Tag: eggs

Veggie Overload

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CSA recipes

I’ll be damned if I do anything half way: I went for the full share.

In hindsight, perhaps 20 pounds of vegetables is more than any one person can eat in a week.

Here chronicles this week’s brave attempt to defy the odds.

This week’s Turtle Bay CSA share:

1 bulb fresh garlic
1 red cabbage
1 white onion
1 red onion
1 bunch Swiss chard
1 bunch green basil
1 head romaine lettuce
1 bunch carrots
2 Italian eggplants
2 green zucchini
6 pasture raised eggs

Sautéed Swiss Chard

To a sliced onion in some olive oil in a skillet, I added minced garlic, the chopped chard and salt & pepper. The final incarnation of this dish was damn good quesadilla filling.

Roasted Red Cabbage

I put the quartered cabbage, drizzled with some olive oil and salt & pepper,  in a 400° oven until it started to brown on the edges.

Baba Ghanoush

I charred eggplant on my gas range, then puréed  the flesh with tahini, garlic, and lemon juice. This dish was nearly a complete fail: it is spreadable burnt. Next time I’ll roast the eggplant in the oven.

Zucchini Frittata

I’ve been relying on frittatas nearly every week to use up my eggs; this week I incorporated the zucchini, basil, some of the garlic and onion. Michael Chiarello’s recipe is very close to this version.

Carrot & Chickpea Salad with Carrot Green Chimichurri

I used this carrot green chimichurri by Love & Lemons as a dressing on a grated carrot and chickpea salad.

Cur, Cocks & Quiche

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Introductions at my aunt’s farmyard were nothing short of spectacular: Watson, my 80 lb. shepherd/husky mix, catapulted into the chicken coop fencing, sending panicked hens into a squawking frenzy around the downed wire.  It was a fantastic sight to see his canine form bolt across the yard with a zen-like singleness of purpose, and punctuated by a leap of such grace! But the performance was ultimately self-sabotage;  off-leash privileges, a rarity in our daily New York City life, were eliminated the remainder of our visit.

My aunt feeding cherry tomatoes to her brood

With a richer, more golden, and much larger yolk than those bought at the grocery store, the eggs these hens produce are magnificent. And although I used ‘quiche’ in the post title for the purpose of alliteration, this is technically a frittata. A quiche has a pie crust whereas a frittata is basically a large, fluffy open-faced omelet.

  • 6 eggs
  • 1 tsp. butter
  • toppings of choice, chopped (in this case, garden fresh cherry tomatoes, broccoli, onions and basil)
  • 1 c. grated cheese
  • salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to broil.

Whisk the eggs with salt and pepper.

Melt butter in a 12-inch oven safe skillet over medium high heat.

Add eggs, stir with a rubber spatula until they starting to set, about 5 minutes.

Add toppings and cheese, place in the oven until lightly browned, 3-5 minutes.

Bhutanese Red Rice Hash

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I think of this dish as my version of the garbage plate, albeit one with a slightly lower fat content perhaps! A marvelous hodgepodge pile of my fridge excavations crowned with a golden, runny egg, this dish in some incarnation is my day-to-day sustenance. Bhutanese Red rice, the base grain of this particular version, has a wonderfully nutty flavor and chewy texture– but it is the color that really impresses. Tossed with a vibrant veggies, this colorful meal is akin to stir fry/fried rice but the addition of the egg reminds me more of breakfast hash.

  • olive oil
  • broccoli and purple onion, either fresh or roasted
  • roasted red pepper
  • yellow squash, fresh or pickled
  • garlic clove
  • Huy Fong Sriracha Chili Garlic sauce
  • Bragg Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce or salt)
  • white navy beans, pre-cooked or canned
  • Bhutanese red rice, cooked per package directions, about a half cup per serving
  • egg, one per serving
  • shredded lettuce
  • cheese (I used blue)

Rough chop the veggies.

Saute veggies in olive oil till tender. Add beans, hot pepper sauce, and Braggs to taste.


Add rice to pan, toss occasionally till everything is hot.

Serve topped with shredded lettuce, crumbled cheese and an egg fried to your liking.

Sunday Brunch

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This weekend I had the privilege of being served undoubtedly the best breakfast potatoes I’ve tasted; crispy on the outside, supremely garlic-y with bits of grated Parmesan fried to crunchy perfection– simply delicious. Served with eggs scrambled with hunks of steak and homemade orange juice, they were barely the star of this amazing meal.

Matt, the gracious host and kitchen gadget affectionado, kindly offered these tips for achieving hash brown perfection:

The key to good home fries, and most things that are sautéed, is consistency in size. Potatoes take a while to cook, and the different sized chunks will cook at different speeds. I like to cut mine into small (1-2 cm) cubes to help them cook fast and thoroughly.I used to hand chop, now I rough cut them and use a chopper ( a la Slap Chop ) to streamline the process. I first bought a table top chopper about 6 years ago ( I think it was a Cuisinart ) and honestly didn’t use it much. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of dicing and when I stumbled across a Farberware chopper still in the box at a secondhand store I spent the 4 bucks and took it home. The choppers make short work of dicing most anything to a uniform size in seconds flat.
Putting my chopped potato cubes, diced onion and garlic ( again, all in the chopper ) into a very hot pan with 2 tablespoons of hot olive oil swirled around to coat the pan. I cook on high heat to get a good brown and stir or shake the pan to get a good even crust. Add seasoning to taste ( I like paprika, chili powder, black and white pepper from the grinder and a bit of cayenne to taste.)  After the outside has a bit of color, I turn down the heat to about halfway add a tablespoon of butter and let the potatoes sit and cook through for about 8-10 more minutes, getting a nice crust in the process. about a minute before the potatoes are done, I sprinkle in a healthy dose of fresh grated Parmesan cheese to stick it all together.
These work well for me, but different pans and ovens may give different results (another key to good cooking – good pans) the best advice I can give you is: experiment, and write down what works for you. Bon appetit!