Showing posts with label bacon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bacon. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

A Ninja, A Sweet Potato and A Waffle Iron Walked In To A Kitchen ...

Welcome to Trash The Kitchen Tuesday! Actually, I trash the kitchen most days, if I'm cooking. I like to cook. Cleaning up, not so much. And may I say, having a microwave oven that also works as an Advantium speed oven lets me trash the kitchen so much quicker!

Yesterday, for my #30DaysOfThankful I posted a picture of my kitchen. After reading Carla's post, Meet My Friend Melvin, I realized that I let way too much food spoil. Not everyone can, after paying their rent, their bills, their child support, etc, afford to feed themselves. This morning, pondering what to have for breakfast, I decide to use up some things that I had in the pantry and the fridge: two partial onions (one red, one white), half a poblano pepper that was on its last legs, two sweet potatoes that were growing alien tentacles, err, sprouting, and one regular baking potato. The first thing that came to mind was trying to make waffle iron hash brown/latkes, but I didn't want to do a lot of shredding. So, I washed off all of the sweet potatoes and threw them in the Advantium to bake. In the meantime, I chopped up the onions and minced the poblano. When I got the potatoes out, they were only partially cooked, so I scooped out what was soft and put the rest back in to cook more. I took the cooked potato and put it in to my new Ninja. Ninjas rock, by the way. I added most of the onion and half of the poblano, along with a splash of milk. I blended that until it was fairly smooth, then I cracked in two eggs and blended again until it was smooth, like a batter. (Oh, yes, that is savory jerky from Rachel Ray, another awesome Fitbloggin sponsor, in the background. I picked it up yesterday at the grocery store. The dogs love it.)

By this time, the rest of the potatoes were cooked well enough, so I scooped them out and put them in to a bowl, along with the rest of the chopped onion and poblano pepper. Using a fork, I mashed the mixture until there were only small lumps.

 In went the Ninja batter, along with a pinch of salt, and I mixed everything together.

Next, I added a cup of Bob's Red Mill GF Flour Mixture (feel free to use regular flour), half a cup at a time, mixing to incorporate the flour and leave no lumps. I looked at it and thought, this would be really  nice with a side of bacon. I don't have bacon. :(  Oh, wait. YES, I HAVE BACON!! Thank you, Costco. I had a bag of bacon crumbles in the freezer. Forget having bacon on the side. I'm having bacon IN my sweet potato waffles.

I let the batter rest while the waffle iron heated up. My finger can attest that it heats up very quickly, thank you very much. I drizzle a little olive oil on the waffle iron and spoon in the batter, spreading it out fairly evenly. Pressing down, I anxiously await the light to go from red to green. Yay! It worked!


Breakfast dilemma solved, and I didn't let foods go to waste. Savory sweet potato waffles, topped with a little butter. To make it even more sweet/savory, after I took this picture, I spread a little bit of my maple butter from Raymond Sugarhouse in Hartland, VT.  If you love all things maple, and like to support small businesses, please consider ordering from them. Everything I have tried of theirs (maple syrup, maple candy, maple butter, maple cream, maple crunch peanut butter and maple crunch peanuts) are amazing.



Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Back To Basics - Starting With A Healthy Breakfast

Yesterday I shared my limerick about a patio swing breaking because Sparkie and I have gotten fat. Her for the first time, me for, um, not the first time. Granted, the swing has been out in the Texas elements for 8 years, so it's a bit worse for wear, but it's not entirely to blame for the incident. So this morning I dusted off some of my healthy living books in anticipation of getting back to basics. (Side note: when someone tells you it's harder to lose weight when you're in your 40s, believe them.) To start my journey back to healthy living, I made breakfast. Not any breakfast. A healthy breakfast.


Baked Swiss Chard and Kale Eggs (serves 2-4, depending on how hungry you are)

4 slices bacon, cut in to bite sized pieces
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 10 ounce bag of chopped swiss chard, big stems removed
1 container baby kale 

1/2 can diced tomatoes
1 T hot sauce
Splash of red wine (optional)
1/8 t grated nutmeg
1 cup plain yogurt
1 t black pepper
4 eggs
Sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350

Note: I partially cooked my bacon in the microwave because I got it out of the freezer. I transferred the bacon to the pan with just a little of the drippings.

In a large pan, cook the bacon over medium high heat until crispy. (I like really crispy) Add in the sliced onion and cook until the onion has softened. Add in the chopped swiss chard and the kale, stirring well, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the greens have wilted down. Next, stir in the diced tomatoes, hot sauce, the splash of wine if using, black pepper, nutmeg and yogurt. Mix well, so that the yogurt is blended in. Simmer for about 5 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Spoon mixture in to a baking dish. Make in "indentation" in the vegetables and crack an egg in to each. Sprinkle with the cheese and back for 20-25 minutes.