BETTER BREAKFASTS: A Scramble for Leftovers

We all tend to ignore our refrigerators and their crispers until the produce inside goes bad. Then, we're in the unenviable state of throwing out what was once perfectly good food, simply because we forgot it was there.

That's why from time to time, I like to look inside, see what we have, and then see if I can make a dish out of it.

This morning, I'm looking for something I can mash together for breakfast...let's see what's inside.  Here's some mild Italian sausage from Trader Joe's that I used for a pizza once. It was too mild for the pizza but I think it's make a good breakfast sausage.  Here's half a zucchini, some asparagus, and some corn tortillas.

I think I can work with this.

I chop up the zucchini, three spears of asparagus, and one link of the sausage. In a pan with one tablespoon of olive oil on high heat.

I put all that in and cook it up for 5-6 minutes and set aside in a bowl.

Next, I cut up three tortillas into eighths. I fry them till they're starting to get crispy. Then I add the sausage and veggie mixture back in.

Four eggs, a half a teaspoon of cream, a pinch of salt and pepper all go into a bowl.

I scramble this all up with a fork.

Pour the mixture in the pan with the rest of the ingredients. Sprinkle some shredded cheese on top and scramble until the eggs are set and serve.

I like to add some hot sauce and a little heavy cream on top. Now, I've got breakfast for two.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved

Getting Unstuck In Lodi

Not even wanting to take advantage of the hotel’s meager breakfast bar, we share a McDonald’s breakfast next door with one of the area’s homeless gentlemen before picking up the pieces of our broken trip.

It’d been a bad night of sleep at an overpriced and cleanliness challenged hotel way outside of our destination of Lodi along a barren stretch of Interstate 5 at the intersection of highway 12. Realizing that we couldn’t make a vacation of what is essentially a truck stop, and not a very good one either, we promptly cancelled the rest of our stay (see our previous report for the details).

Watch the Video!

Now, it’s Memorial Day weekend and we have no place to stay in Lodi. I quickly get out the laptop and take advantage of the local WiFi and start looking. Everyplace I check in Lodi is booked up.

I remember a few years ago, we stayed at a nice all-suites hotel in Rancho Cordova, just east of nearby Sacramento. I find the hotel, now a Hyatt House hotel (It's since been extensively renovated and is now a Doubletree hotel - Ed), and they have a reasonably priced room that I can cancel as late as 4pm that day without penalty.

I book it to have a guaranteed nice place to sleep if we are unable to find a hotel up in Amador County’s gold and wine country, where we are headed to today.

Just south of Lodi along Highway 88, is the town of Lockeford. This pleasant little village is home to Lockeford Meat Company, which is world-famous for their sausage. Since Monday will be a holiday, this will be our only chance to stop to pick up some chorizo, Okie sausages, jalapeno sausages, and…their claim to fame…the smoked Dakota bratwursts.

I’ll need to stop at a nearby Rite Aid to get a cheap ice chest and keep these chilled for a couple of days.

Letty likes to browse at the pawn shop at the corner and I don’t mind visiting with the friendly folks of Lockeford Jewelry and Loan, who are also very accommodating and understanding of wheelchair user’s needs. It doesn’t look accessible but there’s a ramp around the back where you also get to see the treasures in the back room.

Sausaged up, we continue on up to Highway 49 and go straight to Plymouth and the Shenandoah Valley, our go-to wine country experience.

We’ve gone here many times, and it’s still a great place to taste and buy wines, especially the big red that our state is known for, Zinfandel.

Sipping some reds at Shenandoah Vineyards helps guide us to the perfect mixed case. We get a pasta buffet at Villa Toscano along with a case of old vine zin and another case of pinot grigio. 

A drive to the nearby Shenandoah Inn reveals two very nice accessible rooms with wine country views to die for. Unfortunately, they do not have availability on Saturday night, which is right in the middle of our stay.

Our trip to Lodi has become a weekend in the capital.

Still, we came to see Lodi and Lodi we will see. The rest of Amador’s wineries will wait until tomorrow; we’re headed down the hill.

After checking into the Hyatt, and making sure the room is good (it is), we head south on Sunrise Boulevard for a scenic, back road way into Lodi that skips the capital and saves us about 10 miles.

Downtown Lodi has undergone quite a renaissance. About a dozen local wineries from the Lodi AVA have tasting rooms here. Restaurants and watering holes ranging from funky dives to gourmet, white tablecloth dining rooms dot the landscape. Live music comes out from everywhere.

We’d come to hear some music at one of the tasting rooms but the extreme decibels blow us back out the door. Instead, we head across the street to Ollie’s Pub…one of the afore mentioned dives…which is next to Field Family Wines. We could avail ourselves of the live music from Field’s, while watching the A’s and Giants playing on big TVs, drinking a cold brew, and getting to know some of the locals…some more sober than others.

A stroll around downtown tells us that the latest Fast and Furious sequel is a big hit at the local multiplex and you can meet a lot of girls sitting on the bench outside of the Take 27 bar when they come out for a smoke break…hey, Tim’s still single!

For dinner, it’s the Lodi Beer Company at the other end of downtown where we have what Letty claims is the best mac ‘n cheese she’s ever had. Tim has a burger and I get the French dip. Both are good, as is some of their signature brew made in the center-room brewery sitting about 10 feet away from our table.

It’s dark when we leave on this Friday night but the area is far from sleepy. The sidewalks are crowded with daters, teens, and people just enjoying the music wafting out of every other bar.

Since it’s been a long day after a close to sleepless night, we make our way back up to the Hyatt to rest up for the rest of our trip to Lodi, which has now become a weekend in Sacramento.

Stay tuned.

Darryl

Copyright 2013 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

This Week's Menu: French Omelet and Spring Ham Salad

We're trying to be healthy and diabetic friendly this week with a couple of meals that actually lowered my glucose, one (the omelet) by almost 40 points!

The omelet is a super tasty and very filling entree that can be served for any meal.  The salad is a bit lighter but still very tasty and satisfying.

Recipes are at the links below.

BRUNCH: French Omelet

LUNCH: Spring Mix Salad

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

French Omelet

This can be for breakfast or brunch. Heck, we've even had it with dinner where it can be paired easily with a lighter red like a Beaujolais.  It's called a French omelet because it's a dish I came up with after visiting the local market in the South of France (if you ever want to really get inspired to cook, try going to a French farmers market).

It's easy to cook, although some items may be a bit of a chore to find. For instance, in France, they have incredible dark purple asparagus and another purple elephant garlic that you just can't find around here, so I've substituted shallots and regular asparagus.

It really does taste better in France, which will amaze you after you find out just how good this version tastes (spoiler: it's really good).

INGREDIENTS (for each omelet, increase as appropriate for more)

2 eggs 
1 teaspoon half and half
1/2 ounce goat cheese
salt
pepper
nutmeg
2 links of merguez sausage (may be available at Whole Foods or other gourmet markets)
4 spears asparagus
1/2 bulb shallot (chopped fine)
2 tablespoons olive oil

Chop the asparagus into half inch pieces. In a 12 inch frying pan, heat up one tablespoon of oil.  Cook the asparagus for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add the shallot and cook until just translucent.  Set the mixture aside in a bowl.

Chop up the sausage.  I like to freeze them first and cut with a tomato knife which makes it easier to get clean cuts.

Brown the sausage in the pan, put in the bowl with asparagus and shallot.

In a bowl, mix the eggs and half and half. Add a dash of salt, pepper, and nutmeg before whisking.

You're going to use your sausage, asparagus, shallot mixture and sliced up cheese in as a filling.

In an eight inch pan, heat up the other tablespoon of olive oil. Pour in the egg mixture when hot. Using a spatula, lift up the edges to let the liquid mixture fill in under the cooked egg. When just a little liquid is left on the surface, put in the filling across the center. Fold the far edge over. Let sit for about 10 seconds and flop into a plate.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

BREAKFAST: Cajun Scramble

This one is super hearty and tasty. Pretty easy, too. Just cut up half a Cajun sausage (or linguica makes a good substitute). Fry it up in a pan, and pour some scrambled egg mixture on it.

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 Cajun or linguica sausage
4 eggs
1 teaspoon half and half
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 ounce shredded cheese
1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Heat up olive oil in pan. Slice up sausage. Cook in oil on pan.

Prepare eggs using our Basic Scramble Egg recipe. Pour over sausage and cook.

Sprinkle cheese over eggs when cooking.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

This Week's Sunday Menu: Chilaquiles and Pizza

Time for another Sunday of food. Today's recipes are a little more involved than our usual ones but they're still pretty easy.

Breakfast is one of my favorite Mexican dishes while dinner is something everyone loves. 

Recipes at the links below...

BREAKFAST: Chilaquiles con Huevos y Salsa Verde

DINNER: Pizza

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Pizza!

Originally, I was going to do this on my gas barbecue but my pizza pan wouldn't fit with the lid closed so it was off to the kitchen oven to cook.

There are two time consuming steps to this but this is another one you can do a few hours ahead of time and stick in the fridge until it's time to cook.  The first step is the sauce and the next is rolling out the dough, which not only takes time but is pretty labor intensive, too.

Except for the sauce, I bought all the other ingredients premade at a local Italian deli, Capri in Covina, California. That makes things a bit easier.

INGREDIENTS
16 ounces of pizza dough (you can make this yourself but I just buy it premade at a local Italian deli. You can also find it at Trader Joe's and other stores)
6 medium Roma tomatoes
1 teaspoon oregano
3 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 links Italian sausage
1/4 pound prosciutto
1/2 pound mozarella cheese
1/2 cup shredded quattro formagio (four cheeses, available at most supermarkets - substitute with a high quality shredded parmesan if you can't find it)

Sauce
Take 5 tomatoes (you may want to cut them in half first) and puree in a blender with 1 cup of water.

Cut the 6th tomato up into cubes.

Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a sauce pan. Pour your pureed tomatoes on top of that and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes, then set to low to simmer. Put your tomato chunks, garlic, oregano, salt, and sugar into the mix and stir. Simmer for 2 hours or until reduced by two thirds. Stir occasionally during this time (maybe every 10 or 20 minutes). Taste a spoonful occasionally to see if the taste would be good on a pizza. Add ingredients to adjust, sparingly, until you get your perfect tast.

When sauce is thick, a little thicker than you'd want to serve on pasta, take it off of the heat.

Pizza
Preheat oven to 450 -500 degrees...very hot!

On a large, wooden cutting board, sprinkle about a quarter cup of flour and spread out over the board. Place dough on it and roll out flat. This will take quite some time as the dough will keep wanting to snap back to its original shape. Keep at it and, eventually, the dough will lose its elasticity and you'll have a flat dough. be very careful not to tear your dough.

Put a tablespoon of olive oil and coat it with a paper towel over a round pizza pan. Transfer your dough into the pan and, carefully, spread it to the edges.

Using a ladel, spread your sauce over the dough, leaving about a half inch clear around the rim to be able to hold your pizza slice later.  Put a think layer of mozzarella over the sauce. Put on your toppings (we're using Italian sausage and prosciutto but the sky's the limit on what you'd like to put on it). Sprinkle quattro formagio on it. 

Cover with another layer of mozzarella (I'm using a mozzarella ball for this and laying slices of it around the pie).

Put in oven and bake for 10 minutes.

Put parchment paper on your cutting board and transfer finished pizza pie to it once done. Let sit for 5 minutes before slicing.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

This week's Sunday Menu: Pan Fried Pork Chops and Intercontinental Scramble

I know I said I mostly cook on the barbecue and then had recipes from the kitchen. Well, we'll be in a kitchen for a few weeks but I'll still go easy on you.

Pork chops...but no applesauce...are on this week's dinner menu. It's hard to find good pork these days but do the best you can. The sauce on this one will help make up for it. 

Breakfast is an intensely delicious item that I came up with, kind of a mix of chilaquiles and some of the French scrambles that I'd cook in France. 

They're both very good and pretty easy, too. Click on the links for full recipes.

DINNER: Pan Fried Pork Chops with scratch made mashed potatoes.

BREAKFAST: Intercontinental Scramble.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Intercontinental Egg Scramble

I had a late lunch with an old high school friend recently. A very good dish of chilaquiles and eggs overlooking a harbor a bit north of Los Angeles.

The next morning, the mix of the eggs and tortilla chips stayed with me and helped inspire this dish, which pulls a bit from Mexico, France, and the good 'ol USA.

INGREDIENTS

4 eggs
1 merguez sausage
1/4 cup bacon bits (leftover from another breakfast)
6 leaves of spinach
1 teaspoon half and half.
1 stalk of broccolini or broccoli
2 tablespoons soft goat cheese
2 cloves fresh garlic
pinch of salt
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3 corn tortillas

Cut the tortillas into small triangles.  Heat up 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan on high heat. When very hot, cook the tortilla triangles until crispy. Remove and set on a plate with paper towels to drain and save for later.

Chop up the merguez sausage into small bits. Add another 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. 

Cook the sausage and spinach together until the spinach is well wilted.

Chop the garlic finely. Do the same with the broccolini. 

Add to the pan and stir until the broccolini begins to soften.

Add the bacon and goat cheese. Stir until the cheese is melted.

Put the eggs into a bowl. Add the half and half plus a pinch of salt and stir until well combined. 

Add the tortilla chops to the pan and pour the egg mixture over the top. Stir with a spatula until done.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved