Lettuce Pesto and Eggs Baked in a Tomato

Weird title, right? I know. It started innocently enough today. I realized I had a huge container of baby field greens (arugula, radicchio, spinach, frisee, etc) that was getting old and I was trying to think of ways to use it up. Soup, quiche, salad...none sounded great to me.


Then I found this link talking about a romaine pesto and I thought "bingo!" This is how I will use up the greens. Then I read a little further...what is this baked eggs in a tomato thingy?? So weird, I had to try it. Turns out, it was incredibly light, fresh, and delicous!



My pictures aren't nearly as beautiful as the original link at the Smitten Kitchen, but here is what it looked like when I made it.




I started with the lettuce pesto, on which I improvised a little. Traditional pesto is basil, pinenuts, garlic, parm, salt/pepper, and olive oil. I substituted lettuce for basil and toasted walnuts for the pinenuts.



Then I hollowed out a tomato (by the way, this recipe will be killer in the fall with real tomatoes) with a sharp knife, added a layer of pesto, and cracked an egg into the well. Topped with salt and pepper and baked in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes. I actually way overcooked the egg because I kept checking and saw water on the top of the tomato and thought it was the egg-white but I think it was just the water from the tomato itself. I will try this recipe again and aim for a runny yolk.


I served the eggy-pestoey-tomato with roasted asparagus with my newest culinary obsession - thinly sliced shallot.



Lettuce Pesto
Mixed field greens (or spinach) - enough to fill your food processor
2 cloves garlic
Handful toasted walnuts
Handful grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil

Pulse first 5 ingredients in a food processor until chopped, stream in olive oil until it makes a paste. Freezes very well.

Eggs Baked in a Tomato
1 medium tomato
lettuce pesto
1 egg
salt and pepper
parmesan cheese

Slice a tiny bit off the bottom of the tomato so it stands up. Slice off the top of the tomato and use a knife and spoon to hollow it out. Spoon some pesto into the hollow tomato and crack an egg into it. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.


Roasted Asparagus and Shallot
Asparagus, washed and trimmed
One medium shallot, sliced thin
salt, pepper, olive oil

Mix all ingredients on a baking sheet, roast for 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

Quality Control

Loyal readers of Green and Lean will recall that I allowed a guest blogger to submit some recipes in March. Today I realized that to keep the quality of my blog at the highest possible level, I needed to do some quality control to ensure one of those recipes meets my very stringent standards. I'm very happy to report that Cass's mustard salmon and smashed peas easily meets my criteria for a green, lean, and delicious dinner!

Unfortch, I didn't make it to Whole Foods today, so I improvised on my salmon. First, I rode my bike to my local supermarket and picked up some fresh salmon. I sprinkled the salmon with salt and pepper and smoothed a layer of dijon mustard over it. For the breadcrumbs....although I do have panko breadcrumbs on hand, I had other ideas. Remember the egg, mushroom, and asparagus strata baked in a loaf of ciabatta bread I made for Easter brunch? Well, I had ground up all the "guts" of the ciabatta in my food processor and froze them for a purpose such as tonight. Obviously, I'm taking the "green" part of this blog seriously lately.

So, I used the ciabatta crumbs to coat the mustard slathered salmon, then a drizzle of olive oil and a trip to a hot skillet for frying. I followed Cass's instructions completely for the peas. Here's my picture of the dish, not quite as pretty as the original, but pretty nonetheless.

I think the "healthy" squirt of lemon is critical in these peas, giving it such a bright finish. A nearly perfect meal for a hot, sunny, Minneapolis Sunday night - to celebrate my first sunburn of 2009 (courtesy of the May Day Parade and Festival at Powderhorn Park).

I'm reprinting Cass's recipe here but you should really follow this link to see her post with her photos.

Mustard Salmon w/ Smashed Peas

In a large frying pan in a small amount of olive oil add one diced sweet yellow onion - saute a few minutes. add thawed peas (about 3/4 of the bag) and cook 2 minutes more. toss w/ lots of freshly chopped parsley and a healthy squeeze of lemon. add salt and pepper to taste now SMASH w/ a potato masher. put aside.
stop by your lovely whole foods and pick up 2 pieces of mustard panko covered salmon. pan fry. meanwhile dish the peas onto 2 plates and in pretty little green piles. top w/ your salmon. pour the remaining bottle of yummy bubbly prosecco you have been drinking into your glasses - pop another bottle for when you run out - add one cute blond guy, throw in some flowers and enjoy!

Note: I was unable to obtain the cute blonde guy ingredient at my local market. Oh well. He wouldn't have fit on my bike for the ride home anyways.

Spring Rolls and Lychee Martinis

I've been racking my brain for something delicious and light to match the SPRING weather that I can enjoy for lunches this week. Duh, the perfect thing actually has SPRING in its title...Spring Rolls! I hit up United Noodle after my evening walk for some spring roll wrappers and other ingredients. Spring rolls are actually very simple to make if you have patience and a little time.

To soften the wrappers, I heated some water in my teapot and poured it on a cookie sheet and put one wrapper at a time in the hot water. I have found that I need to double-wrap my spring rolls to avoid ripping the delicate skin and all the yummy filling falling out. Take your two softened wrappers and lay on a cutting board. Layer with your choice of filling! I used butter lettuce, sauteed shiitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, carrots, cucumber, scallions, cilantro, and basil.

A real cook would have whipped up a fancy dipping sauce as well, but I had 2 sauces in the fridge that I used - one was a spicy peanut sauce, and the other was sweet chili sauce. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has looked in my fridge - it's 85% condiments. Regardless, both were really good with the spring rolls. I also enjoyed my spring rolls with some steamed and salted shelled edamame.

For refreshment with my spring rolls, nothing beats a lychee martini. After countless glasses of these in NYC with Katie, Cass, and Ben, I'm hooked! A can of lychees in syrup is only about $2 at United Noodle, so this is a very simple and cheap cocktail!

Spring Rolls

Spring roll wrappers

mushrooms, tofu, or other protein filling

veggies such as lettuce, carrots, cucumber, scallions, bean sprouts

herbs such as basil, cilantro, mint

cellophane noodles

Soften wrappers in warm water, layer other ingredients, roll like a burrito. Serve with a sweet chili sauce or peanut sauce.

Can be made in advance!

Lychee Martini

1 part juice from can of lychees in syrup

3 parts icy cold vodka

Shake juice and vodka with ice. Serve in martini glass with lychee for garnish.

What I Ate in New York - April Edition

Hi.

I haven't blogged in awhile, I know. I have had to make all my meals using leftover Easter food for a long time because we made way too much. And leftovers can't always be amazing, they sometimes just are good enough to curb your hunger and get you through to the next meal. Example: pairing asparagus and mushrooms from the Easter strata with the tortillas and cheese from fish tacos to make a quesadilla. Certainly not something pretty or interesting enough to blog about.

Then I spent a weekend in Hayward, WI for a girls weekend eating terrible food (pizza, pasta, DQ chicken strips and fries) that was horribly uninspiring and also not conducive to intelligent food blog posts. Then, two frantic days at work before jetting off to the Big Apple once more for a visit with Cass and to show my mom my favorite city (so far) in the world.

While in NYC, I had some notable meals that I feel the need to share! First, Wednesday night at Balthazar, I had what they called Koulibiac, which is salmon and spinach in puff pastry with a very delicious creamy mushroom sauce on top. I was hesitant in ordering it because it sounded so heavy and rich, but the dish really was very light and lovely. It was one of the best things I've eaten in a restaurant in a VERY long time. This is to me the very definition of a great restaurant...to give you a fabulous meal you could never imagine making at home in a way that would taste even remotely as good!! I didn't have a camera with me, but I found this picture on Flickr (from roboppy) that shows the dish:

Thursday for lunch, we went back to the same neighborhood to hit up a New York classic - Lombardi's - the self-proclaimed first pizzeria in America. I had been here before (in 2004) on a weekend, waiting 2 hours for a table, got seated in the basement, poor service, and bland pizza. But, I was willing to try it again for the sake of giving my mom a true NYC experience.

And this time I had a completely different outcome at Lombardi's! We went at 3pm on a weekday and were seated immediately in a nice section with Sinatra crooning on the sound system. We had a house salad and bottle of chianti (both delicious) and a regular pizza (thin cracker crust, san marzano tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil) and added mushrooms, kalamata olives, and sliced fresh tomatoes. WOW. It was to die for! I loved it! My hypothesis here is that tourist traps probably have sub-standard food and service at peak hours, but when not under such intense pressure they can show why they became popular in the first place. I recommend Lombardi's pizza!

Finally, late Wednesday night we went right next door from our apartment on St. Mark's Place to Mamoun's Falafel. For only around $3 we split a killer falafel pita with hummus, tomato, lettuce, and tahini. HIGHLY recommended for cheap eats in the East Village (and then you have money left over for Pinkberry, which is on the other side of our apartment door!).

So, it was a very quick trip, but packed full of tourist-y sight seeing (Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo, Times Square, Grand Central Station, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, WTC site, Battery Park/Statue of Liberty, etc), friend visiting (Cass!!!), celebrity sightings (Jon Bon Jovi!!!), and great food and drinks.

I HEART NY!!!!!!!

Easter Brunch

Happy Easter! Zack and I collaborated on a brunch menu today. I wanted to try a strata (bread vessel filled with baked eggs), he wanted banana muffins.

First, I tried to find a great banana bread recipe. I did lots of internet research and picked one by Molly Wizenberg (Orangette), which called for yogurt. Then at the last minute I thought that banana bread would be something I could find in my grandma's church cookbook. The second recipe on the page was actually submitted by my Grandma Verna! Therefore, I had to make that recipe. And, I had the cutest silicone muffin tin in the shapes of spring flowers. Here is her recipe verbatim. I added chocolate chips and my muffins turned out really cute.

Grandma Verna's Banana Bread

1/2 cup shortening (I used butter, of course)

2 eggs

1 c. sugar

1 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 1 T. sour cream or milk

4 good-sized bananas, mashed

2 c. flour

1/8 tsp salt

chopped nuts (opt)

Mix together and bake in a moderate oven for 1 hour.

Seriously, now I know why I'm so bad at writing recipes, it runs in the blood. "Good-sized" bananas? "Moderate" oven? How is someone supposed to know what that means?

For the strata, I bought a nice loaf of ciabatta. Hollowed it out and filled it with sauteed mushrooms and asparagus, and topped with grated parmesan cheese. You are supposed to pre-bake the hollowed out bread shell to avoid too much egg-seepage. I forgot that part. But it still turned out pretty yummy.

Breakfast Strata

1 loaf ciabatta

6 eggs

1/2 cup water or milk

Sauteed mushrooms

Asparagus

Herbs - such as parsley and basil

Salt and pepper

Parmesan cheese

Cut the top off the ciabatta and hollow it out. Brush with olive oil and bake for a few minutes. Fill with mixture of eggs, veggies, herbs, and spices. Top with grated parm. Bake on foil covered sheet for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

We enjoyed our banana muffins and strata with yogurt and strawberries, coffee, and mimosas. It was a great start to a beautiful Minnesota Easter Sunday.

PS - went for a long walk around Lake Nokomis this afternoon and totally saw grown adults hunting easter eggs in their yard. It was awesome.

Fish Tacos

Zack and I had a fabulous day today: couple of walks in the gorgeous Minneapolis weather, pain au chocolat from A Baker's Wife Pastry Shop, errands, an art show, a great lunch (see previous post), and a bottle of prosecco. It doesn't get much better than that! Until you make a late dinner with some awesome fresh fish from Coastal Seafoods.

The special today at Coastal was blue marlin, which is a very firm fish. We coated it in flour and salt and put it on the grill pan. Served along with a mango salsa, fresh guacamole, chihuaua cheese, and cabbage, it was killer. It made a convert of Zack who had never had fish tacos, or guacamole, or mangos.

Fish Tacos

Fish or shrimp - any kind

Flour or corn tortillas

Guacamole (avocados, garlic pasted with salt, lime juice)

Mango salsa (mango, red onion, jalapeno, cilantro, lime juice, salt)

Cabbage

Cheese

Coat the fish with flour and salt (or not!), grill until done. Serve on warmed tortillas with a variety of toppings.

Honey Mustard Chicken Salad

Here's another entry in the Saturday salad category.

Honey Mustard Chicken Salad

Panko bread crumbs

Chicken Breasts

Romaine

Carrots

Red/Yellow/Orange bell peppers

Edamame beans, shelled

Cherry tomatoes

Red onion, diced

Dressing: dijon mustard, honey, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper, olive oil

Coat chicken with panko, drizzle with olive oil and grill on grill pan until done. Slice and put on top of romaine with veggies and top with dressing. Serve with grilled bread.