A Lightened Up Breakfast Poutine

One of my absolute favourite brunch places in Toronto is Fire on the East Side. They do this artery clogging but totally delicious breakfast poutine that features pulled pork, poached eggs, chipotle hollondaise sauce and mountains of home fries.

It's insane. And totally delicious. And a luxury, because eating that much egg and butter isn't good for anyone.

Around lunch time today I found myself thinking about that poutine. I really, really wanted a poached egg and more sweet potato fries. But, I also didn't want mountains of calories. We had kale in the crisper, Ewenity Sheep's Milk Feta and a ton of cremini mushrooms.

Slowly, a recipe began brewing in my head. I'd nix the sauce (hollondaise or otherwise) and top a bowl of sweet potato fries with some sautéed mushrooms and kale. In order to keep the flavour of luxury though, I made the sweet potato fries with white truffle oil and some truffle salt. This added a great depth of flavour.

Truffled Sweet Potato Fries topped with Kale, Mushrooms, Feta & Poached Eggs

Ingredients

1 tbsp canola oil, divided
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 small bunch kale, tough stems removed and leaves coarsely chopped
10 cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 large eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white vinegar
1 oz feta, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste

1 batch sweet potato fries, made with truffle oil (if possible)

Directions

1. Heat ½ tbsp oil in a large skillet set over medium heat. Sauté garlic for 30 seconds, or until fragrant. Add in kale and 1/3 cup of water, and let kale steam just until the water evaporates. Season with salt and pepper to taste, remove from pan and set aside somewhere to keep warm.

2. Wipe out frying pan, return to heat and pour in remaining oil. Sauté mushrooms for 5-10 minutes, or until liquid is complete evaporated and mushrooms are golden brown. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.

3. While the mushrooms are frying, heat 1" water in a small saucepan. Stir in 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp vinegar. Bring to a gentle simmer. A small stream of bubbles should just be breaking the surface. If you have an instant read thermometer, it should read about 200ºF. Crack egg into a small dish and gently slide egg from dish into simmering water. Cook, for approximately 3-5 minutes or until the white outside the yolk is just set. Remove carefully with a slotted spoon and set aside while you cook the next egg.

4. To assemble the poutine,  layer potatoes in two shallow bowls, sprinkling each bowl with a quarter of the feta. Top with kale and mushrooms, one poached egg on each dish and sprinkle with remaining feta.

An easy, lightened up breakfast luxury!

The Need for Greens

All this week, I've been really sick with some kind of chest cold/virus. For the first 3 days, I couldn't go five minutes without having a coughing fit. Now, the virus has moved up into my head (read: streaming nose), and the coughing has changed from less frequent to more intense attacks.

I've had 4 days off work. My husband has taken to calling me Wheezy McWheezerton.

Let's hope it's a name that doesn't stick.

Anyway, as I've been sick, I've been craving healthy, colourful food with tons of flavour.

One night, we went a little Japanese and did this:

From bottom right: snap peas, kale, chard and cabbage namul, rice and Ma Po Tofu

 Now, I have to admit, of all the things on that plate, the one thing I could have eaten the entire serving bowl of was the namul.

Namul (or namuru) comes to Japan via Korea, and is frequently used as a bento filler. It was certainly one of the more common fillers as a part of my school lunches in Japan. I've experimented with different versions off the Just Bento website (here and here), and I'll be honest, I'm still trying to recreate that exact one that I used to get in Sakashita. It's a work in progress.

The great thing about this recipe is it works with just about any greens you have lying about in your fridge. I had leftover kale, swiss chard and cabbage, so that's what got used up. I never measure the greens, so I guess it's lucky that the dressing seems to work no matter how much I throw into it.

Namuru Greens

(based on Just Bento's recipe)

Ingredients

1 half bunch chard leaves shredded, stems discarded
1 half bunch kale leaves shredded, stems discarded
¼ cabbage, shredded

½ tsp salt
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tsp honey

Directions

1. Bring a large (and I do mean large, you'll be blanching all the greens in there at once) pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add cabbage. Cook for one minute, then add kale and chard. Cook for one more minute, or until bright green. Remove greens from boiling water and plunge into ice water. This will stop the cooking process.

2. Once the greens are cold, remove from water, squeezing to exact as much liquid as possible.

3. In a bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients. Toss with greens and serve.

It's funny, because this recipe tastes to me like there's soy sauce in it, even though there isn't! It's got a great umami taste though.

I've had some success keeping the namuru overnight and putting it in a bento for the following day, but I've also had occasions where it has turned grey. If anyone knows why that's happening, let me know!

If you're wondering why I didn't post a recipe for the Ma Po Tofu, here's your answer:

We cheated.

I'm sick. It's allowed.

A Rustic Quiche for a January Night

January is a month for simplicity and comfort. As you've probably noticed by now, I can't seem to stop throwing those words around, but it's true. I want food that will make me feel like I've curled up with a warm blanket.

A quick glance 'round the pantry revealed whole wheat flour, lots of eggs, some kale and a can of salmon. A quiche seemed the natural course of affairs.

Now, one of the challenges with quiche in our household is that my husband loathes eggs.

Well, he claims to loathe them. The way I see it, he'll enjoy them mixed in things so long as the main dish doesn't actually taste like eggs.

Egg fried rice? Not a problem for him. Loves it. Poached eggs? That's a problem.

So when it comes to quiche, it has to be flavourful. The eggs need to serve as a binder rather than the star ingredient.

Mmm. Chalk full of KALE.

 Luckily for me (or rather, for my husband), I'd been saving up a jar of The Fishery's smoked salmon since November for one cold winter's night like this.

Expensive, but SO delicious

It's massive hunks of gorgeous smoked salmon.... in a can. You cannot get better than this. It's sooo much smokier than your vacuum-packed cold or hot smoked salmon. I think I've waxed eloquently about their smoked salmon mousse before too.

If not waxed eloquently, then at least mentioned it in passing. Whatever. It's dynamite.

I used my go-to lighter crust for this recipe and included whole wheat flour in it (a first for me), and it turned out pretty decently (as much as whole wheat all-purpose flour will allow you to!) I'll definitely use this recipe again.

Salmon & Kale Quiche with a Pepper Whole Wheat Crust

Ingredients

Pastry:
½ cup white flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ tsp ground pepper
¼ tsp ground red pepper (I used my Japanese shichimi powder)
¼ tsp salt
3 tbsp butter, cut into small chunks
4½ tbsp ice water

Filling:
1 tsp butter
1 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3-4 cups shredded kale, stems removed and rinsed well
1 can salmon (smoked if you can find it)
1 small hunk of interesting cheese (I used the last little hunk of a raw milk cheese with ash in it)
5 egg white
3 egg yolks
½ cup milk
pepper to taste

Directions

Pastry:

1. Place flours, peppers and salt in a food processor. Pulse to combine. Continue pulsing, adding butter chunks slowly until mixture is coarse. Slowly add ice water, again, in pulses until mixture just holds together.

*Confession: I'm terrible at making pastry, but this version is reliable enough for me to make a serviceable, reduced fat version that everyone seems happy with. If you have your own pastry recipe that you love, use it!*

2. Turn mixture onto a sheet of plastic wrap and form into a circle. Wrap tightly and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

3. Remove from fridge and roll out until desired size. I used an 8" deep dish pie crust for this, but have use the same recipe with my 9" tart pan as well. Fit dough into your pan and crimp the edges.

4. Preheat oven to 450º.

5. Prick bottom all over with fork. This will prevent the dough from puffing up when you bake it in the oven. Place in the freezer for 10 minutes. Remove and bake for 20 minutes, or until beginning to turn golden.

Ready to be filled (have I mentioned how much I hate my harvest gold stove?)

6. Let pastry cool for 5-10 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 400º.

Filling:

1. While the dough is chilling, heat butter and olive oil in a pan. Sauté onions over low heat for 10-15 minutes, or until sweet and golden. Add garlic and sauté for an additional minute. Remove mixture from pan and place in a bowl.

2. Place kale in the pan and, stirring frequently, cook until wilted and dark green.

before wilting to a glorious deep emerald green

3. Remove kale from pan and add to onion mixture. Open the can of salmon and remove any large bones and skin.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg whites, egg yolks, milk and pepper (I leave salt out here because of the sodium in the smoked salmon and the cheese).

5. Begin layering fillings on top of crust. I started with the kale and onion mixture first.

And then the salmon:

And then poured in the egg mixture and dotted the top with cheese.

See the layer of ash in the cheese?

6. Bake at 400º for about 20 minutes, or until egg is set and puffed and the cheese has begun to turn golden!

Serve with a salad on the side and enjoy the leftovers for breakfast or lunch tomorrow!

Earthy, warming, rustic and delicious.

Pasta with Kale, Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Bacon

Until about a month ago, I'd never had kale before. Now it seems that I eat it 2-3 times a week! I cannot get enough of this stuff.

This recipe from Cooking Light turned out to be a total winner, in spite of my husband and I agreeing that we wanted more. We ate this meal then did our Christmas cards (while sipping our Chestnut Liqueur). It was the perfect weeknight meal.

I will say, even though I used the 5 cups of chopped kale called for, I felt the recipe could have used more.

Orecchiette with Kale, Bacon and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Ingredients

8  ounces  uncooked orecchiette pasta
5  cups  bagged prewashed kale
2  slices center-cut bacon
1/4  cup  oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped
1/2  teaspoon  crushed red pepper
3  large garlic cloves, chopped
1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
3/8  teaspoon  salt
1  ounce  Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, shaved
2  tablespoons  fresh lemon juice
Preparation

1. Cook pasta in boiling water 8 minutes or until almost tender. Add kale, and cook 2 minutes. Drain in a colander over a bowl, reserving 1/2 cup cooking liquid.

2. While pasta cooks, cook bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat 4 minutes or until crisp. Remove bacon from pan with a slotted spoon; crumble and set aside. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add sun-dried tomatoes, crushed red pepper, and garlic to drippings in pan; cook 1 minute, stirring frequently. Add pasta mixture, reserved 1/2 cup cooking liquid, black pepper, and salt to pan; toss to combine. Top pasta mixture evenly with bacon and cheese; drizzle evenly with lemon juice.