Weekly Dish

Whew. What a year. How often I’ve wished that I’d found the time to stop in here and tell you more about it, but, as it turns out, this past year swooped in like a mother cat and snatched us up by the backs of our necks, dragging us from one destination to the next without once stopping to ask us if we were ready to move again.

The number one reason for that constant motion, of course, is that we started 2008 with a docile infant, just learning to crawl, and ended it with a toddler who runs full-throttle everywhere she goes, laughing gleefully or shouting, “No, no!” at the top of her lungs, depending upon her mood and whether or not the cat is doing something that displeases her (poor Matilda, our little black kitty who joined our family in the spring; it seems she can do nothing right as far as Josie is concerned.) The presence of a toddler makes our days full and chaotically busy and delightful and maddening all at the same time. And that’s without adding in work and school.

One happy obstacle completed in 2008: I passed my General Exams and am now, officially, a candidate for the Ph.D., a distinction known in the academic world as A.B.D. (all but dissertation). The dissertation is a big, momentous thing looming ahead, but it is only one thing. And since I’m a girl who likes to pour my intellectual concentration wholeheartedly into one, focused job at a time, that feels like a huge relief. For now, our immediate task ahead, is for David to finish his thesis show and graduate (hooray!) with his M.F.A. in May. I can’t wait.

In the midst of all of this, I am, slowly, learning how to be a cook in this still-new parent-teacher-student life, and I hope to occasionally document the ways that this season is changing how dinner gets on the table (as it still manages to do, miraculously). One way is that we always have good eggs in our refrigerator. At our local farmer’s market, eggs are such a hot commodity that if you aren’t there promptly at 8 a.m. when the bell rings signaling the start of business, you’re usually out of luck. It’s one of the only days of the week we’re thankful to have an early riser: Josie gets us there on time, and usually, we come home with eggs.

And it’s a good thing: they have sustained us through many, many a long week. This preparation is one of my favorites for when we have an abundance of Swiss chard in our garden, which, this year has been pretty much all the time, save the hottest months of the summer. You poach the eggs right in the pan with the greens, so it’s a one-dish meal, and except for the cooking of the eggs, it’s a fairly lazy method: the onions can be left alone for a while to carmelize, and then the greens can wilt at their lesiure after that. Chard is laden with nutrients, but the flavor can be a bit astringent; in this dish, the bitterness is all lost beneath the cloak of creamy yolks and buttery onions. It’s a particularly satisfying meal on a cold night, a warming end to a long day. Or year, as the case may be.

Eggs in a Nest
I found this idea in Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the informational and interesting story of her family’s move to a farm and conversion to locally grown food; you can find more recipes and information on the book’s website. It’s a great read, particularly if you’re interested in how we eat affects the world around us, and one of my favorite parts is that Kingsolver’s college-aged daughter, Camille, contributes recipes and meal plans at the end of each chapter. This recipe is an adaptation of her version.
1 large bunch Swiss chard, or other leafy green
1 large, or 2 small sweet yellow onions, coarsely chopped
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
3 cloves garlic
Coarse salt and cracked pepper
6 eggs
1-2 tablespoons heavy cream (optional)

Remove the stems from the chard leaves and wash all very, very well. Wrap the leaves in dishtowels to dry and set aside.

In a large skillet, heat the oil and butter together over medium. Chop the onions and chard stems into pieces roughly the same size, and dump into the skillet. Stir occasionally, but let them cook until the onions are brown and very, very soft, about 20 minutes. In my opinion, the flavor of the dish comes from well-caramelized onions, so don’t skimp on the time here; if you need longer, say because you’re bathing a baby or something, you can always reduce the heat and let them continue to get all golden and yummy. They’re pretty forgiving as long as the heat isn’t high enough to scorch them.

While the onions are cooking, roughly chop the chard leaves; I like to roll them into long skinny cylinders and slice them into thin ribbons, but whatever works for you.
Once the onions turn brown, season with salt and pepper, and add the garlic. Cook for another minute or two and dump in the leaves. Stir to coat with the onion mixture until the leaves are wilted. Turn the heat down to medium-low.
Make six depressions in the greens, each large enough to hold an egg. Carefully break an egg into each depression, making sure to keep the yolks in tact. Spoon a tiny amount of cream over each egg. Cover and cook the eggs for 4-6 minutes, depending on the size of your eggs and how well-done you like your yolks. When done, sprinkle a little coarse salt over all. We like to serve ours with biscuits or hearty whole grain toast.

If anyone is still out there checking in from time to time, I wish you and yours a full and happy 2009. Thank you for bearing with me as life has swept me away from this space for longer and longer periods of time; it means a lot when I hear from one of you to know that a recipe has been useful or that you’re visiting for the first time. I hope you and I both will have many reasons to return this year.

Yes, that’s snow! In southern Louisiana!

Last fall, David and I bought an orange tree to plant in our yard, next to the Meyer lemon tree he bought for the first birthday I celebrated in Baton Rouge, right under our bedroom windows. We’d just found out that I was pregnant with Josie, and the tree planting felt symbolic somehow, a visible reminder of the life I was busy growing inside of me. Oh, I know, I’m such an English teacher — my students would tell you that I find everything symbolic. Still, the orange tree meant something. Something important, even if just to me.

When we bought it, the man at the nursery told us that citrus trees are generally safe to plant here because it only freezes in southern Louisiana about once every ten years. Citrus trees don’t like to be frozen.

The winter after we bought our orange tree (and many other non-freeze-tolerating plants), only the second winter we’d lived here, it froze. Twice. The hibiscus leaves shriveled, the elephant ears bowed their heads to the ground, and the basil finally kicked the bucket. But the citrus trees, especially the orange tree, I was determined to protect. During the week of the freeze, David would scamper outside before we went to bed, and stake up bedsheets to cover the little still-green shrubs. Every morning, I’d wake up and look out the windows to see if I could tell if they were still alive. And every morning, they were.

So, when they blossomed in the spring, basking our backyard in a sweet, flowery aroma, just weeks before my due date, my attachment grew stronger. I photographed them and talked to them and breathed in their heady scent with a sentimentality that is probably particular to women in the third trimester of pregnancy.

And, as the rules of nature dictate, the flowers eventually gave way to tiny round green globes, and Josie made her way from inside my belly out into the big bright world.

Once the oranges were there, hanging from the branches, they didn’t do much deserving of notice. They were growing, to be sure, and every so often, I’d glance out the window and think, “Wow, those are really getting bigger.” Unlike the care they required to keep them alive during the freeze, or the showy way their flowers demanded attention with their unmistakable scent, the little green oranges grew inconspicuously, day by day, drinking up the sunlight and water they needed to ripen.

Until, one day a few weeks ago, they seemed ready to be picked. I took my basket outside, gathered the small, orange orbs, and brought them into my kitchen. I ate a couple of them just as they were, but they don’t have the most exciting flavor. They are sweet, but subtly so, and not very acidic. The scent of the zest, however, is overpoweringly orange-y, so I grated it all, and started trying to decide what to do with it.

David went through a scone phase over the summer — he tends to bake in frenzied sprees: first, there were muffins, then cookies and biscuits and bread, and, for a while, scones. I remembered that he made the orange chocolate chip ones from Once Upon a Tart…, and they were good, but we agreed that the chocolate overwhelmed the delicate orange flavor, and made them quite rich for breakfast.

So, with the zest and juice from our newly harvested oranges, we made scones, buttery, soft scones with a lovely whisper of orange in every bite. As we sat on our deck this past Saturday, nibbling scones made from our first oranges and watching our giggly baby, now almost seven months old, I was reminded that the emergence of life is at once the most ordinary and the most remarkable event, no matter how expected or natural or commonplace.

And so it is with food, it seems, as our daily existence requires that we fuel our bodies with what the earth produces, or some variant of it, but that act, the act of feeding ourselves and each other, however everyday and routine, can possess great magic. Perhaps I am imbuing a simple scone with more meaning that it deserves, but I have to tell you, as I sat with people I love, eating food that my hands had made from ingredients our little patch of earth had grown, I felt a sense of connectedness and joy that I don’t find in many other areas of life. As the busy, harried holiday season is gaining speed, I hope that you will find a way to share a little food magic with people you love. And, if you happen to want that magic to come in the form of a scone, I highly recommend this one.

It is, after all, the season for both citrus and sharing. Happy magic-making to all!

Orange Scones

4 cups all-purpose flour
4 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg
3 sticks butter, diced
4 large eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. almond extract
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice*
1/4 cup orange zest (loosely packed strips)*
2 T. orange marmalade (optional)**

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and nutmeg until well-mixed. Add the butter and work it into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender. Be careful not to over-mix; you just want to blend until there aren’t visible traces of the butter and the mixture looks like little round crumbs. (Jerome and Frank say to do this in a food processor, but we don’t have one big enough.)

Toss the orange zest with the flour and butter (I use my hands; you just want the zest to get evenly distributed).

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, and then stir in the vanillla, almond extract, orange juice, and the marmalade, if using. Pour this mixture on top of the buttery crumbs, and fold, just until the dough sticks together and the flour has disappeared. (Jerome and Frank recommend a wooden spoon for this job; I like to use a sturdy spatula). Watch carefully to prevent over-mixing. As my friend Tee will tell you, over-mixing makes for a tough baked good. (And just in case you’re put in charge of mixing in his kitchen, be very careful! He hates to see anything over-mixed, much to the amusement of his wife, Kathryn, who probably over-mixes just to annoy him.)

Spoon the dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheets in scant 1/2-cup rounds (about a palmful of dough from my hands). Make sure to leave space between the scones, as they will spread as they bake. You may have to bake in batches, depending on the size of your baking sheets. Bake for 18-24 minutes, or until the tops are golden and the edges are beginning to brown. Serve immediately. Baked scones are only good for the next couple of days, but the batter will keep in the fridge for at least a week. We usually bake 4 at a time until the batter is gone. It will make about 12 scones.

*You’ll need about 3 medium-sized oranges or 2 large ones for the zest and juice; I use the long strips of zest you get from using a claw zester.

**We’ve made the scones with the marmalade and without (it’s not something I keep in my fridge), and I can’t really tell a difference, so I’ll leave it out from now on.

–Adapted from Once Upon a Tart… by Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau

Clearly, I have been cooking a lot of sweet potatoes lately. My love for the orange tubers has never been a secret on this site, but lately, it has gotten ridiculous. We tend to eat a lot of them anyway, but since Josie has started her first solid food in the last few weeks, it seems like there is always mashed sweet potato in the fridge.

Inspired by these pumpkin waffles and these whole wheat pumpkin pancakes, I made use of a leftover sweet potato in these whole wheat waffles last weekend. Coincidentally, it happened to be the day after I made the holiday cranberries, so that’s what went on top. With a side of sausage, it made a fabulous fall breakfast. So good, in fact, that I mixed up a batch of waffle batter to take with us on the road. If there happens to be leftover cranberry sauce, it will make a perfect post-Thanksgiving brunch, but if not, these are good with maple syrup too.

I hope your Thanksgiving is filled with the blessings of good food and folks you love. That’s how we’re planning to spend ours, and I can’t wait. I’ll be back after the holiday!

Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Waffles

1 - 1 1/2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potato
1 cup buttermilk
3 eggs
1/2 t. vanilla
4 T. butter, melted
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 T. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1 T. orange zest
1/2 t. grated nutmeg
2 T. brown sugar

Mix the mashed sweet potato, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and melted butter together in a small bowl. Sift together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Dump the wet ingredients into the center of the dry ones all at once and fold until just incorporated. Cook according to your waffle iron instructions and serve immediately. Makes 8-10 standard-sized waffles.

I love the idea of fancy breakfast food. Using my culinary prowess to whip up something innovative and delicious first thing in the morning sounds like something I would love — trading pajamas for an apron and wielding a wooden spoon to whip up a luxurious first meal, beginning the day with a jolt to both my creativity and my palate. A fabulous idea, in theory. Here in my real life, however, the one where mornings revolve around a hungry baby, on the days I am home, I am lucky to get a shower and dress before David leaves for the day; on the days I teach, I do well to make it out the door with two of the same shoes on my feet. For all of these reasons, during our harried weekdays, David is usually the one in charge of finding morning fare for us to eat. Don’t get me wrong, David is great with eggs: scrambled or fried, he knows how to treat them. He also makes fabulous homemade biscuits on occasion. Our standard weekday meals, however, include oatmeal or plain yogurt, jam, and granola. All of these options serve the purpose of kick-starting our metabolisms with fairly healthy calories; utilitarian, perhaps, but these meals taste good and give us fuel to dive into the day. Breakfast does its daily job.

But sometimes I crave more decadent breakfast food, the stuff of brunch menus and country inns. It’s the lack of variety, I think, that gets to me: we eat the same three or four combinations of foods every, single day, and occasionally, I long for something different. Something dressier. Something I might serve if I were to have guests over at 11 in the morning. To satisfy those cravings, we’ve sort of fallen into the tradition of having more brunch-ish food for lunch on Sundays. We still eat our regular oatmeal or yogurt before church, but for when we get home, I usually plan more exciting breakfast food to fix for our midday meal.

Lately, I’ve been on a savory kick; I love French toast, waffles, and pancakes as much as the next breakfast lush, but recently, I’ve liked my Sunday brunch to fall on the saltier side of sweet. Eggs have a constant presence, usually fried because David does them so well, and their runny yolks add a layer of rich creaminess to whatever they land atop. Last week, it was potato pancakes and some boiled shrimp we had leftover in the fridge. A good combination, to be sure, but it needed something more to fulfill my fanciful brunch demands. Something to dress up the plate a little bit, to bind the disparate elements together. Something like Hollandaise sauce.

Hollandaise sauce is, of course, the key ingredient in the king of brunch food, Eggs Benedict, and is often served over asparagus and sometimes fish. Traditionally, it’s made in a double-boiler, and whisked constantly for proper emulsification. On this particular Sunday in my house, however, it came together quickly in the blender while David fried the eggs and the pancakes finished cooking, a necessary adjustment to prevent one cook smashing the other with his elbows or the unwelcome hurling of expletives as we both crowded over a small stove in a small space. Plus, Josie loves the sound of the blender, and she was sitting on the kitchen counter happily observing while our brunch lunch came together; making the sauce this way helped keep her entertained. The texture of the blender Hollandaise is not quite as thick as that prepared the traditional way, especially immediately after it’s made. But it thickens as it sits, and the flavor is the same tangy, buttery one I had hoped would cloak our potato pancakes and shrimp with its velvety yellow vibrancy.

Yes, it’s a lot of butter, and yes, it takes egg yolks to thicken it; yes, it’s rich and full of fat and calories. But it’s sauce, an accoutrement, an extra, almost a garnish, so it’s not like we eat a lot at one time. Plus, it’s not like we eat it every day. It’s not like it’s breakfast. Which is precisely why it tastes so good and why I like our little Sunday brunch tradition: breakfast is food to get us through the day; brunch, on the other hand, is food to savor, food to make an occasion out of a day set aside to be a break from the weekday routine. Food that deserves a special sauce once in a while, especially when that sauce almost just happens with a whirl of the blender.

In my humble, breakfast-loving opinion, you could put this sauce on nearly any savory breakfast dish and have yourself a celebration on a plate. Just don’t remind me how easy it is, or I might just whip some up on a Tuesday morning. And then I would have to call it breakfast, which it most certainly is not.

Blender Hollandaise Sauce

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
3 egg yolks
Juice of 1 large lemon (about 2 T.)
1/4 t. coarse salt
1/8 t. cayenne pepper

Melt the butter in a glass measuring cup in the microwave, and have it handy. In the blender, combine the other ingredients until well-combined. With the motor running, pour in the melted butter slowly (as you would oil for mayonnaise), to emulsify (to bind the oil and the acid, in other words). Pour into a serving dish and let it stand for a few minutes. Drizzle as your heart desires.
The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for a few days; just rewarm gently before serving. This recipe makes about a cup of sauce.

–From Southern Sideboards, Junior League of Jackson, Mississippi

I love Sundays. A day of rest is such a fabulous idea, really. Especially in the hubbub of daily chaos that is our current culture, purposeful slowing down is a good, good thing.

Want to know one of the best side benefits of having a baby? You are forced, for a time, to take life slowly. To curb your daily obligations in favor of tending to the basic needs of an infant is to live, for all intents and purposes, in a season of Sundays. If the baby wakes early, you feed her. When she needs to go back to sleep, you crawl into bed and sleep right along with her. If she falls asleep in the hammock on your chest, you close your eyes and drift off for a few minutes too. You don’t stray far from home, venturing out a few places now and again just to stretch your legs and make sure you are still able to interact with the outside world, but for the most part, you curl up in your cozy nest and you hibernate with your young.

Now, of course I realize that not everyone with a newborn would consider the first few months of a baby’s life to be exactly restful. And moms of more than one child, of course, probably never rest with a new baby around. But, as luck would have it, my little one apparently came into the world understanding that her busy parents were in dire need of slower paced days.

What that has meant for our eating habits is that we sometimes dine at seemingly random times, lunch at 3:00 in the afternoon after Josie has gone down for a long nap, dinner occasionally after 9 because that’s when she’s gone to bed for the night, etc. Out the window too are traditional notions of what to eat when: breakfast food, for instance, appears on our table at all hours.

Especially eggs. In the category of quick meals that provide maximum nutritional value for the preparation time involved, eggs rank high on my list. Particularly for those of us who eat meat infrequently (or not at all), eggs provide a highly valuable source of protein, which my body has craved since I’ve been breastfeeding.
Plus, I happen to be married to a man who prepares consistently perfect fried eggs exactly as I like them.

Recently, my friend Jessica and her husband acquired three lovely chickens, named Olive, Kiwi, and Sunny, and they brought us some of their eggs. If you’ve never had fresh eggs, the difference in taste, color, and general consistency from the standard supermarket ones is remarkable, especially when the egg is the center of attention.

For one of our many late nights of breakfast-for-dinner, I put David to work frying the eggs Jessica brought, while I whipped up mushroom duxelles, a fragrant paste of mushrooms, shallots, and a smidgen of cream and sherry. We each laid our contributions atop slices of toasted homemade honey whole wheat bread, sprinkled the whole mess with chives from the garden, and sat down to a rich and earthy dinner put together in less than an hour.

Now, could we spend more time preparing our meals? Of course, and we sometimes do. But we also like the option of eating well with a minimum amount of fuss — not because we’re too busy or too tired. Rather, we are content to enjoy the rest this season of life is affording us, and while there are times that part of that enjoyment means dawdling in the kitchen for hours at a time when Josie is napping, there are just as many times that I would just as soon curl up beside her and listen to her breathe, leaving dinner to be worried about later. Either way, it is still possible to eat healthy and delicious food — which a body needs to rest properly, after all.

Mushroom Duxelles with Fried Eggs on Toast

To prepare the duxelles, I consulted two sources: Julia Child for authenticity and The Joy of Cooking for a slightly updated version. Both have strict instructions for squeezing all of the liquid out of your mushrooms before cooking them, and if you want a true paste, you should not skip this step. I was not so concerned with the consistency, so I pressed as much liquid out of the food-processed mixture as I could (through a mesh sieve), but I didn’t spend too much time squeezing the mushrooms in a towel, as both books suggest.

For the duxelles:

Half a pound (or 2 cups) of mushrooms (I used a mixture of baby portabellos and cremini)
3 T. butter
1 shallot, minced
1 T. sherry (optional, but highly recommended)
2 T. heavy cream
Sea salt, to taste

Mince the mushrooms in a food processor with a steel blade as finely as possible. Dump the mixture into a fine mesh sieve and press out the liquid, being careful not to lose any of the mushroom bits. Meanwhile, heat the butter over medium heat and add the shallots. Saute until translucent but not brown and add mushroom mixture. Cook, stirring, until the mushrooms are brown and fragrant and the skillet is almost dry. Sprinkle with salt. Turn up the heat to medium-high and stir in the sherry. Stir and cook until it evaporates, then add cream and turn the heat down to medium-low. Continue to cook and stir until the mixture has absorbed the cream and is a thick, brown paste. Taste and salt as needed.

For the toast and eggs for two:

Toast 2 thick slices of toast and butter lightly. Lay each slice on a plate. Spread some of the mushroom duxelles on each slice of bread. Fry 4 eggs (or 2, if you only want one per serving), and lay 2 eggs on top of each piece of toast. Top with more mushrooms and sprinkle with fresh chives (or other herb — rosemary or thyme would be nice too) and coarse salt. Serve immediately.

The leftover duxelles can be used any number of ways: filling for a calzone or an omelet, base for a pizza, or spread for foccacia bread. One morning we mixed it in with scrambled eggs and pesto, and that worked too. It will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

I made these yummy muffins for some new neighbors who moved in across the street a few weeks ago, and I’d been waiting for the right time to post about them. As soon as I heard Alanna’s idea for this month’s Sugar High Friday — Surprise Inside — I knew this recipe would do the trick.

The cake part of these muffins is buttery and dense, almost shortbread-esque, with a hint of almond. Once you take a bite, though, you get a burst of orange. A dollop of marmalade makes its way into the center of the muffin as you’re filling the muffin cups, but you’d never know it to look at these muffins from the outside once they’re baked. Which is one of the things I love about making them for other people — a real surprise!

The bittersweet tang of the marmalade plays perfectly against the buttery almond flavor of the muffins, and while these probably don’t serve as a particularly balanced nutritional breakfast, they make a delightful afternoon snack, especially with a warm cup of tea.

The best part about making them on the spur of the moment is that I usually have all of the ingredients already on hand — no trip to the store is necessary. The new neighbors must have liked them — they invited us over for drinks the next week!

Marmalade Muffins

2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 large eggs
1/2 t. almond extract
1/2 cup sliced almonds
About a half cup orange marmalade

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Sift the dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and melted butter. Whisk in the eggs, and then stir in the almond extract. Add the dry ingredients to the wet all at once, folding until well-combined, but being careful not to overmix.

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Fill the cups half-full with the batter. Top the batter with about a teaspoonful of marmalade. Fill the cups the rest of the way full and sprinkle with the sliced almonds.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are slightly brown. Cool before serving; the marmalade inside will be very hot!

–adapted from Muffins A-Z by Marie Simmons

This super-fast dinner was inspired by a post by Barbara at Tigers & Strawberries (who just gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl!) about using leftovers for breakfast. I read somewhere recently (and in true mid-semester fashion, can’t remember for the life of me where) that a hash is typically a meal made from leftover potatoes. Which certainly makes sense to anyone who’s every tried to make hash browns with raw potatoes: it can take forever. In light of my recent fascination with using up leftovers, the specifics of this dish were inspired by a ziploc bag full of sweet potatoes roasted the night before and a hankering for breakfast at dinner time (which strikes often, since I love breakfast food, but am not much of a morning cook).

Everything for this meal happens in one skillet, which my clean-up crew appreciates, and the salad greens give this old-fashioned high-fat breakfast more healthful clothing for dinner. I love the way the runny egg yolk becomes part of the dressing; once everything on this plate is all mixed up, each bite is packed with a zingy mixture of flavors. Next time, I’ll use spinach arugula instead of Romaine.

The recipe follows this week’s menu (I need a new dry-erase marker; sorry if it’s hard to read!).

Sweet Potato Hash Salad

4 slices thick bacon
1 cup cooked, chopped sweet potatoes
1 T. Dijon mustard
1 T. cane syrup (honey would also work)
2 T. cider vinegar
Two platefuls of salad greens
2 eggs

Cook bacon slices in a skillet until cooked to desire crispness. Remove and drain off all but about a teaspoon of the fat. Add the sweet potatoes to the skillet, and toss gently, browning as you cook.

Meanwhile, line two plates with the salad greens.

When the potatoes are fairly evenly browned, add the mustard and syrup and stir to mix well. Add the vinegar, stirring constantly, until all ingredients are well-incorporated. Divide the sweet potato mixture between the two plates.

Return the skillet to the heat, and fry two eggs, topping each plate with one of them. Finish each plate with two slices of the reserved bacon.

To eat, mix everything on the plate together thoroughly.

Before Hurricane Katrina, the Mississippi Gulf Coast was known for its pallatial beachfront homes. At the end of one particular drive lined with a towering plot of regal old oaks, gracefully wearing their age in their stature and in the silver locks of Spanish moss dripping from their branches, lay a sprawling white bed and breakfast called Green Oaks.

My first job out of college, as the editor of a small, regional magazine, took me to Green Oaks with my friend and co-worker, Lori, many summers ago. For a special issue on the Coast, we stayed for a few days, attending the blessing of the fleet, a tradition that marks the beginning of shrimping season, wandering around the maritime museum, and eating and photographing some fabulous food. The afternoon we first arrived, after we’d made our way up the winding front stairs, the hostess showed us to our room and then on to the front porch, where aging rocking chairs, a lazy yellow cat named Bill Clinton, and a tray of mint juleps and cucumber sandwiches awaited.

Truth be told, I could have spent the next several days in that rocking chair, listening to the ocean and taking in the warm, salty breeze. I recently opened the issue of the magazine that resulted from that trip, and I could almost smell the heavy, sea-tinged air.
Looking through those stories and photographs now was so strange–like reading about somewhere far away–because so much of what we experienced is no longer there.

My favorite meal we ate was the breakfast the hostess of Green Oaks prepared the morning we were leaving: a soupy bed of red pepper cream sauce, a crispy fried green tomato, and a soft, poached egg, topped with a smattering of fresh, lump crabmeat.

For Memorial Day weekend this year, I tried to recreate that memorable Green Oaks breakfast.

The lovely Green Oaks and its surrounding community may have to be rebuilt from the ground up, but the rich culinary heritage of that coastal region remains. The next time you make crab cakes, I urge you to reserve a couple of tablespoons of the crab meat and try this dish. If you close your eyes really tightly and take a deep breath, you might just be able to smell the salty Gulf air. And if not, I promise you’ll be able to taste it.

Eggs Green Oaks

For the fried green tomatoes:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1 T. Tony Chacheres (or other Cajun seasoning)
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
Buttermilk, to soak the tomatoes
3 green tomatoes
1 cup canola oil
Slice the tomatoes into thick rounds. Salt and pepper; soak in the buttermilk while you prepare the batter and the oil. Mix the flour, corn meal, and the seasoning on a plate. Whisk together the milk and eggs. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot (and not before! A drop of water should sizzle immediately), dip the tomato slices in the egg-milk mixture and then dredge in the seasoned flour. Fry until golden brown, about 5-7 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels and keep warm.

For the spicy cream sauce:
1/2 cup chopped sweet onion
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped finely
1/4 cup butter
1/4 teaspoon Seasoned Salt
Juice of 1 lemon
2 T. half and half
1/4 cup fresh, lump crab meat
Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low. Add the pepper and onion and cook until soft, about 6-8 minutes. Season with the seasoned salt, and add the lemon juice and cream. Cook until all is combined; cover and keep warm. Add the crab meat and stir gently, just before serving. You want it to just be warm.

For the eggs:
1 egg per person
Olive oil
You can poach the eggs if you prefer; I fried them for my husband, who loves them that way. Heat about a half-inch of olive oil in a skillet. Break the egg into the skillet (you can use a cookie cutter if you want it to be a particular shape, as I did; just make sure you grease the sides of the cookie cutter!). Spoon the hot oil on top of the egg as it fries; cook until the white begins to congeal, or until it reaches your desired doneness. To assemble: Spoon some cream sauce onto each plate, reserving the crab meat. Place two slices of fried green tomato in the center and top with an egg. Spoon the rest of the cream sauce over the egg and the tomatoes and scatter the crab meat over the plate. Garnish with paprika if you prefer. Eat immediately.

This recipe was inspired by Jennifer Diaz, former owner of Green Oaks bed and breakfast.

Muffins are a wonderful lazy morning food, I think. You can throw them together without too much effort or thought, enjoy a nice cup of coffee while they bake, and then leisurely nibble one or two or three as the morning turns to noon, drinking more coffee all the while. And once you’ve made a dozen, then you have a quick on-the-go breakfast for those not-so-lazy mornings that unfortunately have become more the norm around here.

Heavy with carrot, coconut, and chunks of apples, these muffins are packed with more nutrients than most, making them fair game for ARF/5-a-Day Tuesdays over at Sweetnicks. They are dense, moist, and laced with the spicy kick of cinnamon. Grating the carrots takes some time by hand, but a whirl in the food processor will also do the trick. Other than that step, they come together pretty quickly, leaving plenty of time for you to enjoy your morning.

Carrot, Coconut, and Apple Muffins

2 cups flour
1 1/4 cups sugar plus extra for sprinkling
2 t. baking soda
1/2 T. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
2 cups carrots, peeled and grated (about 4 large carrots)
1 apple, small-diced
1/3 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
3 large eggs
1 T. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a muffin tin and set aside.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add the grated carrots, diced apples, and the coconut; stir to blend.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the butter, oil, and eggs. Stir in the vanilla, and then add the wet ingredients to the dry all at once. Fold until just combined.

Spoon the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops with sugar, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Note to faithful readers: Sorry for the sporadic posting; I had such grand illusions about my month-long break from school and how much fabulous food I would make and post about. There has certainly been no shortage of food creation, but I’ve been so busy enjoying sharing it with friends and family that I’ve neglected the documentation part of the process. Now that I’m back in a regular routine–summer school started today–I hope to post more regularly as well.

Another sort of technical note: Alanna brought it to my attention that my RSS feed has been acting up. Apparently, there are two Weekly Dish feeds, pre- and post-Wordpress. If you are a subscriber to the feed and your reader hasn’t updated in quite some time, would you be so kind as to drop a comment and let me know? I’d be oh so grateful.

Fortunately, Thursday night’s dinner turned out much better than Wednesday’s last week. At least I was able to eat it!

We are not big breakfast people–usually, a bowl or cereal and a banana and a cup of coffee are all either of us eat before noon. But we love breakfast food, so I often plan to make dishes usually served before noon at night. I have fond memories of my mom doing the same–she especially loved to make omelets for supper.

Me, well, I’m a waffle girl. I don’t know if it’s the crisp texture, the pretty shape, or just because I’m a fan of all bread products, but I love waffles of all kinds.

These turned out pretty well–I like the way the strawberries lightly flavored the batter, but I think I should have chopped them into smaller pieces; the slices made holes in the batter, and the part of the berry directly exposed to the waffle iron browned a little too much for my liking. Small-diced strawberries would probably solve that problem.

I topped the waffles with a smattering of sliced strawberries, a dollop of sour cream, and a drizzle of locally made cane syrup. Served with a side of bacon, this meal made us very happy breakfast-for-dinner diners.

Strawberry Waffles
based on the Basic Waffle recipe in The Joy of Cooking

1 3/4 cups flour
1 T. baking powder
2 T. sugar
1/2 t. salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 stick butter, melted
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1/2 cup small-diced strawberries

Preheat the waffle iron. Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, melted butter, milk, and vanilla. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry all at once, folding together gently until they are well-incorporated. The batter should be a bit lumpy, like muffin batter. Fold in the strawberries.

Prepare the waffles, according to the specifications for your waffle iron. (Mine has a little light on it that goes off when the waffles are done, so I never time them.) To serve, stack two waffles on a plate, top with a dollop of sour cream or butter, a handful of sliced strawberries, and a drizzle of cane or maple syrup. Bacon makes an excellent side.
For those of you keeping up with my attempts to eat local, here’s a list of this week’s market purchases and my menu plan:

• Bought: corn, broccoli, carrots, green tomatoes, mixed salad greens, and shrimp
• Monday: Shrimp Scampi and green salad
• Tuesday: Vegetable plate–Hannah’s broccoli, corn on the cob, oven-roasted carrots, salad
• Wednesday: Shrimp and corn soup, green salad, and bread
• Thursday: Fried green tomato BLTs with Vidalia onion rings

I’ll continue to post recipes and reports for the dinners we actually end up having!