreading the egg mixture out super thin before adding the toppings and folding the whole thing into a nice package. For most other places in the area I stick to eggs over easy or pancakes.

Cup of Joe

Simple breakfast. Would've been perfect if I had some yogurt, but it was pretty good nonetheless. The Melitta Ready Set Joe coffee maker (I'll try to keep product placement to a minimum except where it makes a difference. Here it does.) is great, for one cup of coffee. This is a bit of a well traveled meal, in stark contrast to most of the posts here. Even the olive oil from the last pasta post was only from California (All things being equal, I prefer the Spanish stuff.). Here, the coffee is from Columbia, by way of Arabica, a Cleveland area coffee chain, sold vacuum packed.

A word on the coffee, particularly when brewing this way, but I imagine it's always relevant. These beans were fine. They were a gift, and anything given is always good . . . usually. And I am partial to Colombian coffee, partially because I had a good friend from Columbia and I'm sentimental, being a Cancer and all. That being said, I ground the coffee beans in a blade grinder, wet about three tablespoons of roughly ground coffee in the Melitta #2 filter with hot water from a tea kettle, and then filled the filter up with more of the hot water and let it do its thing. It was fine in the mug, particularly so with a bit of cream (that was local and organic) and some sugar (organic by way of Paraguay). But, there's a place in the West Side Market, and I'm sure there are equivalent places just about everywhere, that gets great traffic and a quick turnaround on their product. Using those beans on a different occasion, during the initial wetting of the beans a thick foam develops and there's lots of bubbling. Same, but to a lesser extent, when the additional water is added. The smell was stronger and the taste superior. The beans were from the same place of origin and I had used the same technique. Maybe the coffee boutique roasts their beans differently, but I believe the difference is in the freshness alone. Coffee at my local Aribica (it's an individually owned and operated franchise) is great, same at the West Side Market boutique shop. But if I'm buying the beans, it's worth a trip to the Market. Plus, they sell by weight, so you can buy less and keep your stock fresh.

Back to breakfast. Some good Oatnut bread (Pennsylvania I think), raspberry jam (organic from California), and a banana (organic, Ecuador). As noted above, some good yogurt mixed with some grains or nuts would have made it the perfect meal, but despite my waxing on about the omission, they really weren't missed. At the very least it was a nice break from eggs or muesli, especially since I was out of eggs and milk.