Someone I met recently on Twitter asked me for my scrambled omelet recipe.  That’s what I’m calling it, anyway.  A scrambled omelet.

I sort of stole the idea from this breakfast product we found on the freezer aisle once.  A sort of “Skillet Sensations” for breakfast, if you will.  It had all the makings of an awesome breakfast.  Potatoes, peppers, onions, sausage… All you had to add was eggs.  And of course we added cheese.

Since the first time we bought it, I’ve been making various impostors.  They always come out really delicious.

This is the version I made this morning.  I used leftover home  fries, but I’ll include my home fries recipe.  And the amounts are all estimated.  I start small and work up to the flavor I’m looking for.

2 tablespoons EVOO
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
5 medium potatoes
1 medium onion
4 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/4 teaspoon paprika
dash of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
6-8 large eggs, beaten
1/4 – 1/2 cup pepper jack cheese, grated or thinly diced
4-6 fresh Roma tomatoes, diced

Heat the EVOO in a deep skillet that has a cover, then cut it with the butter.  While the EVOO is heating, clean the potatoes and slice them into rounds.  I never peel them, but you can if you like.

You can cut the onion and garlic however you like.  I half the onion, top to bottom, then cut it into thin half-circles, side to side, and I slice the garlic into long, thin strips.

If you’re using dried rosemary, be sure to grind it some first.  I just do it between the palms of my hands.  If you’re using fresh, chop it some.  You may need more.  You may need less.  I don’t pay the slightest bit of attention when I’m adding it, I’m afraid.  It’s one of those things… You know how much you like, but not really how much other people like, ya know?

Once the oil’s heated and the butter’s melted, layer your potatoes, onion and seasoning.  Start with the potatoes and put as many as you feel necessary. I usually do about 1 1/2 layers of potatoes, so the whole bottom’s covered, then onion, garlic and seasoning, then more potatoes, then more onion garlic and seasoning, until I run out of potatoes.  Then I top it off with onion, garlic and seasoning and cover the pan.

How long it takes depends on how thick you cut your potatoes.

If you want them crispy and pretty, you’re going to want to cut them pretty thin and flip them in sections.  They’ll take 10-15 minutes.

If you’re like me, and like it when they’re just stiff enough to not fall completely apart, but mushy enough that they break apart easily, slice your taters about 1/4 inch thick and don’t just flip them.  Sort of stir them in chunks every 5 minutes or so.  These will take 20-30 minutes.

Now comes the fun part.  Toss in your beaten eggs and stir till they’re cooked all the way.  Shouldn’t be too long.  Five minutes tops.  You can melt your cheese into the eggs while they’re still wet and cooking, or you can wait till they’ve finished scrambling.

Toss in anything your heart desires.  Ham, bacon, sausage, peppers, tomatoes… This morning it was tomatoes.  And I waited until everything was done cooking, then let it cook a little more.  Just until the tomatoes were tender.

It was delicious.

This recipe is far from finished.  It’s really good as is, but we’ve decided to continue fiddling with it until we get it just right.  In the meantime, here’s how we did it this time around:

1 Tablespoon butter, melted
1 Small onion, chopped
1/4 Cup melted butter
1/4 Cup flour
2 Cups half-and-half
2 Cups chicken stock or bouillon
1/2 Pound frozen broccoli
1 Cup carrots, julienned
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 Teaspoon nutmeg
3 Cups grated extra sharp cheddar

Saute onion and set aside.

Make your roux in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Do this by whisking together a quarter cup melted butter and quarter cup flour, and cooking 3-5 minutes.  Stir constantly and add half and half slowly.  Slowly whisk in the chicken broth.  Let simmer twenty minutes.

Here, I chopped my veggies and put them in the slow cooker, including the onion.  Then I poured the roux over the vegetables and left it to cook for about six hours.  Next, I added salt and pepper, put it in the blender in batches and blended it.  I left the carrots a bit chunky. Then I mixed in the cheese and nutmeg.

Next time, I’ll probably puree the carrots completely.  I’ll add a bit more broccoli after blending and leave it to cook until the broccoli is tender.  I like my broccoli soup to have broccoli chunks.  And I’ll probably use sharp cheddar instead of extra sharp.  Extra sharp seemed a bit too much.

Roux Versions:

White Roux: The color of roux almost remains white, used to thicken white sauces, prepared by cooking the roux at a low temperature so as to remove only the raw taste of starch. The cooking should be stopped when roux has a chalk like and frothy texture. High temperature and long duration of cooking should be avoided as it will result into coloring and overcooking.

Blonde or Pale Roux: Blonde roux is made when it is cooked for a slightly longer time so as to achieve a pale color, used for thickening sauces based on white stocks like fish veloute.

Brown Roux: When roux is cooked till it has a light brown color and a roasted nutty aroma, cooking should be done at low temperature and for longer time so that even cooking and better flavor can be developed. Brown is used for making espagnole sauce or sauces made with brown stocks.

Courtesy of Paresh Sauces… The verbiage seems familiar and it is likely that he copied the text from a cookbook.

I dunno about you, but I love cream cheese.  On stuff.  In stuff.  By itself.  Cream cheese is so incredibly yummy.

The only thing better than cream cheese? Flavored cream cheese.  Especially veggie cream cheese.  But the chunks in Philadelphia are too small and Dunkin Donuts uses light and Breuggers is way too expensive.

So what does Rayne do?  Why, I made my own! And it’s really simple so I don’t want to hear any grumbling!

2 boxes Philadelphia Cream Cheese (8oz. each)
1/3 Red pepper
1/3 Green pepper
1/2 Carrot
1/2 Green onion (chive, scallion.. whatever you wanna call it)
Garlic salt to taste

Let the Philly soften.  Lots of people will tell you to toss it in the blender, but it’s really not necessary.  Just let it sit on the counter for a little while.  Not long.  Just till it’s soft to the touch and easy to work with.

I don’t have a food processor, so I finely diced everything, tossed the cheese, veggies and garlic salt in a mixing bowl (I made sure to use one with a lid so I could just pop the top on and stick it in the fridge.) and stirred.

You could probably chop the veggies in a food processor no problem.  And if you’re really not interested in mixing, use a hand mixer with a paddle on it instead of those spinny things that look like they could take off a finger if they’re going fast enough.  That way, you don’t puree your veggies.

You can serve right away, but for the best flavor, let it sit in the fridge a couple hours (overnight is best) first.

You don’t have to use Philadelphia Cream Cheese, but believe me when I say it’s well worth the price.  Philly is, without a doubt, cheesier than any generic brand I’ve tried.

Have everything but the green onion? Chop up about a quarter of a white, yellow or red onion instead.  And the different colored peppers are more for show than flavor, though red peppers tend to taste slightly different.

I’ve seen recipes with radishes and leeks in them, too.  I’m not so hot on radishes and I’ve never had leeks, so I promptly ignored them.  But if you try it, let me know!

First dinner in our last apartment

M decided it’s time for us to start eating healthier.  Cut out as many preservatives as possible.  Cook from scratch.  Stuff like that.

Thanks to His raise, our food budget can handle it, now.  Buying healthy and cooking from scratch can be so expensive.  Especially when you’re cooking for four or more.  That’s where the junk food companies get you.

No… I don’t have to cook for four or more.  I could probably halve the recipes and just cook for two.  But knowing my luck, the one time I do that will be the one time He’s still hungry and I’ll have nothing to offer Him.  So instead of making enough for both of us to have seconds, I make enough for one of us to have them.  And we eat a lot of leftovers.  When I remember to put them away.

One of our New Year’s Resolutions (Can you believe we’re talking about New Year’s Resolutions already? Where did this year go??) last year was to waste less food.  I remember a time when M would refuse to eat leftovers.  I’d have to cram a week’s worth of leftovers into a week’s worth of lunches for myself.  Something always got thrown away.  We’ve been doing so much better.  Pretty much everything we prepare or buy gets eaten before it goes bad.  But once in a while, we forget it’s in there.

I prepare less food, when I can.  We only make two chicken breasts, instead of three, and sometimes even that’s too much.  I make fewer potatoes and more meat and green veggies.  We don’t have pasta as often, and when we do, I don’t prepare near as much.  If there’s no extra, we can’t eat it at 11pm when we’re supposed to be sleeping.

I don’t know that it’s doing any good.  I certainly haven’t lost any weight.  We’ll see, I guess.

We went shopping yesterday, and I had a list and a menu and everything.  I forgot one or two things, but nothing I can’t buy at the corner store.  No biggie.  For working on it by myself, and Him not having a chance to double check my work, I did pretty damn good.

He was… shocked when I started telling Him when I was making what.  It’s been ages since I’ve made an actual menu.  And then there’s the fact that I’m doing serious prep work.  Like, right this minute, in the slow cooker, there’s cheddar broccoli soup for tomorrow’s lunch.  And a little while ago, I made veggie cream cheese for bagels.  Wednesday, I’m making a quiche for breakfast on Thanksgiving.  And probably the cranberry sauce.  I might even prep the green bean casserole so Master only has to pop it in our tiny ass oven for a little while.

We’re having pot roast the night before Thanksgiving.  And you know, it’s funny.  I know a bunch of families that do the same thing.  Usually, someone just tosses everything in the slow cooker first thing Wednesday morning, and off they go.  That way, they don’t have to worry about dinner.  It’s already done.

Lunch today was my version of Sicilian Escarole Salad.  Tonight is M’s version of steak parm subs.  With the absolutely delicious sub sauce we get from the meat market up the road.  Talk about perfect.  Okay, okay, so it’s cheating.  But it’s so damn good it’s worth it.

I’m so excited about the cooking part of fall and winter.  Time for soups and stews and roasts and all kinds of other slow cooked goodness.  I just wish I had more counter space.

<3
~Domesticated pig whore

Maybe ten years ago or so, when I was playing house with my coke dealer and his children, I spent a lot of time in Rutland and Fair Haven, Vermont.  They’re tiny towns, when compared to places like Schenectady, Rutland being only slightly larger than Fair Haven, but there’s exponentially more for adults to do there than in Whitehall, New York, which is where I lived at the time.

There were two restaurants that we frequented.  One was a restaurant called The Fair Haven Inn that was owned by a Greek family who’s black sheep I was best friends (almost lovers) with, and the other was a decently sized diner called Rutland Diner that was owned by a different Greek family that I had no ties to.  Both served their own version of spanakopita, or spinach pie, and I was instantly hooked.

What’s completely bizarre about this is, before I tried spanakopita, I refused to let spinach anywhere near my mouth.  Long story short, when I was about six, my father made me eat an entire can of PopEye Spinach (You remember the brand, I’m sure).  I vomited directly after finishing the can and never ate spinach again.

Until the first time my dealer and I sat down in Rutland Diner.

Their version of spanakopita was complimentary with any meal and was more pie-like.  They made it in sheets instead of triangles.  They served it hot or cold and I didn’t know it could be served hot until I had it at The Fair Haven Inn.

Shortly after Master tried spanakopita for the first time and liked it (I took Him to Rutland Diner shortly after we met.), I went on a mad dash for a recipe.  Unfortunately, these are much cheaper to buy from the store than to make from scratch.  Between the phyllo and feta, this recipe tends to be a little pricey.  But for us, the extra $5 or so is worth it.  Making them from scratch means we can make them taste exactly how we like them.  Store bought spanakopita tends to be a little bland.  Master likes His tangy.  Read more…