From Cali, with love

  
Husband and I took a recent trip to Northern California to visit  the Wrangler and Bugsy.  Bugsy suggested a breakfast restaurant in Occidental.  While we drove the windy roads to this Northern California town, Bugsy whipped out her smart phone to show us the restaurant's website and, even better, its menu.  I don't know about you, but I LOVE to read restaurant menus.  I especially like to read the menus before I visit a place.  I don't like to wait until I'm seated in the restaurant for the first glimpse of the menu.  I  want to know what to expect and have an idea of what I want to order.  I'd much rather soak in the atmosphere of the place than spend the first 10 minutes with my head buried in the accordian, plastic-covered book.  Plus, I find it exciting to read menus and start your mouth watering for something on that said menu.  Thankfully, I found a kindred spirit who does this, too.  Thanks, Anne, for making me feel like not as much of a food nerd!

Anyways, as I was reading the menu of this restaurant in Cali, two things jumped out at me:  Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes and Organic Brown Rice Scramble.  The first choice I knew I would love.  As for the second choice, I was intrigued, but skeptical.  The description: "Brown rice scrambled with eggs, green onion, feta, and spinach."  My first thought, brown rice in eggs???  That sounded so weird to me and a little more of a "hippie" breakfast than I'm used to.  But knowing I'd probably never find this dish on a menu at home, I decided to take the risk.  I also ordered the pancakes.  What can I say?  I was on vacation.

The pancakes were amazing.  The brown rice scramble -- out of this world!  Everyone at the table raved after trying it.  I think I definitely had the best breakfast at the table.  The eggs were perfectly fluffy and beautifully studded with specks of brown rice.  The spinach, green onions and feta perfectly rounded out the scramble.  The flavor exploded with every bite and was not at all what I expected from brown rice in a breakfast dish.  Brown rice notoriously has a bad rap for being bland.  This dish helped me see that brown rice is what you make of it.  It can be full-flavored if you do it right.

So, knowing that it maybe a long time before I would ever get that breakfast dish again, I had to make it back home. For me, part of the fun of going out to eat is finding inspiration for my cooking at home.  If I eat something tasty in a restaurant, I often try to recreate it at home.  It's like a challenge, a motivation to make restaurant dishes at home. This dish also kicks off my other feature I'd like to start -- I'm calling it "Oh, no, she didn't!"  I love to put unexpected ingredients together.  Sometimes it works out.  And sometimes it's, well, a good story to tell.  I also love a good challenge, so feel free to challenge me with ingredient combinations.

My take on the brown rice scramble is my Front Porch Frittata.  Named as such because I ate it on our front porch.  The recipe doesn't have green onions as I didn't have any at the time, but I would highly suggest them instead of the sweet onions I used.  It just gives the dish the added flavor it needs.   Another tip: make sure you turn your burner off after your put the frittata in the oven.  Common sense to most, I know.  Let's just say after I pulled the frittata back out of the oven, I might have placed it on the burner which may or may not have been still on.  Continued sizzling could be a sign of a possible hot burner.  I'm just saying.  In case you weren't aware.

Front Porch Frittata

2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup diced onion (or green onion if you prefer)
2 tsp minced garlic
5 oz raw spinach, coarsely chopped
8 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2/3 cup cooked brown rice, cooled
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

Bring the 2-3 tablespoons olive oil to a medium heat in an oven safe 10-inch frying pan.  While the oil is warming, crack the eggs in a large bowl and whisk eggs with the milk, salt and pepper.  Add the feta and brown rice and stir.  Set aside.  Turn on your boiler to the high setting.

Toss in the onion and garlic and saute' until onion is soft.  If you are using green onions instead, they will need very little saute' time.  Add the chopped spinach leaves and let them wilt ever so slightly.  Add egg mixture and use a spatula to mix all ingredients together evenly.  Let the frittata cook for 5-8 minutes or until it is set around the edges.  Place in broiler for 5 minutes or until the middle is firm.  Watch closely as this can sometimes go very quickly.  
 
Every frittata recipe I've ever seen say to flip the frittata onto a plate.  I've never successfully been able to do this.  So, if you can, more power to you!  And, please, share your tips.  

Ode to corn

When I moved back to Iowa in my mid-20's, one of my friends frequently asked if I had met any good corn-fed Iowa boys.  For so long, my answer was no, no, and NO!  That is, until Husband came around.  In him, I found my corn-fed Iowa boy (via Indiana, but after age 4 he was officially a corn-fed Iowa boy).  All this corn-fed love has seemed to have another influence on me...in the form of food.  I seem to be obsessed with cooking with corn.  You may envision me cooking with yummy Iowa corn from the cob.  But, no, you'd be wrong.  I'm currently obsessed with corn in its ground form.

Almost every dish I've been wanting to do as of late contains ground corn in one form or another.  From Pan-Seared Polenta to Chili with Hominy to Jalapeno Cornbread to Turkey Verde with Hominy to Grit Souffle, I think I'm officially stuck on ground corn.  It's like I'm trying to channel life just off the Mayflower.

Every time I mention a new meal idea that mysteriously contains ground corn, Husband just nods politely with a amused smirk floating across his face.  He's graciously putting up with my corn fetish.  I don't want to push my luck for too long but for now he's happily getting his fill of corn.

One form of ground corn that I am fairly new to is polenta.  In fact, the first time I ate polenta was at the hands of a former nun in the northern hills of Italy on my 30th birthday trip.  I arrived at the ex-nun's home at the hands of my American friends who have spent the majority of their life living in Italy.  She graciously invited us over for a meal and to talk about her life.  The meal?  Pan-fried polenta and gnocchi.  The polenta was thinly sliced and in the shape of a rectange and simply spiced with salt and pepper.  It's shape and consistency was a more savory version of my Grandma Hazel's cornmeal mush that she would often make for us for breakfast topped with real maple syrup (is there any other kind?).  The gnocchi was speckled with spinach and also minimally spiced.  It was a carb-laden meal, for sure, but simple, beautiful and filling.  I have so many happy memories of that meal, partially due to the wonderful conversation had around the table in her beautifully sparse home (much like the food she cooked) in the plush mountains of Italy.

If you are unfamiliar, polenta is typically made from coarse-ground corn and mixed with water over heat until thickened.  You can eat it in its soft form, spread it in a pan to cool and set up or bake it in the oven.  It then can be cut it into various sizes, grilled, pan-seared and served with a sauce of your choice.  Once you get started, there are really many options and variations to this form of ground corn.

Until recently, I had only tried adding polenta to my meals from the premade tubes you can buy in the refrigerated section of your grocery store.   In fact, the first meal that I made for Husband, I made spicy polenta fries from premade polenta.  It was crumbly and didn't much resemble fries but the flavor was promising.   After many so-so experiences with premade polenta, I was inspired by a visit to a local restaurant to try my hand at making polenta from scratch.  What ensued was a dinner of "Wow's" and fulll-mouthed "So, good's!" which made me vow to never ever buy premade polenta again.  It just does not do this dish justice.

Making homemade polenta is really pretty simple depending on what method you choose.  I chose to bake polenta, which takes some time, but it is so very low maintenance that you can clean, fold laundry, read a good book while you enjoy the lofting smell of cornmeal, water & olive oil melding together.

So, here is my ode to cornmeal.  The dish that began my obsession of polenta and has now made me a polenta evangelist.  Now, therefore, go out and make only homemade polenta!  No tubes aloud.  Also, no tube tops.  But that goes without saying.  Forgive me, my message is a work in progress.   

Pan-Seared Polenta with Chives
(Polenta recipe adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine, January 2010)

8 cups water
5 tbsp. olive oil, divided
2 tsp. coarse salt
2 cups cornmeal (Coarse-ground is typically recommend but I used regular cornmeal and had excellent results)
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp. chopped fresh chives or 2 tbsp. dried chives

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Put a 9x13 glass or pyrex baking dish on a baking sheet.  Combine water, 3 tablespoons of the olive oil and coarse salt in a dish.  Pour in cornmeal in 1/2 cup increments and mix carefully to avoid spilling.

Place baking sheet with cornmeal mix in oven.  Bake for about 1 hour.  Add pepper and chives and stir to blend.  Bake 20 minutes.  Stir mixture again and use spatula to keep mixture even on top.  Continue to bake the polenta until it is very thick for 20-30 more minutes.  Cool at room temperature until polenta is cool and firm.  You may want to use the back of a metal spatula to make sure the top of the poleta is even and flat.  This can be made up to 2 days ahead of serving.  Wrap the baking dish with plastic wrap and chill.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.  Cut polenta into 8 squares.  Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add polenta squares and work in batches.  Saute' until crisp and brown about 8 minutes on each side (if you choose to make the polenta ahead of time, pull it out about an hour in advance to allow it to reach room temperature or allow for 12 minutes per side).  Transfer pan-seared polenta to a cookie sheet and place in oven to keep warm until all polenta is finished.

How to serve?  So many choices.  You can make any type of tomato sauce that you would normally place over pasta and use it with this polenta.  For this dish at home, I just pepped up a jarred pasta sauce with fresh basil, garlic, red pepper flakes, diced fire-roasted tomatoes & freshly ground pepper.  To add a little more veggies, I also sauteed onions and yellow squash and placed on top of the sauce when plating. 

I reccomend serving this dish in a wide bowl.  Ladel the desired tomato sauce in bottom of bowl, top with pan-seared polenta square and top with a dollop of ricotta cheese.  Sprinkle with fresh parmesan cheese and some fancy salad greens (optional).