Breakfast Casserole

 

I love dishes that are a hodgepodge of leftover food in the refrigerator that needs to be used. This hodgepodge developed itself into a breakfast. I made use of the eggs, potato, cauliflower, and hot dogs that were crowding my fridge. This is a super easy dish and is going to become a staple weekend morning breakfast in my house.

Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients
2 red potatoes, cut into pieces
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into small florets
2 hot dogs, sliced
3 eggs
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp minced dried onions
ground black pepper, to taste
vegetable oil, as needed

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Heat vegetable oil in a skillet. Once hot add the potatoes and cook for 10 minutes, until they begin to soften. Add the cauliflower and hot dogs and cook for 5 more minutes.

2. Whisk together the eggs, cheese, garlic powder, minced onion flakes, and pepper in a bowl.

3. In a baking dish mix together the eggs with the potato, cauliflower, and hot dogs.

4. Bake for 20 minutes.

* serves 3
* shared with Mix It Up Monday & Mealtime Monday

Fried Rice Two Ways

 

Since Monday this week was a holiday, I had time to make dinner and didn’t need to rely on the slow cooker. But just because Monday allowed enough time to make dinner, Tuesday still did not. Because of this, I knew I needed to make enough dinner Monday to have on Tuesday and also to change the dish up a bit so I could have it two ways.

Clearly I’m not very good at keeping up with challenges I keep for myself (as you can see my 52 Week Around the World Challenge) ended short, but at least through this semester there should be a dish a week that I make two ways just because my schedule sort of forces it.

This fried rice made use of the crystallized ginger Rose sent me a few months ago in my Foodie Pen Pal box. Because it was cut up very fine, it wasn’t overpowering but to get a piece of that sweet ginger was excellent in the rice.

 

Day 2 got a bowl of fried rice soup, which was an easy way to make the dish into something else. In retrospect though, it could have used more broth.

Day 1: Fried Rice
Day 2: Fried Rice Soup

Fried Rice

Ingredients
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups shrimp, shelled, deveined, and cut into pieces
1 10-oz package frozen peas
3 cups cooked rice
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 tbsp white wine
2 tbsp crystallized ginger, finely chopped
4 tsp toasted sesame oil

DAY 2 EXTRA INGREDIENTS
1 cup chicken broth

Directions

1. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until medium. Combine the eggs and pour into the skillet. Cook, stirring, until scrambled, about 1 minute. Break into small pieces and transfer to a bowl.

2. Add another tbsp of oil. Add the onion and the garlic to the pan, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the shrimp and peas. Cook until the shrimp are cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer to the bowl with the eggs.

3. Heat the remaining tbsp of oil in the skillet of medium-high heat until hot. Add the rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until crispy.

4. Stir together the soy sauce, white wine, ginger, and sesame oil. Add to the skillet along with the egg. Cook until heated through.

5. DAY 1 INSTRUCTIONS: Serve as is.
DAY 2 INSTRUCTIONS: Heat the chicken broth and the rice in a large pot until simmering. When warm, serve.

* makes 4 servings of rice (DAY 1 & DAY 2 each make 2 portions)
* DAY 1 CALORIES: 498 calories per serving
* DAY 2 CALORIES: 503 calories per serving

Lime Shrimp Fried Rice

 

I have a thing about lunches. I hate leftovers. I don’t really like sandwiches unless they’re purchased from a deli and the only thing I did in the creation of the sandwich was fork over some money. I really like my lunches to be just as delicious as my dinners – just different from my dinners.

My coworkers go out to eat so often. I really save money eating the way I do and I probably end up being a lot more satisfied than they are. When school starts next week I’m going to make sure I bring lunch with me on those days I’m on campus all day also, because cafeteria food and my stomach don’t always make the best pair.

Lime Shrimp Fried Rice

Ingredients
2 cups rice, uncooked
2 3/4 cups water
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 garlic clove, minced
6 oz shrimp
1/3 cup green onions, minced
1 cup cucumber, diced
1 cup tomatoes, diced
1 tbsp sesame oil
6 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 jalapeno, seedeed, devined, and minced
2 tbsp lime juice

Directions

1. Cook the rice in a rice cooker or in a pot with the water. Once cooked remove and allow to cool.

2. Place 3 tbsp of vegetable oil and 1 tbsp of sesame oil in a small bowl. Whisk to combine. Set aside.

3. Place the 3 tbsp of fish sauce and sugar in a small bowl. Whisk to combine. Set aside and finish the rice.

4. Place a large skillet over high heat. Add the vegetable oil/sesame oil combination and heat.

5. Add the beaten eggs and create an egg “pool.”

6. Add the garlic on top of the eggs to prevent it from burning. With a spoon, life and stir the egg mixture to break up the eggs.

7. Add the cooked rice and continue to stir-fry until the rice begins to brown.

8. Sprinkle with the fish sauce/sugar combination. Continue to lift and stir the rice.

9. Add the shrimp, continuing to cook for about 8 minutes or until the shrimp are cooked all the way through.

10. Stir in the vegetables.

11. Stir together the jalapeno, lime juice, and remaining fish sauce. Whisk to combine. Stir into the rice mixture.

* serves 4
* 392 calories per serving

Egg Noodle Casserole

I don’t really have any commentary on this post. It was an easy pasta dish that tasted great.

Egg Noodle Casserole
(inspiration)

Ingredients
2 cups egg noodles
1 egg
1/2 tbsp heavy cream
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 green onion stalk, sliced
1/2 cup pepper jack cheese, shredded
1/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup parmesan cheese, shredded
1/4 cucumber, diced
1 1/2 oz ground beef
1 sausage link, of your choice

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350. Grease a casserole dish.

2. Boil noodles according to the package directions. Drain and set aside.

3. In a small pan, saute sausage, ground beef, and zucchini until the meat is cooked and the zucchini is soft.

4. In a small mixing bowl, mix eggs, cream, mustard, and some salt and pepper.

5. In a medium mixing bowl, add noodles, sausage, ground beef, zucchini, green onion, cheddar, pepper jack, half the parmesan, and the egg mixture. Mix well so everything is covered with the egg mixture. Top with the remaining parmesan.

6. Bake for 30 minutes.

* serves 3
* Shared with Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Culinary Vibes

Worcestershire Pork Chops and Vegetable Fried Rice

This was actually intended to be a soy sauce marinated pork chop, but I didn’t realize how low we were on soy sauce and didn’t buy any. Unfortunately by the time pork chop night came, the soy sauce was all gone because the boyfriend dumped it on his rice on Black Pepper Chicken night. I was racking my brain trying to figure out what to use without going to the store and opted for the Worcestershire. I later realized I had teriyaki sauce I could have used, but the Worcestershire worked well and the chops were delicious!

Worcestershire Pork Chops 

Ingredients
2 pork chops
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp sake
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil, plus some more for cooking
1 tsp sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp ginger, thinly sliced
1/4 tsp corn starch
1/2 tbsp onion, minced

Directions

1. Combine the ingredients in a ziplock bag. Squeeze the air out of the bag and seal. Shake the bag so the pork chops are covered. Put in the fridge for 20 minutes.

2. In a skillet heat up a little bit of oil. Cook long enough for the pork chops to brown on one side. Flip and let brown on the other side.

3. Cover with a lid, lower heat, and cook for 3 minutes.

4. Add any extra marinade to the skillet.  Increase the heat. Once simmering, pour over the chops.

* serves 2
* 261 calories per serving

 The rice was also a hit. I haven’t been very good about eating my veggies. I really need to do something about that, because I obviously need them. This rice dish was a nice way to incorporate veggies in without being a “veggie” dish.

Vegetable Fried Rice

Ingredients
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp uncooked rice
3/4 cups water
1 1/2 tsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/4 mushrooms, chopped
2 oz canned bamboo shoots
1 carrot, chopped
3 tbsp snow peas

Directions

1. Cook the rice either in a pot or a rice cooker.

2. Heat 1 tsp of oil in a skillet. Stir in the onion and garlic and cook until tender.

3. In a medium bowl blend the eggs and 1 tsp of Worcestershire sauce. Stir into the skillet and scramble with the garlic and onions. Remove the eggs from the skillet.

4. Heat the remaining oil. Place the mushrooms and celery in the skillet and cook until the mushrooms are tender and release liquid. Add the bamboo shoots, carrots, snow peas, and rice. Heat through. Then add the eggs and stir to combine

* serves 2
*146 calories per serving

* Shared with What’s Cooking Wednesday

Cheese and Tomato Baked Egg

I don’t typically do eggs. I’ve been told I have high cholesterol, so I pretty much avoid eggs. It hasn’t been entirely hard because I’ve never really been an egg person. Really, I was never really a breakfast person and that’s probably why eggs and I never really got on. But I finally busted out these ramekins when I made the Dutch Babies recently and also made mini chocolate souffles for my mom’s birthday (which I forgot to take pictures of!) I’ve really liked the ramekins, so I’ve been bookmarking page after page of ramekin related recipes.

Breakfast for dinner is better than breakfast for breakfast, in my opinion. This meal was light and delicious, despite not really liking eggs most of the time.

Cheese and Tomato Baked Egg
(source)

Ingredients
1/2 tomato, chopped
1 tbsp grated cheddar cheese
1 egg
salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375.

2. Place the tomatoes at the bottom of a ramekin and cover with half the cheese grated cheese.

3. Crack the egg and add it to the ramekin. Top with the remaining cheese.  Season with salt and pepper.

4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

* serves 1
* 113 calories per egg
* Shared with Foodie Friday & Foodie Friday

Around The World in 52 Weeks: Sarma

Though sarma is traditionally a Serbian dish, Montenegro, my county for the week borders Serbia. Food in Montenegro has both Italian and Serbian influences. These wraps can be made using grape leaves, chard leaves, or cabbage leaves. I opted for the cabbage as I had one in my refrigerator and it didn’t require a trip to a specialty store (as the grape leaves would have.)

The only thing I regret about this dish was not having started it earlier. It takes three hours to cook, so starting dinner at 6PM was just a dumb idea on my part. When dinner was finally read around 9PM I indulged in these delicious wraps. The sauerkraut made them the perfect amount of bitter. I would definitely make these again.

Sarma
(source)

Ingredients
1 head cabbage
1 lb ground turkey
1/4 lb ground pork
1/2 cup uncooked rice
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 egg
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 can sauerkraut
1 cup tomato sauce
water, as needed

Directions

1. In a large bowl combine the meat, rice, onion, egg, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Form meat mixture into oblong balls, about 1/2 cup of meat each. Wrap each ball with a cabbage leaf.

2. Spread the sauerkraut on the bottom of a pan. Place the cabbage rolls, seam side down, on top of the sauerkraut. Pour tomato sauce on top and then add enough water so that the cabbage rolls are completely covered.

3. Bring the liquid to a boil. Cover and reduce heat, allowing to simmer. Simmer for 3 hours.

* serves 3
* Shared with KB and Whitesnakes’s Simply Delish Saturdays.

I’d like to see people travel the globe with me.
Every Saturday I will be posting my recipe, as well as pictures to ethnic cuisines you have made and want to share.

- You must mention The Law Student’s Cookbook‘s Around The World In 52 Weeks in the entry you link. You can either use a link or use the banner.
- In your post you must  at least mention what cuisine the dish is.
- Email me your recipe at elizabeth@crabtech.net. Make sure to include:

* Your name or blog name
* The direct link to your post
* A picture of the dish or permission to pull a picture from the post

- Make sure to email me by Saturday at 12noon Pacific Standard Time
- If you enter a recipe you will be automatically entered into my current giveaway.

Lamb Moussaka

This month over at Food n Flix we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a romantic comedy which I hope you’ve seen! My Big Fat Greek Wedding is actually one of the few movies I’ve seen more than once. When I was rewatching the movie to decide what to make for this month’s Food n Flix submission my boyfriend was confused at why I would laugh before anything funny would happen. But that was because I kept hearing the funny lines in my head right before they were said. So I would preemptively laugh.

I had a long list of inspirations by the time the movie was over. I decided to be traditional though and make a moussaka.

In the movie there’s a flashback to Toula as a girl in elementary school. She was sitting at one table in the cafeteria and the girls behind her made a comment about what she was eating. Toula responded that it was moussaka. The mean little blonde girls squealed, “Moose kaka?!!??”

I also new I needed to use lamb in this dish to hit the nail on the head because “You’re a vegetarian. That’s ok, I’ll make lamb.”

Finding lamb however was not an easy task. Apparently my grocery store doesn’t carry it – only the commonly used beef, poultry, and pork. I almost decided to make a ground beef version of the moussaka, but I really needed the lamb if I wanted to make this a true “vegetarian” dish.

I googled around and found that this place in Sacramento (where I live) called Mediterranean Market sold ground lamb. On the Saturday I made this dish I jumped in the car and found this cute little market, which was full of grape leaves, kabobs, falafel mix, hookah supplies, and lamb! The butcher ground the lamb for me there on the spot and I was on my way with my lamb (and the falafel mix that I picked up too.)

This wasn’t exactly an easy dish, so it was good I picked a weekend to make it. It was definitely time consuming, but the product that came out in the end made it worth it. It’s kind of silly I made moussaka, because eggplant is not my favorite vegetable in the world (which I’ve said before.) This preparation of the eggplant though was great, so I think I might be slowly drifting to Team-Eggplant instead of Team-Eggplant-Is-Gross.

Anyway, the one real lesson I learned from the movie is to put Windex on every ailment. I couldn’t really show that to you guys in food style though.

Thanks to Kahakai Kitchen for hosting this month’s Foon n Flix! If you want to enter a dish for this month’s movie you have until the 27th of February.

Lamb Moussaka
(Source)

 Ingredients

CHEESE SAUCE
2 1/2 tbsp butter
2 1/2 tbsp flour
1 1/4 cup milk
Nutmeg to taste
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

MOUSSAKA
1 1/2 eggplants
1 large potato
salt to taste
2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup onion, diced
1 lb ground lamb
1 cup tomato, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
pinch of allspice
ground black pepper, to taste
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp dry red wine
2 tbsp bread crumbs

Directions

1. Make the cheese sauce first. To make it heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and stir well, making sure to get rid of all dry clumps. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Gradually whisk in the milk to create a smooth sauce. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, letting simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes.

2. Once thickened remove from heat. Add nutmeg, salt, and pepper. In another bowl whisk together the egg yolks. Add a bit of the hot sauce mixture to the yolks, stirring well. Combine the rest of the yolks with the sauce. Stir in the cheese and blend well. Keep warm and set aside.

3. Place potatoes in a pot. Add enough water to cover them. Bring to a boil and cook for about 10 minutes. Once the potatoes are tender, remove from the heat and drain them. Once cool slice into 1/8-inch slices and set aside.

4. Peel the eggplants and slice into 1/8-inch slices. Heat 1/2 tbsp of olive oil until hot. Add the eggplant to the oil and cook a few pieces of eggplant at a time, until tender and lightly colored about 3 minutes. Transfer to a rack and set aside.

5. Next prepare your meat sauce. Heat 1/2 tbsp of olive oil in a skillet. Add the onions and cook over medium-high heat, for about 10-12 minutes until tender. Add the ground lamb and cook over medium heat until no longer pink. Add the tomatoes, garlic, cloves, bay leaf, allspice, salt, pepper and water. Simmer until thick, about 30 minutes. Add tomato paste and red wine  and continue simmering for 10 minutes.

6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

7. To assemble the moussaka, scatter the breadcrumbs in a deep baking dish. Place a layer of half of the eggplant slices over the breadcrumbs.  Add the meat sauce and spread it in an even layer. Top with a layer of potatoes. Then create a layer of eggplant with the remaining slices. Pour the cheese sauce evenly over the top.

8. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove the moussaka from the oven and let sit for 20 minutes before serving.

 

Egg Drop Soup

Soup soup soup! I’m all about it recently, as I’m sure you can tell by my recent posts. So rather than break away from the soup, here’s another recipe.

I probably shouldn’t eat this, because I have high cholesterol and egg is high in cholesterol… But shoot me. It tastes good.

Egg Drop Soup

Ingredients
6 cups chicken broth
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
9 oz shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 carrot, shredded
1 cup portobello mushrooms, chopped
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup peas, frozen

Directions

1. Combine the cornstarch and broth in a pot and whisk together until fully dissolved.

2. Turn heat up to medium and bring to a low boil. Add soy sauce and garlic and stir. Add the carrots and mushrooms, stirring and cooking for 2 minutes.  Add the shrimp and cook for 3 more minutes. Add the peas and stir.

3. Reduce heat to simmer. Slowly pour the beaten eggs into the soup. Stir.

* serves 2
* 364 calories per serving
* I shared this recipe with These Chicks Cooked Weekly Recipe Collection and What’s Cooking Wednesday?