granola time! (cashew/ginger/coconut)

my friends just had a baby. well, it was like a month ago. and technically only my friend L had the baby, since men (still! in 2014!) have not gotten around to taking on that burden. but regardless, a baby that is now in the world belongs to (?) my friends and has taken up residence inside their house.

clearly this is not a picture of the baby. it's a picture of a butternut squash with googly eyes glued onto it posed next to a bottle and wearing a baby hat. obviously.

the thing is, i don't want to post a real picture of someone else's baby (or rather, i doubt that his parents would like that) and i'm worried that with my really outstanding skills in the realm of Art, even if i tried to draw the baby and add accessories or something to disguise it, its identity would be immediately apparent and in that case one might as well post a real photo of the baby, which as i already explained i am loath to do.

see? you can tell right away that that's the same squash, right? i can't get anything past you.

so, baby pictures or not, it's not as though newborns eat granola anyway. but parents of newborns seem to like to. i wanted to bring something over when i came to see the baby, and i thought granola would be good because it's nice to eat out of hand or as more of a cereal and if you put lots of nuts and seeds in it and go easy on the sugar, it's pretty healthy and protein-y.

i've made a few different batches over the last couple of weeks (one with lots of pecans and cardamom, one with chopped dark chocolate bits - definitely more on the snacky side), but i think this one was my favorite. it features cashews, lots of coconut, and both powdered and crystallized ginger to make it nice and spicy.

this picture is misleading because the cashews should be in pieces and the coconut in large unsweetened flakes. whole coconuts have no place in granola, particularly whole coconuts that look like meatballs. 

every time i've seen this baby (three or four times, so far), he's been sleeping sweetly with cute footie pajamas on and long eyelashes grazing his tiny cheeks. although i've heard that he is not always like this, the fact that i have yet to see any evidence of this other, darker side leads me to believe that it doesn't exist. he is almost certainly a perfect child. i have never once thought of stealing him, however.

as a happily childless woman in my mid-30s, i feel like something of an anomaly among many of my friends these days. as an example of the recent baby boom, six close college friends of mine now have 10 kids between them. nine of those kids are under six. and that's just the tip of the iceberg. i feel like i'm suddenly at the point where i know more people with kids than without them. it's sort of an odd place to be.

i've basically always known that i don't want to have children. i don't hate kids by any means, and all of the ones i know personally are, without a doubt, the most charming, clever, and adorable young people one could hope to meet. i genuinely enjoy talking to them, even though i'm really bad at it. i never know what's appropriate for any given age and end up asking eight-year-olds if they like dollies or toddlers if they saw last week's Scandal. it's a problem.

but the thing is, much as i like chilling with other people's kids in small to medium doses, i've never felt an urge to bring them home with me or to get one of my own. it's just not in my nature.

poor crystallized gingers

i used to read a lot of articles about people having kids or not having kids. i've always been an inveterate reader of advice columns and the kinds of articles that run in the Life or Styles section of newspapers, so this was probably related. one thing that kept coming up in these articles was that people quoted on either side of the parenting divide seemed oddly defensive about their decisions. i almost wrote "debate" instead of "divide" just then, because that's what so many of the stories felt like - debates on the relative merits of the choice to become a parent. framing this issue as a debate leads people to feel like one side is right and one is wrong, which understandably makes people defensive about their own side.

i've stopped reading those articles, for the most part. i've never been made to feel less-than because i am not and don't want to be a parent, and i certainly don't want to proselytize about my choice to others. there are lots of choices i've made as an adult that i know aren't right for everyone - owning three dogs, going to law school, commuting on a scooter, diving across the country with five animals in a Toyota Matrix - but they work for me. i don't know anyone with kids who seems to regret their choice, but i also know that it's not the choice for me. isn't it great that we get to make the choices that are right for us (when, of course, we have the incredible good fortune to have resources to make such choices)? 

at work, on the go, watching Law & Order reruns in your slippers - granola is great anywhere!

anyway, basically i feel like there's no real point in debating which of two extremely personal choices is better. everyone who knows that they want children should probably have them and everyone who knows that they don't should probably not have them. science and common sense seem to bear this out. of course, you can't really sell stories in which everyone is happy and supportive of each other. BORING. it's also pretty frustrating that often issues involving children are framed almost exclusively as women's issues, but that's a whole giant other thing for which there is no time here.

in the end it all comes down to this: whether or not you have children, you probably like granola. if you like granola, you might like this granola (see how diplomatic one can be if one tries?).

if you don't like granola, i think we can all agree that you are probably a monster.

cashew/ginger/coconut granola

preheat oven to 300 degrees

• 3 ½ cups rolled oats
• ¾ cup rolled barley flakes (you could also just do all oats)
• 2 cups coconut flakes (they’re the not-sweetened kind in the bulk places. otherwise you could use shredded sweetened coconut and cut down on the sugar/honey element)
• 1 ½ cups raw cashew pieces
• ½ cup sesame seeds
• ¼ cup brown sugar, packed (if you want a more coconut thing, palm sugar would be good, but i didn't have any)
• 2 tsp ground ginger (or more, to taste)
• ½ tsp cardamom (don’t go out and buy it for this - if you don’t have it, nbd, or add more ginger or other spices (pepper? cinnamon?) to taste)
• 1 tsp salt

mix the above ingredients in a large bowl (i have a giant one from a restaurant supply place)

• ½ cup oil (i used half and half coconut oil and olive oil, but whatever. all coconut would be good, but i didn't  have enough, but also i think the olive oil adds a savory element that i like. you could use less, too, i'm sure)
• ½ cup honey (i’d use ⅓ cup next time, maybe? but i am not 100% on sweet things)

put the oil and honey in a smaller receptacle and heat in the microwave or on the stove until the coconut oil melts. mix well and pour over the grain mixture. it's best to mix everything with your hands at this point, i find. it helps get everything more evenly distributed.

bake at 300 degrees in a baking pan/cookie sheet (like 11” x 17” - i think it’s called a jelly roll pan?) lined with parchment paper. i kind of smush it down in the pan so it sticks together a little.

you can use a different/larger pan, but would need to stir it more frequently. if you use a smaller pan, i would split it into two parts.

bake for ~ 30 minutes, depending on the pan/your oven, stirring well every 10-15 minutes. while it's baking, mince a handful of candied ginger (i used about 20 of the little cubes it comes in) total when minced =  ~1/4 - 1/3 cup).

take it out when everything is golden-brown and toasty. i let it cool in the pan - i think it makes it stick together more or something. don’t mess with it! (or do, whatever).

once it’s cool, add the candied ginger (start with 1/4 cup and add to taste) and more salt if needed (this depends on how you eat it - i mostly eat it dry, so i like a little more salty-sweet and added another ~1/2 tsp)

israeli breakfast salad

we've already established that salad for breakfast is totally delicious and great, right? right.

this israeli salad is my new favorite weekend breakfast, though i also sometimes bring it for lunch. it's versatile like that.

it's also cold and refreshing, which is nice since texas hasn't gotten the message that it's supposed to cool off post-labor-day. stupid texas. when it's 100 degrees one doesn't necessarily feel like having a hot plate of migas. oh, who am i kidding - one always feels like having a hot plate of migas. but alternating them with breakfast salads will make you feel extra virtuous and clever.

anyway, it's stupid-easy and you get to practice your knife skills (which is why i usually make this on the weekends - it's a lot of chopping for a weekday morning when you haven't had coffee yet). you want to make all of the pieces as close to the same size as is reasonably possible, so a little concentration pays off.

for two largish servings, just cut up some cucumber, sweet onion, tomatoes, herbs, and any color of bell pepper except green because they are disgusting. toss them with some lemon juice or vinegar, salt, and pepper and ta da! you can also add bits of cheese (feta, goat cheese, or manchego are all good), other vegetables (grated carrot, some zucchini, maybe jicama??), spices (sumac is good, and/or za'atar) or a bit of olive oil. it's good with toasted pita or flatbread, which you could also add to the salad itself to make an ersatz fattoush (that's a freebie for those of you who are always on the lookout for good band names, by the way). the only rule is that there are no rules!

actually, i think there are some rules (the main vegetables, the trying-to-make-them-all-the-same-size), but perhaps you're the type for whom rules were made to be broken, in which case do whatever. i'm no snitch.

the last warm weeks of summer are when this salad's ingredients are at their best, so make sure to try this before we're all bundled up and talking about roasted squash soup or whatever. jk, it will never again be cold enough to turn on the oven. we are doomed to eternal summer - might as well roll with it.

*ingredients*
there are probably a million versions of this and i've never been to israel. this is just how i do it.

• 1 large or 2 or more small cucumbers (those little persian ones are good here)
• 1 red, orange, etc bell pepper
• 1/2 a large sweet onion (like 1015, vidalia, etc)
• 1 large or several small tomatoes (i used two big romas this time, but the fancy heirloom ones would be aces)

chop all of the vegetables into small and similar-sized bits (i usually try to a fairly small dice, like 1 cm or less). toss together with

• 1-2 tbsp sherry vinegar, lemon juice, or other mildish vinegar (probably not a strong balsamic, for instance) - start small and taste until it's to your liking. i like it pretty tart.
• a handful of herbs, chopped (parsley, basil, oregano, mint, tarragon and other more exotic herbs are all good in here. today i didn't have any parsley and my herbs aren't doing that well, so the pictured salad is not as herby as i would prefer)
• salt and pepper to taste (maybe 1 tsp salt, but start smaller)

optional: sumac, za'atar or other dried spices, to taste (maybe 1 tsp?), olive or maybe some kind of nut oil (i don't care for oil here, but some do!)

i like this best right after it's made, but it will keep for several hours in the fridge just fine.

listening to: songs mentioning john berryman - okkervil river's "john allyn smith sails" and the hold steady's "stuck between stations" (i think the hold steady is tied with yo la tengo as the band that looks most like they could your high school science or english teachers)

looking at: this "romantic real life comic" is adorable. also this tumblr is great for finding new art if you enjoy modern stuff but are lazy about seeking it out, as i am.

ginger chocolate pear bread cake

i was initially going to introduce some punctuation into the title of this post, but in fact i actually think of this as if it was all one word, like GingerChocolatePearBreadCake, so i decided to leave it punctuation-free. 

it's dangerous, though, if you already don't really use capital letters as you ought and then you start flouting the rules of punctuation. you could go off the rails really quickly, is what i'm saying. but. BUT. i was almost an english minor, so it's like one of those "learn the rules so you can break 'em" things. 

or not.

pears and i have a moderately complex relationship. i kind of dig fake pear flavoring (though it's uncommon to find in candies, etc., i like it when i do) and my favorite kind of skyr when i went to iceland was pear-flavored. too often when i buy pears, though, they start out hard, enjoy a brief 30 second interlude of flavor/texture perfection, and promptly melt into the crisper drawer.

that's essentially what happened with these pears mike bought, but i found them before they were quite destroyed and decided to put them to use in a sweet quick bread. there aren't a lot of pear bread recipes out there, but i found this one and modified it to my mental image of the pear bread-cake i sought.

to that end - chocolate. also much more pear and ginger, including a hefty dose of finely grated fresh ginger. nuts would be a good addition, too, but we didn't have any because we used the last of the pecans for the beet and blue cheese salad (aka Beets of the Southern Wild) we made for this year's oscar pun dinner (see previous offerings, Midnight in Pears and Precious: Based on the Liquor Gin by Bombay Sapphire, whose recipe has sadly been lost to the mists of glorious memory).

the great thing about quick breads is how quick they are (!). the main work involved in this is the messy (for me) peeling and cutting-up of the very-soft-at-this-point pears. as shown above, just cut them in half after peeling, get the core out, and chop them thinly one way and then the other. you don't have to be overly fastidious about this - they kind of meld with the rest of the bread anyway.

other than that, it's a typical one-to-one-and-1/2-bowl affair - the wet ingredients (including sugar. sugar usually counts as wet in baking) get mixed together and then you add the dry ingredients. probably the best thing would be to mix the dry ingredients separately and then add them, but i'm congenitally unable to dirty more dishes than necessary, so i always mix the leaveners in the measuring cup with part of the flour, add that, add the rest of the flour, and mix everything gently together. then fold in the pear and the chocolate. i used some dark chocolate discs, but you could also cut up a bar or use some chocolate chips.

i buttered the loaf pan (9"x5") and made a little liner out of parchment paper. you don't necessarily have to do this, but the paper or a liner of aluminum foil will make the bread easier to remove from the pan later. a stitch in time, etc.

then just bake it for 45-50 minutes or so, turning it around mid-way through. i let it cool in the pan for awhile before taking it out, which was a good move because this stuff is super moist (though not dense!) and it really wanted to fall apart at first. once it cooled down, though, it made for a rich, gingery afternoon treat that stayed lushly soft for several days. it's particularly good with a strong cup of tea, but would also work as a more dessert-y course with a scoop of ice cream.

ginger chocolate pear bread cake
(heavily adapted from this ginger pear bread recipe)

mix

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 packed teaspoon grated fresh ginger (i used a microplane over a cup to make sure to catch all of the ginger juice, which contributes a lot of flavor)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

zest of 1 lemon

add
1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs, beaten

mix separately, then add

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

fold in
2 cups peeled, cored, and chopped pears

1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate

bake at 325 (although i actually started at 350 and turned it down to 325 after 10 minutes or so) for 45 minutes or until a toasty golden brown

listening to: yo la tengo

biscuits & gravy*

spring is taking its time coming to the pacific northwest this year. it actually snowed just a week and a half ago. but everyone's trying to put a brave face on things and the trees are still blooming wildly, so that's heartening. i'm pretty sure spring's just around the corner.

biscuits and gravy seem sort of spring-y to me. i'm not sure why, except that they kind of tread the line between hearty winter food and lighter springtime fare. whatever the season, the richness of the cream gravy plus the lightness of the biscuits makes for a satisfying brunch dish and a great way to start off the weekend.

biscuits are remarkably simple to make. every time i make them, i wonder why i don't do it more often. and while many people no doubt have fondish feelings for the biscuits in a can that puff oozily out when you knock it against something, these are roughly a million percent better.

first, preheat the oven to 450. mix together 10 ounces (~2 c) of flour, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, ½ a teaspoon or so of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of baking soda. then add 6 tablespoons of cold butter, cut (as above) into smallish chunks. i think these were each about a centimeter cubed, but the size doesn't matter all that much.

then use your hands or a pastry blender or fork or something to cut the butter into the flour. i was looking for a video of this, but couldn't find one. if you're doing it by hand, you basically just rub the flour and butter between your thumbs and fingertips until the mixture is in kind of coarse crumbs. they don't have to be totally uniform.

then add ½ cup of yogurt and ½ cup of milk (i think it's easiest to mix them together, then add them to the flour mixture) and mix until it just comes together. you want to be careful about not overmixing biscuits, lest they turn into gross tough hockey pucks. word to the wise. use your hands to just push the dough together, then turn it out on a floured surface (i like using a large cutting board, so i don't have to clean stuck-on flour off the countertop) and pat it together (you don't have to be crazy-gentle, but don't like knead it) into a somewhat uniform shape about ½" thick or a little more (maybe even ¾").

cut them out using a cookie cutter or a glass that's 1 ½ - 2” in diameter. or you can make them bigger, of course. you can make them as big as you want! as big as your head!

maybe not that big. if they're bigger, they'll take a little longer to cook, fyi.

i don't make too big a fuss out of making sure all of the biscuits are perfectly round (as is evident above). i figure that if you want fancy, you probably aren't really wanting biscuits and gravy anyway. you can press the little scraps together into more biscuits! more biscuits = better.

i like to put them close together like this, i read somewhere that it helps them rise more. it does, of course, take away somewhat from the crunchy edges, but i also think it keeps them more moist inside. so it's a balance you'll have to strike for yourself. you can place them farther apart if you like. then into the oven with them for about 15-18 minutes (until they're a nice goldeny brown). after 10 minutes, i sometimes drop little bits of butter over the top of each one - it makes the tops even goldener and more delicious.

while they're baking, you can make the gravy. (i actually just wrote "cravy" which, while it should probably be "crave-y," is not an inaccurate reflection on my feelings about gravy). this time, i used some loose turkey sausage, but i often make it vegetarian and it's still totally good. if you're using sausage, cook it in a large pan with relatively deep sides, since you'll be making the gravy in there. you can use whatever amount of sausage you want - probably ½ a pound is plenty, though. once it's cooked (medium heat, break it up into smaller pieces with a spatula, don't get salmonella or something), take it out and set it aside for a bit.

if there is a huge amount of oil in the pan, you can use less butter, but turkey sausage doesn't have much oil, so i used about 1 ½ tablespoons of butter. let it melt, then add 1 ½ - 2 tablespoons of flour. basically you're making a roux. let these cook together for a minute or so, stirring frequently. then start adding milk.

i usually add maybe ¼ cup at first, whisk it into the roux, then keep adding small amounts at a time until it's thick but not like a paste. then you can add a little more milk at a time, like ½ a cup or something. adding the milk slowly and mixing as you do helps it to avoid dreaded lumpiness.

people have different thicknesses of gravy that they prefer, but i would guess that all together for that amount of flour and butter, you'll need maybe 1 ½ - 2 cups of milk. i like thicker gravy, myself, so i would probably stop adding milk around the lower end of that continuum. then add the sausage back into it and cook another couple of minutes over low-medium heat to make sure everything's hotted through. if it starts seeming too thick, you can always add more milk. also make sure to taste it and add salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

once the biscuits are done, split them in half while they're hot, pour a generous helping of gravy over them, and enjoy. they're also not bad with a sunnyside-up egg or two, if you're especially ravenous.

biscuits
there are a lot of biscuit recipes out there, and this one was cobbled together with ideas from several sources. you can also maybe just use buttermilk, but i thought the yogurt made them extra-tender.

10 oz (2 c) flour

1 tbsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

6 tbsp butter, cubes

½ c yogurt

½ c milk

~ ½ tsp (or a little more) salt

gravy**

~ ½ pound turkey or other sausage (if desired)

1 ½ - 2 tbsp butter

1 ½ - 2 tbsp flour

1 ½ - 2 cups milk

salt & black pepper to taste

*incidentally, i made this particular batch for a now-annual pun-filled oscar party - it was called "The Help yourself to some biscuits and gravy" and joined "midnight in pears" as our contribution.

**since this is essentially a béchamel sauce (without the fussy warming-up-the-milk part), you can also use the basic flour, butter, milk technique, add some grated cheese and maybe a little freshly grated nutmeg, and have a tasty cheese sauce for macaroni and cheese, etc. a little mustard instead of the nutmeg is also good. go crazy! you're welcome.

listening to: a spotify playlist of songs that get stuck in my head a lot. includes bishop allen (click, click, click, click) and the national (mr. november)

goat cheese, honey, black pepper, bread

you can use any kind of breadish thing - sandwich, ciabatta, one of those scandinavian rye crisps, or even a biscuit. maybe especially a biscuit.

then you need some nice soft chalkylicious goat cheese.

let it warm up a little out of the fridge, so you can spread it all over the bread or what-have-you.

then toast it, if you like. or stick it under the broiler for a minute or so. or leave it as is.

then spread it with lots of good honey. if you ever see meadowfoam honey anywhere, you owe it to yourself to try it. it's like vanilla beans making out with caramel in a field on a brilliant summer day.

one of the less florid floral, less sweet honeys would be good, too - like buckwheat or chestnut. or of course you can use just regular ol' honey out of a honey bear. you can't go too far wrong.

then grind lots of black pepper over. i like to use a fairly coarse grind level, so that you crunch into bits of pepper. but whatever. just make sure to grind it right over the honey and cheese - the pre-ground dust will not be anywhere close to as good.

if you make this with homemade bread and really fresh goat cheese and good honey, it is pretty much the best thing in the world.

maduros (fried sweet plantains)

breakfast for dinner is a family favorite. sometimes it's Mike's Famous Migas, sometimes scrambled eggs with some turkey sausage, sometimes (only once!) the truly disastrous pancakes i made recently.

actually, that ended up being something-else-for-dinner, because they were really inedible. thanks for nothing, adelle davis! your cookbook should be called let's cook it wrong. normally i would blame myself for such a disaster, but this was one of the rare times that i actually followed the recipe, so i am pretty sure it's her fault.

anyway. breakfast for dinner is normally awesome. i got a plantain from the market a little while ago and decided to make cuban breakfast. basically it just involves fried sweet plantains (maduros), black beans, fried eggs, and sour cream (or in our case yogurt). i used to get it all the time at a lovely place on congress in austin called el sol y la luna. here is a picture of the irrepressible michael schaub about to dine there:

he is probably not awaiting a cuban breakfast, though, which is why he doesn't look that excited. maybe he hasn't had coffee yet. or maybe there's just too much thinkin' going on in his head. we did once see a possum there, too, so maybe he's worried about it coming back. i know i was.

possum and coffee concerns aside, here is a plantain. for maduros, you want to get the ones that have lots of brown spots. they are sweeter and less starchy than the ones you use for tostones, which are another style of fried plantain. both types of plantains are more starchy and less sweet than regular bananas.

peel it and cut it on the diagonal into pieces that are about an inch thick.

heat some oil on medium to medium-high heat (i used olive oil, but i think a more neutral one with a higher smoke point would be good, such as maybe grapeseed? i haven't used that, though. use whatever you like! if you use olive oil, though, be prepared for your kitchen to maybe get a teeny bit smokified) until it shimmers, then carefully put the plantain pieces in, ensuring they aren't too close together. if you're making lots of these, you should either do separate batches or use more than one pan.

the oil in the picture below is probably a little more than was necessary, but you want to make sure they don't stick. then just let them cook for a couple of minutes or until they're a nice dark golden brown. let the other side brown, put them on some paper towels or the like to drain off some oil.

then give them a good sprinkle of coarse salt and eat away! their sweetness plays really nicely off the earthy black beans and the richness of the eggs when you eat them in cuban breakfast form, but they'd be good on their own as a snack or maybe with some cuba libres for cocktail hour. i let the ones in the top picture get a little too brown, perhaps, but they were still quite good.

hooray for breakfast for dinner!

asian scrambled eggs & rice

are you tired of slogging through soggy cereal? do you quail at the thought of another slurpy yogurt and fruit combo?

my point is that these eggs are quick and simple and delicious and a little out of the ordinary. thus they are practically guaranteed to be a welcome respite from the doldrums of typical weekday breakfasts. you can also make them on the weekends - i just did!

this was a great quick breakfast on a rainy saturday morning. it would also be good on a dry tuesday morning. or with a nice salad for a quick lunch. it uses leftover cooked rice, eggs, onion, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper (incidentally, this is just regular black pepper in a lemon pepper container, but lemon pepper would be good, too), and sriracha (or other hot chili sauce).

you can customize these in various ways - if i have cilantro, i will put it in. sometimes i use shallots instead of onion. if there are some scallions skulking around, i will put those in at the very end, or just snip them over the top of the finished eggs (you can also do the same with chives). so consider this just a basic template for whatever genius thing you come up with.

first i let the onion cook up a little. i used 1/4 of a small onion - probably like 1/4 - 1/3 cup once it was chopped. this is totes to taste, though. use however much onion you feel you deserve. i like to cook it in some butter on medium-high heat so that it gets some nice browned areas. brown is where the flavor is! although the flavor is also still in the regular white part. it is just a different flavor.

then add some cold cooked rice. i was just making this for me, so i used like 1/3 cup of plain white rice that has been hanging out in our fridge for a day or two. or three. i hope rice doesn't go bad. it seemed fine, though. let that cook together with the onions for a little bit. i usually turn the burner down a little at this point - to medium or a little below that.

while the rice and onion are getting better acquainted, mix two eggs with a tablespoon or so of soy sauce. you might want to start with a little less than a tablespoon - maybe two teaspoons or so. i really like salt, apparently. although i didn't feel like this was too salty.

then just add the eggs to the onion and rice mixture and cook until they reach the perfect scrambledy consistency. then once you plate them you can sprinkle on more soy sauce if desired, plus sriracha and a little smidge of sesame oil to taste. sesame oil is pretty strong, so be careful! this is also when i would put some chives or whatnot on there if i had any. a scattering of toasted sesame seeds would not be out of place here, either.

then eat it up and be glad you didn't settle for some plain ol' toast or sad instant oatmeal. this comes together in under ten minutes and is satisfying and delicious and happy-making. you could also try it with other cooked grains or different flavor profiles - quinoa/cumin/chili powder/salsa, brown rice/frozen peas/curry powder, etc.

*ingredients* (for eggs for one - can be doubled, etc)

1/4 - 1/3 cup onion, chopped (sweet onions are particularly good in this, but you can use any kind)

1/3 cup cooked rice

2 eggs

2 teaspoons - 1 tablespoon soy sauce

chili sauce

sesame oil

pepper

other toppings - chives, scallions, sesame seeds, etc.

garlicky sorrel'n'cream eggs

so this is sorrel (aka wood sorrel). it kind of looks like clover, but it is very bright and lemony-green-tasting. it's wonderfully sour when you nibble it raw, but when you cook it, it just melts into an army green puddle of yum. it is not necessarily the prettiest, but it is really good.

i bought a big bag of this at the farmers' market because i remembered picking and eating it while on walks as a kid. this particular sorrel was wild, but sometimes people grow it as well. i got it at a great stand that had all kinds of wild things, like different fancy mushrooms, nettles, and sea beans (surprisingly tasty - usually i don't really care for sea vegetables/seaweed, etc).

this dish was inspired by orangette (one of my favorites), who was inspired by a recipe in the new york times. that recipe calls for scallions, which i didn't have, and has you de-stem the sorrel, which, being naturally lazy, i didn't do. i also added pink peppercorns, which are beautiful and delicious.

so.

make sure your sorrel is clean and dry. slice up some garlic - the thinner, the better. for two eggs, i used one small clove, but if i had had any of the green garlic left, you bet i would have used that. but the regular garlic was good, too. cook up the garlic bits over medium heat in however much butter you feel comfortable with. i used a little less than a tablespoon. you want to do this in a smallish pan, but it depends on how many eggs you are using, so use your best judgment. i used my smallest pan, but i was only cooking two eggs.

when the garlic has cooked a bit, but before it browns, add the sorrel. you can cut it up with a knife, but we don't have a dishwasher and i didn't feel like dirtying another cutting board, so i just held it over the pan and used scissors to cut it right into the pan. if you are also not into de-stemming the sorrel, just make sure you get the stems pretty finely cut. the first time i made this, i didn't, and it was still good, but it looked kind of ugly because the leaves really do just melt and then you are left with a pile of stems and it's weird.

once the sorrel cooks down a bit - really, this takes like 15 seconds - add a glug or two of cream. for two eggs, i used less than a quarter of a cup. you could also mix some cream with a little milk or greek yogurt if you don't want to be so unhealthy, but since this is very much an occasional thing, i don't think a little bit of cream will kill you. add salt and pepper to taste - i was out of regular pepper and used some chili flakes.

then make a little hollow for each egg and drop it in. salt and pepper each (pink peppercorn time!) and cover the pan. you might want to turn the heat down slightly - on our stove, which is a stupid electric one, i had it set at 4. this is also the point at which you put your toast in. you will want toast with this, because you need something to sop up the delicious sorrel'n'cream. trust me. you can butter the toast if you want, but after all that butter and cream in the eggs, i refrained. then once the whites of the eggs are set and the yolk is however set you like it (i cooked mine for about 5-6 minutes and the yolks were perfect for my taste - somewhat creamy still, but not too scarily runny), spoon the whole thing over the toast and prepare to be dazzled.

this is quite easy and is really really delicious. the richness of the cream and eggs and the sprightliness of the sorrel play off each other really well and it feels fancy but is totally simple as well. though i really liked the pink peppercorns on it, they are totally not a requirement (and, by the way, are not really peppercorns, but you can delve into that on wikipedia on your own). if you see sorrel at the farmer's market, i think this is a perfect use for it.

*ingredients (for two eggs)*

big handful of sorrel - see top picture

small clove of garlic

a tablespoon-ish of butter

a glug of cream (~1/4 cup)

salt

pepper

chili flakes

2 eggs

pink peppercorns, if you've got 'em

toast

i should mention that what i used is wood sorrel, which is similar in taste to other kinds of sorrel (sheep sorrel and cultivated, garden sorrel), but is actually a totally different genus and species. they look nothing alike, which is what was confusing me about this sorrel because i remember picking it wild as a child. that was sheep sorrel. there is a whole thing about them here, if interested.