Four for the Price of One-A Polack's Guide to Leftovers

So, as Saturday was the busiest day known to man, Sunday was equally as crazy, Monday was my birthday, and I was running on minimal sleep, I figured that one big Tuesday blog would suffice for this little project of mine. Now, just because I was crazy busy (Working not one, but two jobs from 9 am until about 10 pm), doesn't mean that I didn't take the time to enjoy an amazing breakfast.

Friday night, I had a few friends over to enjoy the anniversary of my birth (which is tomorrow). Because of my incessant need to buy 27 different kinds of cheese, and my friends' understanding of my cheese obsession (oh yes, OBSESSION), I ended up with a tasty variety of cheesy goodness. So both yesterday and this morning's breakfast utilize the cheesy-ness (I'll be making some homemade mac and cheese tomorrow!)


Saturday

I consumed one of the tastiest breakfasts that I've had in a while. I cooked the last 2 pieces of bacon from the bacon wrapped stuffed jalepeno peppers. The I cut a slice of leftover beer bread, used a shot glass to poke a hole in the bread, and grilled the bread in the remaining bacon greasy goodness. I dropped an egg in the bread hole, fried and flipped the bread/egg combo. Topped it with the bacon and melted cablanca cheese(a semi hard goat cheese that I highly recommend). A-MAZ-ING.

Sunday

I made an egg scramble with the stuffing from the aforementioned jalepenos (cream cheese, gouda, pineapple, and jalepeno). Fast, easy, and tasty. I woke up pretty early for this one, and had some cleaning to do, so I didn't want to go all out.

Monday

I woke up on birthday morning at the bf's house, where he has stocked the fridge with Corn King bacon (my fave) and eggs. After coaxing him into waking up for bacon, I finally got him out of bed for an easy peasy bacon, cheesy egg (scrambled with cheddar), and English muffin breakfast. He commented to me about how as the birthday girl, I probably should have had someone cook me breakfast...but really...I wanted bacon. He had bacon. He doesn't cook bacon. or eggs. Really, he doesn't cook at all. (He did toast the English muffins and make juice....AND he cleaned up. Winning in my book). So I cooked breakfast and it was bacon-y and happy.

Today

Today is the first day of my new job as a clinician at a learning center. It is vitally important to have a good solid breakfast before such an important event. But of course, waking up at 6am isn't conducive to a well made meal...particularly because I am always running late...I left the house with a bottle of water and a 90 calorie snack pack (okay, that came from my car snack pack box--also known as a glove compartment). I realized that there was a Dunkin Donuts on the corner of Main and St. Charles, and grabbed a coffee (YES!) and breakfast sandwich. Coffee was great but the sammich left something to be desired. Note to self: NEVER get sausage sammich from DD. It was like eating seasoned cardboard. Boo. Next time, I'll just eat the bagel.
So here I am, sitting in the (ok, one of many) downtown Oak Park Starbuck's (Thanks for the gift card, J!) typing blog of joy. And I'm off to the new job in t minus 10 minutes! Wish me luck! <3

Ok, Now I'm Showing Off...

So I considered just eating one of the funfetti birthday cupcakes I made myself last night for breakfast this morning. But then I thought about you and the blog, and I felt guilty. So I dug through the fridge for something edible and breakfasty. I wanted to show off, and make something that wasn't a crepe. Then, I thought about going out to breakfast and cheating you out of a Chrissy original again. Then, I considered plain ole eggs and toast. But we're not there yet. I've got to impress you with my breakfast creations. So I took out some eggs...and decided on a frittata...but what to make?

After a little mixing and pouring and baking, 30 minutes later, I had a six cheese pizza frittata. Using all egg whites(yeah, I wasted the yolk, but sometimes a girl has to hold off some of the cholesterol, ok?), a little bit of milk, parmesan and romano shaker cheese, and pizza seasonings(marjoram, oregano, basil, onion, and garlic), I put this tasty baked omelet in the oven for 20 minutes. Then I took it out, topped it with marinara and 4 cheese shredded mix (asiago, mozzarella, provolone, and cheddar), broiled for 2 minutes, garnished it with a basil chiffonade, and voile! breakfast of champions!

Let me take a moment to obsess about my mini herb garden--the fresh rosemary and basil are merely the start of my fantastic collection of herbs that I intend to care for. For about $3 at Walmart, you can get a decently sized plant that will last you WAY longer than the pre-packaged fresh herbs at Trader Joe's. Also, not that I don't adore Trader Joe's (They have a great gruyere cheese and there's always free samples), but don't buy your basil plant from them. Every single one I've had got this basil disease and died at a certain height.

So, overall, a delicious breakfast, and healthy too. But let's be honest here. I ate the cupcake, too.

Fail. But...Not.

So I messed up breakfast. Sort of. My crepes (the aforementioned not measuring thing kind of bit me in the ass) were not the right consistency (which is weird, because they seemed fine when I was mixing them) and they did not survive the flip. So I didn't get to fold my tasty ingredients: tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil. into the crepe. I turned it into a little crepe napoleon, layering the goodies instead of stuffing them.  Then, I topped it with an egg, and devoured it. Of course my little naming of the crepe dish resulted in yet another googling experience, so here are some other napoleons for your reading pleasure:

Salmon and Cream Cheese Crepe Napoleon
A Creperie Called Napoleon
Eggplant Napoleon 
Wiki Wild at Waterloo-A History Lesson
Tots Napoleon

So it may not have looked perfect, but once I topped the layered mess of stuff with an egg and garnished it with a basil chiffonade, it looked more than edible. I was mostly happy with my meal, but the fresh roma tomato kind of took over the flavor, and if I were to do it again, I'd use sun-dried tomatoes, for a little sweeter combination. Which leads me to my favorite grocery shopping tip: When buying sun-dried tomatoes, or other slightly pricey ingredients that you don't need a lot of, check your local grocery store for a salad bar (Dominick's has a great one). At 4.99/lb, it's a GREAT deal.

Side note: I'm a big fan of saving money-coupons, groupons, and freebies are the wave of my shopping experiences. Speaking of which, my birthday is coming up fast, and my e-mail inbox is SWARMING with freebies-meals, coupons, appetizers, desserts, movies, parties, and more! So when your server asks if you want to fill out that little card with your e-mail address, DO IT. You'll thank me later.

1 Day In and I've Already Cheated.

I went out to breakfast this morning. I know, right? But come on, no one's perfect! I love it when I get a call from T to go out for breakfast. We always have an enjoyable (and leisurely) morning/afternoon. Today wasn't any different. Here are my tips for dining out at breakfast:

~Never order something you can easily make for yourself (really, what's the point?)
~ Be adventurous; try not to order the same thing twice.
~Learn from your breakfast: how would you make it (fill in the blank with tastier, healthier, better, different, etc.)

Egg Harbor Cafe rolled out a new menu (apparently they do this seasonally-SCORE!) I ordered the Fried Green Tomato Benedict with cheesy grits and harbor potatoes. The Benny had bacon, roasted red pepper, fried green tomatoes, poached eggs and cheese on an English muffin. It made me think of New Orleans in more ways than one.

NOLA is my second favorite city in the world--Chicago, an obvious first. When I was last down there about a year ago, I had the most amazing Benedict I've ever consumed: 2 crawfish cakes topped with a poached egg and crawfish etoufee, served with a gigantic biscuit and New Orleans style breakfast potatoes. I could not have been happier! Yep, even took a picture of it:

The other NOLA thought that came to my head was the fried green tomato. It is REALLY hard to find a good fried green tomato in suburbia. I was certainly impressed with this one. A little spicy, and cooked to perfection--how could I not be?  It reminded me of the fried green tomato Po' Boy from some tiny dive restaurant in the French Quarter. Yum. 

Ohh that's another tip:

~When you are on vacation, drink the proverbial water, and dine out at a place you've never heard of, preferably one that you can walk into with jeans and a tee-shirt. Cheeseburger in Paradise is the same everywhere you go.

I leave you with this one question: what did you have for breakfast?

Breakfast: It's What Gets Me Out of Bed Every Morning

I love breakfast. Really, how can anyone not? Eggs? Check. CHEESE?!?!? Check. Bread/Carbs of some sort? Check. Potatoes? Check. BACON?!? Double Check.

As you can see, I have a little bit of a love affair with breakfast. Frequently posting my tasty concoctions on Facebook, bragging to my non-culinary genius of a best friend (though she makes excellent dessert), savoring every last bite of my tasty breakfast for one...I adore breakfast. I decided that sharing my breakfast excellence with the blogging world was only a little necessary.

Now, I must warn you, its not your typical breakfast in my house. Occasionally, I will have guests that I cook normal plain and boring breakfast for: friends, fam, etc., but for me, it's go big or go home. Take this morning for example: peach and havarti crepes with an over medium egg garnished with fresh chopped rosemary. There wasn't much to work with in the fridge, but I made an AMAZING breakfast. :)

Of course, what I think is a great idea, may not bode so kindly to weaker stomachs...I often find myself googling the strange combinations that I come up with, just to see if other people think like I do. Here are some of the suggested tasty treats:

Stuffed French Toast
Peach Rosemary Jam
Peach Rosemary Lemonade

I'm terrible with recipes, because I don't follow them...and I never measure anything. I know that for two small crepes, I use about 1/6 cup of flour, maybe a tablespoon of egg white, a few pinches of sugar, and enough water to make it super thin...cook in a pan on medium heat. For this recipe, I used a whole peach and several small slices of havarti cheese, and garnished it with some fresh rosemary from my mini-herb garden. I also don't particularly like to waste the rest of an egg, so I ate the remainder of the egg over medium with my crepes. This is the recipe that I based my crepes off of:

Crepe Recipe

Crepes are actually pretty easy to make, and don't take very long, so go for it and try one! :)

See you tomorrow morning!