Favorites: weekend breakfast

Saturday mornings are almost always eggs, coffee and reading (when we're in town, which is two or three times a month). Todd makes fantastic scrambled eggs and breakfast burritos and we LOVE to doctor them up with salsa, Tillamook Colby Jack, mushrooms and chili garlic sauce.

If you're not familiar, it's like magic in a bottle. I use it in soups, on tacos, mix it into salsa, on eggs...I guess that's mostly it, but it's really good.

In other weekend breakfast news, you should check out the world's best pancake recipe. It doesn't get better than that. Seriously.

Cashew Chicken

Last summer, we had really good cashew chicken from Panda Express (which you are more than welcome to judge me for if you feel so compelled, but I like what I like. And you are probably a food snob). I decided that it couldn't possibly be too difficult to duplicate at home. Wrong-ish. The sauce copycat recipes I found online all sucked (hoisin sauce...disgusting) so I decided to just use some bottled sauce. And it turned out to be really, really good.

So here's my thoroughly modified version of Panda's cashew chicken:

Ingredients
1 pound of chicken breasts
2-3 red, yellow or orange bell peppers (I use a combination)
1 large white onion
3-4 stalks of celery
1 can of sliced water chestnuts
1 bunch of cilantro (my clump of leaves are about the size of both of my fists together, so kind of a lot)
4-6 green onion stalks (to taste)
1 cup (or less) of cashews or cashew pieces
1 clove garlic, minced

Snow day

Yesterday was the second snowy day we've had here, and I have to say, I'd forgotten how much I love snow. I remembered loving it, but didn't remember that I could happily spend the whole day looking out the window. Which I almost did. You can see in the picture that it wasn't really snowflakes wafting down to earth, since they'd clumped together to form "megaflakes."

The only appropriate food for a day like yesterday is soup. (Well, to be fair, scotch, hot chocolate, warm chocolate chip cookies and pancakes also make the cut, but who EVER turns those down?) So I had this sausage bean soup. (Leftovers from last week.) I've made a few changes since I started making this recipe last year, including:

• Sometimes I add spinach (I think the recipe says fresh, but frozen works fine)
• Switched to using shell pasta -- it's cuter
• Add celery. I have this thing for cooked celery. Weird, I know.
• More onion, more canned tomatoes, more carrots.
• Crushed red pepper, since the sausage I use now isn't as spicy. This is a great spicy soup.

I love using it when we're having people over for dinner since it makes the house smell so good. Soup, fresh bread and salad make a perfect wintry fall dinner (or lunch).

Sort of successful roast beast

At some point earlier this week, I got it in my head that I should make roast beef. It was always among the highlights of Sunday brunches growing up, and I couldn't think of any reason why I shouldn't make it. In retrospect, these:

• I have never been successful cooking big pieces of animal (chicken stands out in particular)
• I don't have the greatest track record of baked meals turning out well
• I'd never made a roast before
• Picking cruddy cuts of meat is a hidden talent of mine

all should have been good deterrents. Anyway, I picked up something labeled "round rump roast" at the grocery store, which looked very much like the pictures of what I'd planned on making. As is the case for some women when jeans shopping, the "rump" ruined everything. Little did I know I'd picked up a super-tough piece of meat.

Anyway, things turned out ok. Todd liked it a lot more than I did, which isn't saying much, since I found the combination of spices I used borderline nauseating. (Dried basil, dried oregano, garlic powder, kosher salt, cracked black pepper.) It must have been the basil/oregano. Other than that, it was kind of like chewing on beef-flavored shoe leather. Todd ate it on sandwiches.

It ended up sort of like the picture. Not really that bad, but not really that good, either. Lesson: get the right cut of meat.

Chocolate zucchini cake, take 2

So the cake overflowed, which is lovely. But it has redeemed itself...

Because that is a very good way to spend a few minutes in the afternoon. And it just might be my new favorite chocolate cake recipe. Next time, though, I'll use my springform pan and avoid the spillage.

And hopefully those jagged edges that looks like I bit around the outside of the cake. (I didn't. Though I did eat some of those pieces.) This would be a great cake to layer, because it's so tall. It'd look like three layers with the work of two. (Three-layer cakes are my nemesis: one layer heads east, another west, and pretty soon it's just a disaster.)

Coming up later: reaction from our landlords (who pay our utilities) when they find out I left the windows open and the heat running all day to air our apartment from a) burnt cake and b) the fumes from the table I refinished, which we suspect are trying to kill us while we sleep.

Musings on hose-able kitchens + choc zucchini cake

At the moment, I am mid-cake. By which I mean, the cake is partway done baking. I have just finished dealing with this disaster:

Maybe someday someone will invent a kitchen that can be sealed and hosed down after use. On the other hand, I ADORE my dishwasher. You put dirty dishes in, and magically, they come out clean. (For those not tuning in from the houseblog, the dishwasher in my house--not apartment--does the opposite. You put them in semi-clean, and they come out dirty. This is revolutionary.)

Anyway, will update on how this cake comes out in a bit. The recipe (doubled) produced what seemed to be in the neighborhood of a gallon of batter. (That blue bowl.) That seemed excessive to me, but as long as the pans don't overflow in the oven, I suppose it doesn't matter.

Last night's tweeted crostata

I couldn't describe the scent (well, I could, but it totally wouldn't cut it), but I can post a pic. Link to recipe on Twitter.

Note: Good for breakfast.