Corned Beef Hash with Poached Eggs

Before we get into this recipe, I just want to let you know it's a complete coincidence that I'm posting this on March 18th, the day after St. Patrick's day. Nope, nothing to do with it at all. Anyway...

Like many of my posts, the idea for this one comes from my mother and me growing up surrounded by her cooking genius. And I say this really nice, flattering thing about her both because it's true and because I'm about to say something that might sound like an attempt to discredit her, even though it's not:

Corned beef hash is easy as...well, you know.

It's another one of those things I saw my mom do when I was young and thought "wow, that's so complicated and hard! I bet I'll never be able to do that."

I mean, of course it will be a lot more labor-intensive and time consuming if you brine and spice your own corned beef, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Maybe future post, but not now, please, I'm tired. Zzzzz....

Recipe for 2 people

You will need:

Hash:

-1 large red potato, skin on, thinly sliced for quick boiling
-4 big strips cooked corn beef, preferably cold for easy slicing
-1/2 small onion, chopped
-pinch salt
-pinch lemon pepper
-1 Tbsp. olive oil for cooking

Poached Eggs:

-4 eggs
-2 Tbsp. Vinegar
-Medium-sized pot
-slotted spoon or frying basket with handle

Make the hash:

In a medium-sized pot, bring water to a boil and add potatoes, once it starts to boil again turn heat to low and simmer until fork-tender, 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, dice cold corned beef.

When potatoes are done, drain water from pot, heat oil in a skillet and add onions until fragrant. Add potatoes and cook until they start to form that awesome brown crust that corned beef hash simply must have. Add corned beef, salt and pepper and stir to combine.

Once the beef is warmed and the hash is well-combined, turn off heat.

Meanwhile, boil water in medium pot, turn down to just barely boiling and add vinegar. Crack eggs, one at a time into a ladle or cup and add to pot. Once all 4 eggs are added, remove pot from heat, cover and let sit 4-6 minutes, depending on how runny you like your yolks.

Serve hash topped with eggs to let the yolks run down into it and make everything all yummy and awesome and stuff.

Currant Challah French Toast with Banana and Salal Berry Jam

Salal berries are new to me and I have to say they're very special! They're forest berries native to the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. BC is where I first encountered them while visiting a friend there, we gathered them in the woods first thing in the morning to have with our breakfast yogurt. So even though it was sad to come home to Northern California where there are no Salal berries to be found, it was okay because I found some home-made Salal jam at a farmer's market on our last day, and they didn't even take it away at the border. Yes!

I hope you enjoyed that little story, but this post is much more about Challah. It's no secret that it makes the most excellent French Toast outside of...France, I guess.

My friend from work made me a small loaf of currant Challah, and right away I knew exactly what to do with it. Glad I did, too, because too many times I've taken a loaf home with the intent to do this and just end up eating it plain with my morning coffee. Which isn't so bad, is it?


Recipe:
(makes 8-9 slices)

-8 slices currant Challah bread (or you can use any Challah bread)
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup milk
-1 Tbsp. Honey
-pinch salt
-2 Tbsp. Butter
-ground Cinnamon

In a pie tin, scramble together eggs, milk, honey and salt, add the cinnamon to taste. Soak four slices of Challah in the egg mixture while you melt 1/2 Tbsp. butter in a skillet.

Turn the slices over to let the egg mixture soak a little more before dropping the Challah slices into the pan. Brown them on both sides while you soak the remaining slices of bread.

You should be able to do this in 2-3 batches, depending on how big your skillet is. If you have a griddle, you might be able to do all of them at once. That would sure be nice (I don't have a griddle).

Savory Bread Pudding

These were my first successful new invention at work. I wanted to post a picture because I'm so freakin' proud of them, but I'm still not sure if I want to post a recipe or not, because they're my babies. Weird I know, I've obviously never had a problem wanting to share recipes in the past. See: the entire concept and reason I started this blog.

Maybe later.

Pictured clockwise from top right: bacon, bacon mushroom, and vegetarian potato. All have gouda cheese, kale, purple onions and a hint of jalapeño heat.

Favorite Buttermilk Pancake Recipe...Ever!

Growing up, pancakes were the stuff of yellow boxes with blue lettering. Somehow I had made it all the way to young adulthood having never made pancakes from scratch, so naturally when I started trying, I discovered the "simple" breakfast flapjack was far from simple. As it turned out, I messed up almost every batch I made!

I guess I should have read a little more carefully as I have the tendency to skim over recipes rather than really soak them in...hmmm...maybe I need to get this notion out of my head that I'm, like, so good I don't need recipes because they're for people who don't know how to cook and blah blah blah.

So I stopped and went, wait a minute girl, you've never made pancakes that didn't come out of a box! Try a little humility, hey?

I know it's been shouted over and over from every mountain top from here to Pluto since the beginning of pancake-making time, but seriously, don't over-stir the batter! If it freaks you out to see all those lumps, just smash them with your finger after you pour the batter on the griddle.

Here's  the recipe that's been working consistently for me. I use whole wheat flour though, because it tastes better and it's healthier!

Panettone French Toast

Mmmm....I always loved Panettone as a kid. We ate it at breakfast, toasted with cream cheese on top. I remember one Christmas I gave a box to my teacher and she said "Is this from your Italian grandma?" I made sure to tell her it was actually my grandpa who is Italian.

I didn't know until I bought this particular loaf at a small shop here in Madrid that they also eat it in Perú. It's exactly the same, except that it's spelled "Panetón" and it's normally eaten dipped in hot chocolate.

This was an eye-opening and amazing discovery, but with it came an even more delicious discovery: Panetón makes excellent French Toast.

-6 thick slices of Panettone (or Panetón, depending on where you buy it from)
-3 eggs
-3/4 cup milk
-Cinnamon
-Butter
-Pinch salt

Beat eggs, milk, cinnamon and salt in a wide, shallow bowl. Melt butter in a frying pan. Let the Panettone slices soak in the egg mixture longer than you normally would for french toast, especially if the slices are very thick. You don't want them dry inside, or do you? It's best to let some slices soak while others are cooking, first coating on both sides and then flipping them as you flip the slices in the pan.
Cook until golden brown on each side, and then serve with maple syrup (hard to find here...boo!) and strawberries.

Pomegranate White Chocolate Oatmeal

Before the start of winter break, I decided to make some pretty, Christmas-y-looking pomegranate white chocolate cookies for my co-workers (eeew...i hate using that word. makes me sound so grown up). Everyone loved them and I ended up having a whole pomegranate left over, as well as a whole bar of white chocolate.

I'm living in Spain right now and haven't yet figured out where to find chocolate or white chocolate chips, so I always end up buying a chocolate bar and smashing it up. Is this how cavemen made chocolate chip cookies? I hope so.


The cookie recipe is great and all, but it's been done, and that's not what MadSpatch is about. MadSpatch is about eating pomegranates and white chocolate for breakfast! This one's for all you oatmeal lovers, because the more oatmeal I eat, the more fun things I find to do with it. See my previous Baked Oatmeal post for more fun with oats.

-1 cup oats
-1 1/2 cup water
-1 1/4 cup milk
-At least 1/3 cup pomegranate seeds
-1/4 cup white chocolate chips, or a smashed-up white chocolate bar if you're me
-Pinch salt

Bring water to a boil, add oats and salt. Turn down the heat and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the milk and cook for another 5. I haven't tried this, but I've heard great things about microwaving oatmeal with just milk (no water). I prefer to just use milk but I include the water in this recipe because milk tends to burn the pot.

Remove oatmeal from heat and stir in white chocolate until melted. Serve topped with pomegranate seeds and shaved white chocolate if you have a bar.

Popovers!

If you don't think you've ever had popovers, you're probably wrong.

Now that we've gotten that initial harshness of reality out of the way, I'll let you know you've probably had popovers except they were called Yorkshire Pudding. It's seriously exactly the same thing except popovers are more commonly associated with breakfast, at least for me. MAKE SURE ALL THE INGREDIENTS ARE ROOM TEMPERATURE BEFORE BLENDING!

Preheat oven to 400. You will need:

6 eggs
2 cups milk
3/4 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. butter
2 cups flour

beat eggs and milk until blended.
combine flour and salt, cut in butter.
add flour to egg mixture and gradually blend.
fill well-greased custard cups or popover pan (looks like a really deep muffin tin) a little more than halfway full.
Bake for 1 hour. serve with strawberry jam or whatever you want because once again they're your creation! MUHAHAHHA!

TIP: Place cups or popover pan on top of a baking sheet before putting it in the oven to protect against the inevitable spillage.

The most amazing thing I've ever done

OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.....nom.

Baked Oatmeal

Anthony loves baked oatmeal! Do you?

No, not oatmeal cookies, but just as good! This is my friend Jeanne's recipe that I enjoyed for the first time a couple weeks ago. I modified it for the sake of using stuff I already had around the house (Apples and dates instead of pears and apricots). And really, what kind of culinary mad scientist would I be without a little experimentation here and there? My version is also vegan, if that means anything to anyone reading this =P. It was absolutely amazing and would be perfect for a sunday brunch or potluck, because it's good any time of day. I should know since I made mine around ten at night. For comparisons' sake and since I didn't even use eggs in mine, I'll put Jeanne's recipe first, followed by the one I used:

JEANNE'S
2 cups regular rolled oats
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1/3 cup chopped apricots
1 ½ cups milk
½ cup brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup chopped almonds
1 firm-ripe pear, stemmed, cored and chopped into 1/4"
2 large eggs
3 Tbsp. oil


MINE:
2 Cups Rolled oats
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup chopped pitted dates
1 1/2 cups almond milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/ 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup chopped macadamia nuts
1 apple, cored and chopped into 1/4"
2 flax seed "eggs" (2 Tbsp. flax seeds, crushed in a blender and mixed with 6 Tbsp. water)
3 Tbsp Oil

"Preheat oven to 325. In large bowl, mix oats, baking powder and salt. Stir in almonds, apricots and pears (macadamias, dates, and apples).
In another bowl, whisk together (almond) milk, (flax seed) eggs, brown sugar, oil and cinnamon. Pour over the oat mixture and stir to combine.
Pour mixture into a Pam-ed 8” or 9” square baking pan. Bake until liquid is absorbed and top is light golden, about 45 minutes. Spoon into bowls and serve warm. Serve with the usual choices of sugar, brown sugar, raisins, milk…whatever."

"To prep the night before, mix the oats, baking powder, salt, almonds and apricots in a bowl; cover and let stand at room temperature. In another bowl, combine the milk, eggs, brown sugar, oil and cinnamon; cover and chill. Next morning, mix the two together and stir in pear and bake."

Breakfast Potatoes!

After hours and hours of trial and error in the lab, I think it's safe to say that my breakfast potatoes are worthy of your stomach lining. These are the only breakfast potatoes you will ever need, I promise. So if your mom or boyfriend or girlfriend has their own special potato recipe, you might want to skip this one, because it just wouldn't be fair to them.

-3 medium-sized russet potatoes; rinsed, rubbed, and cubed (but not peeled).
-pinch salt
-1/2 tsp. black or mixed pepper, preferably fresh from the grinder.
-1 tsp. paprika
-1/2 tsp. dried dill, or a couple pinches of torn-up fresh dill
-dash of lemon juice
-olive oil for frying

heat oil until bubbles gather around a small piece of potato dropped into the pan. fry potatoes until they start to brown, then add the spices. turn heat down to medium and continue to cook until golden brown (and of course a little red from the paprika). add the lemon juice and cook for another minute, then remove from heat. I prefer to eat these with ketchup and over-easy eggs.