When I was in Peace Corps (if I had a nickel for every time I started a sentence with that phrase…) I ate a lot of apples.  Every autumn my host family would go out into the orchards to pick large quantities of apples, and then they would be stored in the cellar all winter long.  It was the only fresh fruit you would eat all winter long, unless you went to the market.  But chances were, unless you lived in a city, there was no market near-by and apples were all there was.    And that’s why I’m no stranger to eating preserves out of the jar with a spoon.  There would be nights were my host mom wouldn’t cook dinner, so I would sit there and eat apples until I wasn’t hungry anymore.  Oh, the memories.  Anyways, now I don’t really like apples anymore.  I’ll eat them under duress, and they’re not my favorite.

That said, we do buy apples, since Nate likes them (he lived in a city while we were in Moldova, so he had options) and they make for a healthy, durable snack.  But still, hands-down, the best way to eat apples is baked into a yummy cake or pie.  I saw this recipe and knew it would be a perfect way to use up the old-ish apples that I’d been avoiding eating .

I already had all the ingredients at home, so the cake took about 15 minutes to make, and the end result was super moist and flavorful.  It’s also one of those cakes that can be eaten for breakfast or dessert, which is nice too.  Although I’ve never really let conventional guidelines stop me from eating actual cake (you know, with frosting) or any other “dessert” for breakfast.  Either way, this cake is much better than eating apples raw!

Maple Apple Ginger Cake
Adapted from Baking Bites

I added “ginger nibs” (little pieces of candied ginger) to the cake, and they make the cake a lot more gingery.  Plus it adds a little texture.  If you’re not a super-huge ginger fan, you can leave it out.  Also, make sure to flour the pan, since otherwise it might stick.  And as someone who has had more than one bundt cake stick to a pan, I can tell you that it is very sad when that happens.

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup maple syrup (the real kind)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp freshly grated ginger root
3/4 cup sour cream
2 cups diced, peeled apples (2 medium)
1/4 candied ginger nibs, or finely diced pieces of candied ginger
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease and flour a 10-inch tube or bundt pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking power and salt. In a large bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar until light. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by maple syrup, vanilla extract and fresh ginger. Stir in half of the flour mixture, followed by the sour cream, followed by the remaining half of the flour mixture. Mix only until just combined and no streaks of flour remain. Stir in diced apples and candied ginger, then pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the cake will spring back when lightly pressed.

Cool cake in pan, then use a knife to loosen it from the sides. Invert cake onto a large plate, then reinvert onto a serving plate or cake keeper before serving.

Dust with powered sugar right before serving.

This was one strangishly good loaf of bread.  For one thing, it didn’t really have to rise.  Also, when it came out of the oven it still looked unbaked on top (it turns out this is because I didn’t fully read the recipe).  But then I couldn’t stop eating it, and it’s awesome toasted with homemade preserves on top.  I think Nate was mortified by how quickly the loaf disappeared.

I’ve made this bread a couple of times now, although the photos are from the first time I made it.  Since then, I’ve made loaves that have risen better (what can I say, it’s hard in the winter in a drafty house with the temperature set at 63 degrees) and loaves that browned on top (put it closer to the heating element).  It’s a cinch to make, the oats give it a nice texture, and it goes with everything.  This little loaf is kind of awesome.

Easy Little Bread
Adapted from 101 Cookbooks

The original recipe was too salty, so this recipe has a decreased amount.  Don’t forget the part below about putting the almost-done loaf under the broiler for a minute or two– it’ll look kind of strange if you don’t. I also don’t have whole wheat flour, so I just double the amount of white flour.

1 1/4 cups warm water (105-115F)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (one packet)
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup / 4.5 oz  unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup / 5 oz  whole wheat flour
1 cup / 3.5 oz rolled oats (not instant oats)
1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

In a medium bowl, sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water and stir until the yeast dissolves. Stir in the honey and set aside for a few minutes, until the yeast blooms and swells a bit – 5 – 10 minutes.

In the meantime, mix the flours, oats, and salt in a large bowl. Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir very well.

Brush a 8-cup loaf pan generously with some of the melted butter. Turn the dough into the tin, cover with a clean, slightly damp cloth, and set in a warm place for 30 minutes, to rise.

Preheat the oven to 350F, with a rack in the middle. When ready, bake the bread for 35-40 minutes, until golden and pulling away from the sides of the pan. I finish things up by leaving the bread under the broiler for just a heartbeat – to give the top a bit deeper color. Remove from oven, and turn the bread out of the pan quickly. Let it cool on a rack so it doesn’t steam in the pan. Serve warm, slathered with butter.

Makes 1 loaf.

There’s nothing quite like a good brownie to set the world right again.

Last week was a crappy week.  To start things off, unlike practically everyone else, our office was open on Monday so I had to go to work. I could go on, but I won’t.  Rather than wallow in self pity (which I guess I’m still doing, since I feel the need to complain on the internet), I decided to wear my “I’ll kick your ass” boots and make brownies.  These brownies have it all: a brownie base, chocolate chips, caramel, peanut butter, toasted pecans, and frosting.  It took every ounce of self control to not just eat brownies for dinner during the week. They are quite yummy, and Nate and I fought over who got to eat the last one (after much debate, we cut it in half). That is all.

Everything Brownies
Adapted from Tasty Kitchen

Originally called “Mississippi Mud Brownies,” I changed the name because I didn’t have marshmallows, and added in caramel instead.  If you don’t have caramel, feel free to leave it out, or you could add in marshmallows between the peanut butter and the pecans.  For a marshmallow version, click the link above.  Also, the original recipe claims that this makes 9 brownies.  While you could cut the pan to have only 9 brownies, they would be enormous. These brownies are fantastic and rich, which makes them better in slightly smaller doses.

Brownie base:

• ¾ cups All-purpose Flour
• 1/4 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• ½ cups Unsalted Butter, At Room Temperature
• 1 cup White Sugar
• ¾ teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
• 2 whole Large Eggs
• ¾ cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Extras:

• ½ cups Peanut Butter
• 1-½ teaspoon Canola Oil
• 12 caramel pieces (or more, if you want)
• ½ cups Chopped And Toasted Pecans

Frosting:

• 2 cups Confectioner’s Sugar
• ⅛ teaspoons Salt
• 4 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
• 3 Tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• ¼ cups Plus 2 Tablespoons Of Milk
• ¼ teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8×8″ square baking pan with parchment paper or foil. If using foil, spray it with cooking spray.

In medium bowl, combine flour, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

In large mixing bowl, beat together 1/2 cup butter, sugar, and 3/4 teaspoons vanilla until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time. Stir dry ingredients into batter. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Dot the top with caramel candies and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake in preheated oven for 22-25 minutes.

When brownie layer is done baking, combine peanut butter and oil in a microwave safe bowl or measuring cup and microwave on high for 20 seconds to soften. Pour this warm mixture over hot brownie and spread. Sprinkle with toasted pecans.

To make frosting, combine confectioners sugar and salt. In small saucepan, melt 4 Tablespoons butter over medium heat. When butter is melted, add the 3 Tablespoons of cocoa powder and 1/4 cup of the milk and heat until the mixture begins to boil. Pour this mixture into confectioners sugar/salt mixture and beat on high speed with an electric mixer until smooth and glossy. If frosting is not pourable at this point, add remaining 2 Tablespoons of milk. Lastly, beat in 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, then pour evenly over peanut butter and pecans.

Let cool completely in refrigerator for 1-2 hours.

Back in November, Nate and I took a four-day trip to New Orleans to celebrate our 30th birthdays, which are exactly a month apart.  We both love food (which should be obvious at this point!), so our plan was to eat our way through the city.  And that is exactly what we did!  Our flights were free with my frequent flier miles and the hotel (Hilton on St. Charles) was free with Nate’s hotel points, so the only thing in our budget was food.  The hardest part was deciding which restaurants, cafes, bars, etc to go to: there are SO many and most of them serve the same sorts of things, so how do you know which is best?  Luckily, one of my friends went to Tulane and regularly goes back with her friends, and she was able to give me a bunch of great suggestions, most of which are listed here.  Without further ado, here are our favorite New Orleans restaurants, bars and attractions (none of which are on Bourbon St.):

Cafe du Monde:  How could I not mention this cafe which for most tourists is synonymous with New Orleans?  Mountains of beignets covered in fluffy powered sugar and smooth, rich cafe au lait to wash it down.  In a word, perfection.  It’s also extremely touristy, but you can line up towards the back and get your beignets and coffee to go in order to avoid the horde.  There are other places in New Orleans to get beignets, but even the non-tourists said Cafe du Monde was the best!

Cochon Butcher: Not in the French Quarter, this a true gem that you don’t want to miss.  I’m not one to use the word “gem,” but this place is absolutely amazing.  First of all, don’t confuse Cochon Butcher with its sister restaurant, Cochon.  Cochon is fancy and expensive, while Cochon Butcher is a butcher shop with a bar in the back where you order and then there are tall bar tables where you can sit down to eat.  Cochon is well-marked on the corner and Cochon Butcher is down the side street and not so obviously marked.  Some of our favorites here: duck pastrami sliders, pancetta mac and cheese, muffaletta (huge enough to split and still be a big sandwich), and brisket sliders.  We tried the hot boudin (some sort of New Orleans sausage) and that was a little strange– maybe we just don’t like boudin.  Their cocktails are good too.

Stanley: This place is known for their variations on Eggs Benedict.  I got an oyster po boy, which was good, but I wished I’d gotten one of the Eggs Benedict (which is what Nate wisely chose).  It’s right on Jackson Square, so the people watching is fantastic.

Mimi’s:In the Marigny, this bar downstairs/restaurant upstairs is totally worth the hike.  Mimi’s has the best tapas I’ve ever had outside of Spain: simple small plates with a couple of uncomplicated ingredients cooked to perfection.  Our favorites: mushroom manchego toast, goat cheese croquetas, ensalada a la plancha (who knew grilled lettuce could be so good?), and the “trust me,” which is a surprise from the chef.  Our “trust me” was some sort of homemade pâté and toast.  It was incredible.  If I had a neighborhood bar like Mimi’s near my house, I’d think I’d died and gone to heaven.

Mother’s: Right down the road from our hotel, Mother’s quickly became our go-to breakfast stop.  It’s quite touristy, but the line moves quickly and the food is excellent.  The first morning we had eggs, ham (incredible!), biscuits and grits.  The following morning I had a biscuit with debris (the little pieces of meat that are left over after it’s cooked) and a blueberry muffin, and Nate had a huge omelet, as you can see below.Coop’s: Where the masses in-the-know come for cheap beer and good food.  It’s known for the rabbit and sausage jambalaya and we loved the “taste plate,” which included gumbo, fried chicken, beans and rice, shrimp creole, and jambalaya for about $12.  It’s the sort of place that’s perfect for lunch when you just need a break from walking around,  you don’t feel like waiting forever, and you know the food will be good.

K-Paul’s: This was our splurge, and man was it worth it.  Reservations are necessary and they have a “business casual” dress code, which means no tank tops or sleeveless shirts, flip-flops or cut-off shorts.  I got away with jeans, a cute (yet modest) top and nice shoes, and Nate wore khakis and a polo.  Back to the food: we ordered the fried green tomatoes with shrimp appetizer, and then I had the blackened drum and Nate had a veal dish.  For dessert we split the bread pudding.  We loved it all, even the bread basket.  The piece of blackened drum was enormous, but it was so absurdly delicious, I ate it all.  Highly recommended.The Pirate Bar: This funky little bar is right behind the cathedral in the photo above.  In any other city, it would be packed 24/7, but in New Orleans, where lots of the tourists just want to drink for cheap and they don’t care where, the Pirate Bar almost always has sitting room. You can sit at the bar and sip your drink, or you can take it to-go since New Orleans has lenient open container laws.  Basically, if it’s not glass, you can drink it on the street.  In fact, one bartender (at Coop’s) told us we would be okay if we took our bottles on the street since we looked like “sensible” people, whatever that means.  Sure enough, the cops didn’t stop us!

Loa: This bar is located in the International House Hotel, which was a few blocks from where we stayed.  It’s one of those funky cozy places with interesting cocktails that’s perfect for a night-cap.  You can order a drink off the ever-changing menu or just sit at the bar, tell the bartender what you like and let him work his magic.  Added bonus: it’s usually nearly empty! We loved Loa.

And now for some attractions:

New Orleans Pharmacy Museum: For an infectious disease nut like myself, this was a must-see.  Admission is $5 for adults, and you can spend a couple hours wandering through the various rooms reading about health care and pharmacies from the 1800′s onwards.  There are some truly gruesome medical tools, in addition to interesting information about the city’s outbreaks of yellow fever and other diseases.

Fan Boat Swamp Tour: I don’t remember what tour company we used, and as soon as I figure it out I’ll add in the hyper-link.  So many tourists go to New Orleans and just stay in the French Quarter, but there is a lot more to it than that.  The tour company picked us up at our hotel and took us out to the middle of nowhere, where we got on a fan boat with three other people, plus the boat driver.  We saw alligators and birds, and learned a lot about the marsh/swamp ecosystem which provides a livelihood for lots of people in Louisiana.  It was really interesting and a great way to spend our first morning in New Orleans.  Because the boat is powered by a (noisy) fan rather than an engine, the boat is able to maneuver in areas where a normal boat wouldn’t be able to. We went through mud and general swampyness to go deep into the marsh, which was really cool.  The photos above and below were taken from the fan boat.

That’s all!  Hopefully this will be helpful if you’re ever headed to New Orleans.  Also, with the exception of the beignet photo, all the pictures were taken using film on my Nikon F3.  After shooting with a digital SLR for so long, it took a while to get used to a film SLR.  Mostly I just kept crossing my fingers and hoping the photos would turn out. I was pleasantly surprised, and I’d forgotten how fun it is to get film developed!

Thanksgiving has come and gone (although leftovers still remain in the fridge), and that means that it’s finally Christmas time!  Or Hanukkah or Kwanza, you know, whatever works!  I love baking any time of year, but Christmas has always been my favorite.  I absolutely love Christmas cookies.  I’ve recently discovered that the best thing to do is to make cookies that my husband Nate likes to eat too.  That way I’m not the only one eating them!  With that, I give you Spritz cookies.  These are light, buttery, small, and delicious.

They are also super-easy-to-make: prepare the dough, put it in a cookie gun and pump away!  I decided to decorate them, mostly because I couldn’t help myself.  How cute are they?!?

In the meantime I would like to introduce the newest member of the Just Eat It family: Sylvia the Nikon D90!  My D80 broke back in May, and I quickly discovered that it is more difficult to get good food photos with a point and shoot.  Although I think I can safely blame my lack-of-blogging on sheer laziness.  Needless to say, Sylvia and I are still getting to know each other and I’m hoping this will be a long, mutually beneficial (I won’t drop her or get her wet, she won’t break or stop working, that sort of thing) relationship!

Spritz Cookies
From Cooks’ Illustrated and adapted very slightly

You are not supposed to bake these on parchment paper, or, I’m guessing, a silpat.  However, you can bake them on a non-stick cookie sheet with no non-stick spray and you should be just fine.  I used an eggwash to get the decorations to stick to the unbaked cookies, which resulted in some of the cookies sticking pretty badly to the pan.  If you do decide to decorate them, be careful not to get any of the eggwash on the cookie sheet!  And keep an eye on them the last couple of minutes: they go from appearing under-baked to dark brown in about a minute.

• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened (about 70 degrees)
• 2/3 cup sugar (about 4-3/4 ounces)
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt
• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces)

Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 375 degrees. In small bowl, beat yolk, cream, and vanilla with fork until combined; set aside.

Using an electric beaters or  standing mixer, cream butter, sugar, and salt at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Scrape down bowl with rubber spatula. With mixer/beaters running at medium speed, add yolk/cream mixture and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl.  Gradually beat in flour until combined. Scrape down bowl and give final stir with rubber spatula to ensure that no flour pockets remain.

If using cookie press to form cookies, follow manufacturer’s instructions to fill press; if using pastry bag, follow illustrations 1 through 3 below to fill bag. Press or pipe cookies onto ungreased baking sheets, spacing them about 1-1/2 inches apart. Bake one sheet at a time until cookies are light golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking time. Cool cookies on baking sheet until just warm, 10 to 15 minutes; using metal spatula, transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature (it’s important to let them cool a little, otherwise they break).

We’ll start with breakfast.  Every morning for breakfast we had bread, olives, jam, tomatoes, cheese, cucumbers and tea.  Another plus of traveling in Turkey is that every single place we stayed at provided free breakfast!  And it was always a good breakfast, as you can see:

Dinner can vary quite a bit depending on where whether it is provided by the place you’re staying or whether you go to a restaurant.  About half the places we stayed provided dinner and those dinners were always the best.  Here’s dinner at the Shambala in Kabak (our absolute most favorite place):

A dish typical to the area we were traveling was stew baked in a clay pot.  The top of the pot is sealed and then they hack off the top of the pot by the table when they serve the stew.  Here is seafood stew that I ordered in Dalyan:

And here’s the kitty that really hoped I would share my stew with her (I did):

There was also lots of Turkish delight to be had.  As you can see on the signs (which are all in English, not Turkish), you can tell who they’re marketing to!

We stopped at Saklikent Gorge for lunch, which is basically a teeny tiny opening in the mountains where a river is running and they’ve turned it into a huge tourist trap (although as far as tourist traps go, it was actually pretty cool).  You follow a bridge/path/walkway into the gorge and then you can go down by the water, take photos, etc.  The daring can also brave the water, cross to the other side, and hike up a little ways.  There were some guides helping people cross the water, which was hip-deep, murky, rocky, and running extremely quickly; Nate decided to cross and I stayed behind with our bags and the camera.  Nate made it across just fine, and in the meantime I entertained myself by watching other tourists try to cross.  At least three people lost a shoe and a British lady almost got swept away.  It was quite the spectacle.

Anywho, afterwards we had fresh trout for lunch, sitting on a platform suspended over the river.  Some of the platforms were kind of rickety and I think I asked Nate what we would do if our platform got swept away at least two or three times.  Regardless, it was a very tasty lunch!

Another popular Turkish dish is gozele, or Turkish pancakes.  They are kind of like crepes, except three times as big and even better.  Before they serve the pancakes they fold them over on themselves two or three times, and they are still just as big as a plate:This particular pancake was filled with potatoes, onions, cheese, and I think some meat.  It was so yummy.  Then we had a chocolate filled pancake for dessert!  I miss the food in Turkey so much… and I haven’t even talked about the baklava, which was fantastic, by the way.

Here are links to other Just Eat It travel posts:

• Liberia
• Ghana (1st time)
• Ghana (2nd time)
• Spain
• Liverpool, England
• Geneva, Switzerland
• Savannah, Georgia
• Florida Keys

Soon I’ll be able to add Colombia to the list, as that is where I am soon traveling to for work!  I will stuff myself with arepas and whatever other yummy food they have, and hopefully get some nice pictures too!

One of the best parts of planning a wedding is planning the honeymoon.  It was also, for us, one of the hardest things to plan because how on earth are you supposed to pick where you want to go?!?  Originally it was easy because we wanted to go on a safari in Tanzania, but, it turns out, safaris are incredibly expensive.  So then we had to chose where we wanted to go, and, good grief, did the debates rage.  We ultimately chose the Mediteranean coast of Turkey, from Antalya moving west, and it was a fantastic trip.It was not, however, without its slight hiccups.  First, our bags got left in Amsterdam and, although we did get them back the day before we returned to the U.S., we had to buy new clothes and toiletries.  We will never fly Sun Express ever again, and you shouldn’t either!  Also, my Nikon broke 3 days into the trip.  Luckily we picked up a fantastic point-and-click the morning we left DC, and it was actually really nice to not have to lug my huge camera around with me.  And then there was the time that I had a panic attack because I was certain we were going to die because our car was going to plunge off  a cliff into the sea.

We drove across the mountains west, and then followed the coast back to Antalya, stopping in a number of towns, cities, and ruins along the way.  Here are some photos of some of the highlights of our trip, although it was really hard to chose.  Our first overnight stop was a town called Dalyan, were we chartered a river boat to take us to a beach were loggerhead turtles breed, some ruins, and a thermal mud bath.  Here’s the view from the front of the boat:

We also stayed at Butterfly Valley, which is basically a hippy commune that you can only get to by ferry.  The beach was beautiful!  Our favorite place, though, was Kabak, a very small town off the beaten path, and it will feature heavily in my next post about the food in Turkey.  We stayed at the Shambala, which is a pension that was absolute heaven-on-earth, and we tried to figure out how we could stay there for the rest of our honeymoon.  Then that conversation devolved into figuring out how we could stay at the Shambala for the rest of our lives. (I would help in the kitchen and Nate would be the cat-herder/pool boy.)  Take another look at the picture at the top of this post and you’ll understand why we didn’t want to leave!  This is the beach at Butterfly Valley:

We also visited the ruins of Teremessos, which were some of the most awesome ruins I’ve ever seen.  Teremessos is perched up in the mountains, and it was never conquered because it was next to impossible to even drive to and they were (supposedly) war-loving people, which means that the ruins were in really good shape.  We drove up the mountain, through (and past) the rain clouds, and then hiked to the ruin site.  We were the only tourists there, and it was so much fun poking and climbing around the ruins.  We stumbled upon the theater and it took our breath away:

It was nothing but us, the clouds, and ruins several thousand years old.  Absolutely incredible!

The entire trip was a perfect combination of relaxing on the beach (which was great, but you know I’m not posting a photo of myself in a swimsuit on the internet…), ruin-trotting, exploring the country, and eating yummy food.  If you want to know more about our itinerary or any other specifics, please email me at just.eat.it.09@gmail.com.  Here I am having my Indiana Jones moment, although I’m unfortunately not wearing my hat:

Next up, Turkish food!  Yum.

Nate and I are going to build raised garden beds this weekend, and we’ve been busy planning out what we’re going to plant and where.  Since neither of us know what we’re doing, it’s basically just one big experiment.  In the meantime, it’s been fun to walk around out yard and see what’s popping up!  There are some little teeny flowers that are essentially in the middle of the yard; I have no idea how they got there and I’m surprised they’ve lasted this long, given out dog’s penchant for chewing on everything that we don‘t want her to chew on in our yard.  We’re already planning a chicken wire barricade around our garden and theorizing on the best way to keep her away from the raspberry bushes and fig trees we want to plant.

I’ve also been busy sprucing up our house, doing things like painting a shelf to store dishes.  We bought it at Ikea when we lived in our apartment for extra storage of the random stuff (chips, spices, tea, condiments, oils, fruit….) that didn’t fit in our five shelves.   I’ve found myself acquiring some nice dishes and I decided to repaint the unfinished shelf a glossy black so it would look nice in our dining room and I could store/display dishes on it.  Aside from the fact that I got paint everywhere, had to make numerous trips to Lowe’s (turns out you can’t clean oil-based paint out of brushes with water…. who knew?!) and made a colossal mess, I’m really proud of the finished product!  It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

You’re probably starting to wonder about the “salad” part of this post– don’t worry, I didn’t forget!  I’m not a salad person, not by a long shot.  In fact, this salad was Nate’s idea.  We recently got a cookbook called Mad Hungry and Nate has been making recipes out of it right and left.  I’ll go into my opinion of the cookbook in a later post (stay tuned), but Nate absolutely loves the it and there are a lot of fantastic recipes that we both have really enjoyed, this salad being one of them.  This is called  “Bistro Pantry Salad” and, really, how could you go wrong with it?  Diced onions and bacon cook together, and in the meantime you poach some eggs and pour some oil, vinegar, salt and pepper over chopped lettuce.  That’s it!  It’s a meal in one dish, and it’s one of the best salads I’ve ever had.  Poached eggs, bacon and onions make for the most un-salady salad ever, but that’s what makes it so yummy!

Pantry Bistro Salad
Adapted from Mad Hungry (serves 4)

The author is a little butter/oil-crazed, and I’ve found you can usually decrease the amount of butter/oil by a significant amount with no detrimental effects.  In this case, the recipe calls for one tablespoon of oil for the onions and bacon…. um, has she not noticed how much grease comes out of bacon when you cook it??  Rather than red wine vinegar, we used aged syrupy balsamic, but I think you could probably use either.

1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 pound bacon, but into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 white onion, chopped
4 large eggs
2 heads romaine lettuce, washed, dried and chilled
2 capfuls red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
Toasted bread slices, for serving

Heat a medium skillet over medium high heat, and then swirl in one teaspoon of olive oil.  Add the bacon and onion and saute until the bacon is crisp, 5 to 8 minutes.  Remove the bacon and onion mixture with a slotted spoon to drain on paper towels.

Meanwhile, poach the eggs in gently boiling water for 2 to 3 minutes, until the white is set and the yolk is still runny.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the eggs and place on paper towels to drain.

Slice the lettuce into 1/2 inch pieces and place in a large salad bowl.  Drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil and vinegar and season with salt and pepper.  Toss to coat the leaves.

Divide the lettuce among 4 bowls (yes, that’s half a head of lettuce per bowl).  Sprinkle each with the bacon mixture.  Place an egg on top of each and serve immediately with toasted bread.

Back in January I went to Geneva for a meeting, and my sister and her husband drove up from Italy to hang out with me the morning I flew in before the meeting started the next day.  We discovered pretty quickly that there’s actually not much to do in Geneva, other than walk around.  So we walked, took pictures, shopped, ate pastries, lounged in the park, and passed the day doing, well, nothing.  One of the highlights, though, was lunch.  We made our way into a crowded cafe and  asked for a table for three; the waitress blurted out a lot of French that I didn’t understand and motioned for us to follow her.  So, I smiled and nodded (automatic reaction when someone says something you don’t understand in a language you don’t really speak) and we followed her to the back of the restaurant where she put us at a large table that already had two people sitting at one end.  As we were walking to the back, we saw people eating these things that looked like huge hash browns with eggs on top.  We managed to tell the waiter that that was what we wanted, and it turns out the dish is called “rosti” and it’s a traditional sort of thing your might eat in Geneva.

All three of us ordered rosti with a slice of ham, cheese, and an egg and it was so good.  A couple weeks later, once I was back in DC, we got a good 5 inches of really heavy snow and I spent the morning shoveling the wet snow.  All I could think of was how much I wanted a rosti when I was finished.  Luckily, all you need to make this is potatoes and eggs, so I was in business!  I made a massive hashbrown, fried two eggs, and had a breakfast befitting a morning filled with manual labor.  From now on, when I think of Switzerland, rather than my mind wandering to watches and chocolate, I will think of the rosti and how simple things usually are the best! 

Swiss Rosti

The basic formula for this is eggs on top of a large potato hashbrown.  You can put pretty much anything between the two: ham, cheese, spinach, mushrooms, bacon (YUM) or whatever you desire.  Each person gets their own rosti, which can be made in a small pan.  Here is the “recipe” for one rosti– just repeat everything as many times as necessary to make as many rostis as you need.

Grate 1 medium/large potato and put the grated potato in a small pan and saute over medium heat.  The goal here is to ensure that the potato will be thoroughly cooked when you put it in hashbrown form, so you just want it to soften a little.  Remove the potato from the pan, clean the pan out and pour in about a tablespoon of oil.  Flatten the potato down so that it starts to form a disc and stick together.  Flip the hashbrown when the bottom is browned and cook on the other side until it’s done.

Top with an egg and whatever else you like!