Idea of the Week...California Girl Club

 So I'm thinking I need quick, yummy lunches to take to work in the coming weeks. Maybe I'll add soup or a small salad and a half sammy. Either way, I have all these ideas running through my head and here's one...   Grilled whole wheat bread Bacon Tomato Sliced chicken breast Arugala Avocado Mayo Any Questions?  

 

Fluffy Week End Morning Omelet

For the omelet:

4 eggs, beaten with a fork

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon restaurant grind pepper

2 tablespoons half and half or heavy cream

Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl.

A handful of cherry, pear or chopped tomatoes

2 tablespoon olive oil or butter, sliced or minced

2 tablespoons red bell pepper or sweet pepper, sliced or minced

2 tablespoon green bell pepper, sliced or minced

2 tablespoons yellow sweet pepper or orange

1/4 cup white onion, minced or leeks, minced or thinly sliced

1/4 cup mushrooms of choice, minced or diced

fresh herbs or chives

Garnish with chives or fresh herbs.

In a skillet, add butter ot oil and fry all veggies until tender. remove from pan and set aside.

Add more butter or oil and pour 1/2 egg custard mixture. Pull sides toward middle as egg cooks until omelet starts to firm up into a disk. Add 1/2 of the veggie filling to one side of the omelet and fold in half using a spatula. Allow to set, but do not over cook egg. Remove from skillet and plate. Cook the next omelet and garnish with herbs and plate with strawberries and blueberries and fresh salad if desired.

My favorite Kitchen Gadget...

Well, it's not technically a gadget.  It's an egg poacher and I love it! I just thought I'd share with you, the benefits of this amazing little poacher...Very low cal as far as fat goes.  Deep frying is out and the result is a fabulous eggs that taste perfectly cooked.  It doesn't get any better than this. I use this little guy all the time and never tire of the flavor and texture on my breakfast plate.  It's fast and clean-up is easy (non-stick).

So I bought this a few years back after going through several electric models...

And I prefer the stove top version by far because I can control the doneness (okay maybe this is not a word, but anyway) of my egg simply by timing it.

Start with fresh eggs...

Add a tad bit of butter to the egg cup. That's Grandma's Southern speak for about a 1/4 of a pat : )

Crack a few eggs into the cups...

Set the egg cups in the wells with the boiling water...

Time it!

I like my poached eggs on the medium soft side, whites totally firm and cooked; the yolk barely firm, if a little runny.  But that's me.  So my California Girl rule of thumb...if you like them like I do, cook them for 3 to 4 minutes.  Fill water a 1/3 of the way up. Set the burner to medium high to boil the water.  Then after adding your eggs, turn the burner down to medium low and cook until they have reached perfection. If you want hard boiled eggs, cook for longer than 4 minutes, about 5.  For softer cooked eggs (whites not set) cook for less than 3 minutes.  There you have it.  Not rocket science, but it is helpful to have some sort of guide to go by.

Now you wait...

Wait for it...(Insert Jeopardy music here)

Done!

Now eat and enjoy!

Happy Sunday!

Another Sandwich...

I know, I know, I know...yes, I'm posting another sandwich. This is just how my week is going. After the holidays and all the baking and slaving over a hot stove, I was just ready for a little break. So enjoy!

Cheesy Bacon Potato Salad

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, boiled in jackets and cubed

3 green onions, chopped

6 slices bacon, fried crispy and crumbled

3/4 cup good mayonnaise

1/2 cup plain yogurt

4 to 5 ounces mixed Colby/jack cheese, shredded

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Toss all ingredients together, season and gently mix. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Cooks Note: If you want the cubes to stay reasonably in tact after you toss the salad, cook potatoes al dente and refrigerate the cubed potatoes until firmly set before tossing mixture together. Otherwise, the potatoes with mash somewhat when mixed.

Texas Style Pastrami & Turkey on Black Rye with Jalapenos
Serves 4 or more

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon butter
1 loaf dark rye bread, cut lengthwise into three long slices
8 ounces real deli turkey breast (not pressed)
8 ounces deli pastrami
4 slices Provalone cheese
2 large leaves butter lettuce or a nice handful of spring mix
4 to 6 large slices fresh tomatoes
2 to 3 pickled jalapenos, sliced or 15 or so slices
Mayo and/or mustard to taste
Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

In a skillet, add 1/2 tablespoon butter and toast all three slices of bread. In the same skillet, add the rest of the butter and heat turkey and pastrami for 2 to 3 minutes and remove.

Building the Sandwich:
Spread bread slices with mayo or mustard and place pastrami on bottom slice of bread, then add 1/2 the cheese slices to the top of the pastrami. Top pastrami and cheese with tomato and jalapeno slices. Add the middle bread slice and top with the turkey, the remaining cheese and lettuce. Add the top and secure the layers together with a long tooth pick or cocktail fork. Divide into individual sandwiches.

Cooks note: I like my deli meat cut on no. 1 or 2 thickness. This is also the cut we used in our restaurant and everyone seemed to really like it and even commented on it. However, to each his own. If you like thicker slices, ask for it. I prefer this particular thickness because it can be fluffed and is much more aesthetically pleasing. It's just plain looks purdy this way! As my Uncle Frank would say ; ).

Shrimp & Bacon Club with Pommes Frites

This recipe is for 2 sandwiches. That said, these are huge and can easily feed 4 when cut in two. Absolute-a-ly de-licious! We love this sandwich. It is very much like one of the sandwiches we served at our tea room. I gave it a little twist, but other than that this is our shrimp and bacon. Funny, but true story...a lot of the Doctors from the local hospital ate in our establishment on a fairly regular basis. One Doctor in particular loved this sandwich. He ordered it quite often and picked it up to go when he had to. One day he came in to pick up his order and said to me, "I gotta tell you, I couldn't wait to get though with my last patient. All I could think about was getting to my shrimp and bacon sandwich". He said, he just kept looking at the clock and thinking it's almost lunch time! He was an OB GYN! Now you know what they're thinking!

*First prepare garlic mayo sauce and refrigerate to let flavors meld.

Garlic Mayo Sauce:
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup good mayonnaise
2 teaspoons garlic powder
Several drops hot sauce, to taste

In a bowl, stir all ingredients well and refrigerate.

Belgian Fries or Pommes Frites
4 cups vegetable or peanut oil
2 to 2 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into uniform strips.
salt

Frites Directions:
Pommes frites are fried twice. So this is a two step process. Fill a large heavy bottom pot or deep fryer 2/3 full of oil and heat for deep frying. A thermometer should read 325 to 350 degrees. Dry potatoes well so that they don't splatter when they are lowered into the hot oil. Lower potatoes in using a large spoon and fry for appoximately 5 minutes. Don't over crowd the fries. Fry in as many batches as you need to for your size pot. Keep in mind that you are not frying them completely. Just to a lightly golden color. When fries are the desired color, remove them and drain on paper towels in a colainder. This is the first fry. Let fries rest for as long as possible and then return them to the hot oil to cook to a golden brown color. This should only take 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from oil again and drain. Using a large kitchen bowl (a salad bowl works well), place fries with salt and toss well. Serve hot with sauce, if desired. We used the garlic mayo sauce as a dip for the frites.

Shrimp & Bacon Club with Avocado and Garlic Mayo Sauce

(Ingredients make 2 sandwiches, 1/2 for each)

6 medium thick slices bread (I used French bread here)
8 slices bacon, fried and drained well
2 leaves Bibb lettuce or small handful of spring mix, washed if need be
4 slices tomato, washed and sliced
4 slices Swiss cheese
10 medium frozen shrimp, defrosted in warm water, tails removed
Hot sauce

1 avocado, seeded and sliced
8 extra long frilly sandwich toothpicks (4 for each clubstyle sandwich)

Directions:
Add frozen shrimp to a bowl of warm water to defrost. Let sit while you fry the bacon. On a griddle or flat grill, fry bacon until crispy. Remove from grill, drain well and sit aside. Drain shrimp and pat dry with a paper towel. Lay shrimp on one side of the grill and add 2 to 3 drops of hot sauce to each. Fry on each side for 1 or 2 minutes. Set aside. Toast bread on the other side of the grill.

Assemble Sandwich:
Spread one side of each slice of bread with garlic mayo sauce.
Add 1 slice of cheese to a slice of bread and top with shrimp
Top shrimp with avocado slices
Top avocado slices with another slice of bread, mayo side down
Add mayo to the other side of the bread and add another slice of cheese
Add bacon to the cheese and top bacon with tomato slices
Top Tomato slices with lettuce and add slice of bread to top.

Here's where the tricky part starts. Stick a toothpick in each of the four sides of the bread in a cross type pattern, midway between the edge of the bread and the center. Using a bread knife, cut bread diagonally crisscrossing the sandwich in an X pattern. It's a little tricky holding it all together and cutting at the same time but you can rearrainge anything that falls out. Once sandwich is cut into four pieces, join two quarters together, end to end using toothpicks in top and bottom to secure together. Do this for each sandwich.

Albondigas Soup

A girl that I play games with on facebook mentioned that she was sick and her husband had brought her albondigas soup? I'd never heard of it. And being an Angelino for most of my life, I thought it was odd I had never even heard the word before. I guess in life you're always missing something, because when I googled it, I found many versions of this wonderful soup. Albondigas simply means meatball, or meatball soup in Spanish. I have to tell you I went straight to work on a version of a recipe that I felt had all the ingredients my family would like. I think I did it. My family loves it! Albondigas soup is truly Mexican soul food. It is colorful, comforting and flavorful. I hope you like this soup as much as we did. It is what I believe, the best of several recipes, all authentic with a few twists and turns of my own. I made it for dinner tonight and it is delicious!

Albondigas Soup
Servings:
8 to 10
Ingredients:

Meatballs
½ pound lean ground beef
1 pound Mexican chorizo sausage *See instructions below to make your own.
1 egg, beaten
2 cloves garlic, minced
¾ cup rice, cooked
1 good handful of cilantro leaf, chopped
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin

Soup
8 cups chicken broth
½ cup onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 cans (10 ounce) tomato & green chile mix, such as Rotel (Do not drain)
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1 handful cilantro, chopped
2 to 3 zucchinis (depending on size), cubed
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
To make meatballs, combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Roll into balls.
You should make around 25 to 30 meatballs. Place meatballs in a lightly sprayed baking dish and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until browned. Remove and let sit until soup is ready.

In a heavy bottom pot, saute onion until tender. Add broth, carrots, zucchini, celery and cook until soft. Add both cans of tomatoes and green chiles, cumin, oregano and cilantro leaves. Bring to boil and drop baked meatballs in the soup. Return to simmer and cook another 15 minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.

*For those of you that don’t care for packaged chorizo: To make your own, use 1 pound ground pork or turkey and add:
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon crushed dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 cup red wine vinegar

In a bowl, mix all ingredients well and let sit in refrigerator for 2 hours to let flavors to meld, then follow directions above.