Breakfast (again)

Waffles out of the New Best Recipe-- involves a whipped egg white and cream of tartar and MAN they come out good. Probably even better with buttermilk, but as I didn't have any... it's nice that they put variations in there. And James invented this raspberry/blueberry/cherry sauce to go on top of it (my Mom's Jamesian request is stuffed french toast with a raspberry sauce, so he's experimenting). I'm still waiting for it to get cool enough to make that onion balsamic marmalade...

Garlic Mayonnaise

I meant to write about it in last night's post--the recipe for garlic mayonnaise in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is utterly fantastic! I'm NOT a mayonnaise fan, but I love having that garlic mayonnaise on so many things!

(We had breakfast at Carl's Jr. this morning, as per our Pioneer Day parade-watching tradition...Michael would never let me put feta cheese anywhere near the eggs...I think I'm battling a losing battle in that my kids don't like good food and neither does my husband.)

Breakfast this morning

Was eggs scrambled with a little grilled chicken, feta, and mild salsa. I was going to include some spinach, but:

spinach = gone bad = very yes

so no vegetables, which disappointed me, believe it or not. I've discovered I have a serious infatuation with vegetables as long as they're not raw. If they're raw they all taste faintly like grass to me, but cooked.... aaaaaaaahhh. Yet another bonus point for Vegetarian Cooking for Everybody is that it doesn't just do the trendy raw food/minimal intervention bit. Deborah Madison cooks. Oh so good.

Side note: Did I ever tell you about Ah Sa Wan? It was this Chinese restaurant up in Fairbanks (I have no idea if it's still there). And their commercials always used to end the same way: Ah Sa Wan, Ah So Good. I have the HARDEST time not tacking that on every time I say "oh so good". Which is unfortunate, as only interior Alaskans know what the heck I'm talking about.

As Promised: Balsamic Onion Marmalade

This is what I was cooking when I phoned you yesterday.

I found the recipe here.

I plan to use it atop a lovely roast beef panini...when I remember to buy roast beef at the grocery store. (I went today...and bought ham.)

I am loving your sandwich ideas. I'm not really a sandwich person, which I blame upon the years of brownbag school lunches that consisted of a PB&J every. single. day. It was so nice to move to the States and eat in a cafeteria at lunch! I still feel a little nauseated at the idea of a packed lunch...weird, huh?

We did have PB&J for lunch today...it is rather good with my homemade blueberry jam. (I really need to find some wild blueberries though...blueberry jam is so much better with wild blueberrires.)

The blueberry jam and the onion marmalade look very similar to each other...I hope Michael doesn't accidentally use one in place of the other. ("Here's a nice PB&O sandwich...")

Starting with

sammiches.
I LOVE sandwiches in the summer. At the moment, it's too hot around here to be doing real cooking. But I'm out of sandwich ideas, and I need some new ones. Here are my standbys, though:

Salami sandwiches:
French bread with Genoa salami, a little ham, VERY good cheddar (I'm gonna have to send you home with some Beecher's cheese. Holy Hannah it's good), and a bit of olive oil.

Italian roast beef:
Italian roast beef (obviously), mayo, dijon, lettuce (Costco six pack of artisan lettuces, how I love thee!) and medium cheddar on onion buns.

PBJ (sometimes the kids get it right!)

Grilled chicken, Bergenost cheese, roasted red peppers and sundried tomatoes on French bread...

Something occurs to me looking at these. I seriously need to work on my sauces/condiments. And that lovely vegetarian cookbook you gave me has LOADS. I think I'm gonna start making one or two of those a week, just to try. And they should keep nearly forever in the fridge, or at least a lot of them should.

Hrm.

I'm all for posting pictures and recipes for the totally awesome things we make (and eat, in my case. James' stuff has improved in the past couple months, which I frankly didn't think was possible). Starting with that onion balsamic stuff you were telling me about yesterday! And the weird stuff our toddlers eat (Will snarfed down a ten inch bratwurst yesterday). And stuff we want to try, and kitchen disasters, and anything else that strikes our respective fancies:). What about you?

Dear Denise:

Alright, let's get cooking...how do we want to run things around here?