What I Really Eat: Roasted Rhubarb & Strawberries

"What I really eat" are my Iron Chef meals. My pantry meals. Shit, my fridge is empty meals. The things that come out of necessity and lack of time. The ingredient list will usually be small and the execution usually simple. Something that is less of a recipe and more of a guideline. If something exceptionally awesome comes out of my Sunday night scramble, it will get posted as a “What I Really Eat” and probably be accompanied with a not-my-best photo.

I can’t be the only one who found a hidden half bag of rhubarb in my crisper. I can’t be the only one who bought way too many strawberries and now have the most melty batch ever hanging out in the fridge. I can’t be the only one who thought that even though it didn’t work the first two times, that maybe, maybe this time the recipe would work.

Am I the only one? It’s okay you can tell me.

I had lofty visions. There would be whey protein! And chia seeds! And almond milk! And most importantly the essence of summer in concentrate --- drippy chunks of caramelized, roasted strawberries and rhubarb. Then I would bask in that post yoga glow, drinking summer and recovery in a glass. I tried really, really hard to make the summeriest post workout shake I could. I now have the endless amount of essentially tasteless smoothie servings stacked up in my freezer to prove how hard I tried. Unfortunately for me and my next dozen yoga sessions, it just did not work. Short of using the entire batch of roasted fruit for just one serving, the sweet, puckery strawberry-rhubarb combo just did not translate through the rest of the shake. I guess I thought the flavors would be a bit more shouty. Also, I will admit that if I was trying for shakes not of the protein variety it probably would have worked much better.

On my last attempt I was a bit defeated as I packed up yet another batch bound for the freezer. But since I had resisted in dumping the entire batch of fruit into the blender, the remainder of the day I found myself scooping up spoonfuls of the roasted fruit straight to my mouth. If anything was worth sharing other than my tale of failure, it’s this dead simple recipe for roasted strawberries and rhubarb.

Recipe is obviously a strong word. Regardless, your morning yogurt or after dinner ice cream will be the better for it. I’m feeling wistful that I didn’t think to swirl it into a baked good. It just didn’t last that long.

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Roasted Rhubarb & Strawberries

Ingredients:

2 cups rhubarb diced into 1-inch pieces

2 cups strawberries halved

2 to 3 tablespoons turbinado sugar or other sweetener (feel free to add more, I like it tart)

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Spread fruit out across paper. Sprinkle with sweetener and then give it a good toss to coat evenly.

Put in oven until juices have released and fruit is bubbly and caramelized, about 45 minutes. Check at least once, and give it a toss if desired.

Makes approximately 2 cups of roasted fruit.

Grilled Vegetables with Burrata & Pesto

In all honesty my kitchen isn’t the tiniest NYC kitchen I’ve ever seen. Technically I could probably do half a cartwheel in it. I could have a pretty good solo yoga session in it, if I ever felt the need. It is lacking quite a bit of counter space, but being a decently responsible adult I’ve been able to remedy that with the recent purchase of a shiny new stainless steel kitchen cart. I think that maybe if my boyfriend had one wish it might be that we had a bigger, deeper sink. You see, when I cook, there’s this charming little tendency I have to use every single dish/bowl/pot/pan we have in the house. But if I had a magic wand in my hand, I know what my wish would be --- a fanhood for my stove. Without one, it makes pulling out the grill pan and getting a nice sear going on some risky business.

But I took that risk of a thoroughly smoky apartment so that this dream salad could come into existence. Fresh with crispy vegetables, smoky from grilling them, herby from pesto and downright fucking sexy from burrata, this platter can do no wrong. All you people who have things like decks, and charcoal, and pools to attend to this weekend will not even have to sweat grilling up these badass veggies. And then you’re gonna top it all with burrata. Because, burrata!!

Now, I’ve waxed poetic on burrata previously. Here is yet another love letter. It’s like the best mozzarella you’ll ever eat, but better. The second it is punctured, its oozy, silky, creamy insides pour out just asking to scooped up with whatever else is on the plate for the best bite of whatever that is because, burrata. It’s not to be skipped!

Listen, I’m sorry but we’re gonna have to live with the asparagus in the pictures. Spring is obviously gone and summer has come to stay, so together we’ll have to dream of comparable summer produce to sub in instead. I think green beans are probably the answer. However, based on what I know of summer produce (which is that it is all amazing), it shouldn’t be any trouble to pick your favorite, grill it, throw it on the plate, and douse it with pesto. Nothing you pick could be bad, I’m sure of it.

Lastly, I don’t wanna say that ya shoulda made my pesto, but ya shoulda made my pesto. Recipe here! But I won’t hold it against you if you just add whatever your favorite pesto is on top of all this goodness instead.

Happy Fourth, y’all!

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Grilled Vegetables with Burrata & Pesto

Ingredients:

8 ounces sugar snap peas, trimmed and stringed

1 bunch of asparagus, trimmed of woody ends (can sub 8 ounces trimmed green beans)

2 to 3 small red spring onions, sliced in thin rounds and laid out flat

olive oil

salt & pepper

8 ounces fresh burrata, removed from the water

½ cup carrot top garlic scape pesto (recipe here or other fresh pesto)

Directions:

In a large bowl toss the snap peas and asparagus with a drizzle of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Drizzle the laid out onions with olive oil also, and season with salt and pepper, set aside. Try not to break the rings apart.

Heat up a grill or grill pan over a medium to high heat. Once it’s been brought up to temp, add a small batch of the vegetables in one layer on the grill. Turn the vegetables only once they have developed a nice set of grill marks.  Continue in batches until all vegetables have been grilled. The vegetables should still have a nice crunch to them.

To assemble, layer the vegetables on a big serving platter. Add the burrata to the top of the vegetables and drizzle the entire dish with a touch more olive oil. Season with a touch more salt and a heavy crank of black pepper. Add a few good dollops of pesto to the dish and serve. Alternatively, you could also toss the vegetables in the pesto before layering on plate.

Serves 6 to 8

Strawberry Cornmeal Pancakes

Once upon a time I went to film school. I spent four years studying the art of filmmaking and earning a rather questionable bachelor’s degree since our studio classes took extreme precedence over our regular humanities courses. Among the cast of characters I met along the way, my production professor was definitely the most memorable in the best way.

He had an enviable handlebar mustache, an unruly mop of charcoal grey hair, and was the type to wear sunglasses at night. He had a thick eastern European accent and was a goldmine of amazing yet basically untranslatable idioms. One of his classics was not to “confuse frogs with grandmothers” followed by “it rhymes in my language”. It tended to leave the majority of our class scratching our heads as he usually applied it any situation he felt it called for. I had an affinity for his sayings that had to do with food, for now obvious reasons. He always compared filmmaking to making soup. When he wanted you to think about something or work on something a little longer he would say, “let it simmer”. When adding to the conversation, he would “add bacon to the pan” but not because he liked bacon, but because “I just like the sizzle”.

Since starting this weird food writing journey, besides a brilliant piece of editing advice (“use the axe, not the tweezers”), the line I think of most happens to be about pancakes. When we were in film school, he was essentially applying it to first drafts of the screenplays, first takes of the shoot, first editing passes of the film. But now in my second life, I am applying his advice in the most literal manner.

Here’s what you need to know, and this is some deep shit, so get ready. It can be applied literally and figuratively as I’ve already pointed out. But basically, remember when making pancakes or anything else --- that “the first pancake is always bad”.

Oh man, it’s like the truest thing anyone has ever said. Legitimately changed my life. I think of it every.single.time. I make pancakes and never feel bad when the first one is terrible. Even these. Although I do have to say, practice can make perfect. I tend to over butter the first time around which kind of deep-frys the pancake. Sounds good in theory but that’s not what makes a perfect pancake. Low heat is important; the key to pancakes is patience. If the pan is too hot, the outside and the butter will burn, but the inside will be raw. So remember --- lower heat than you think, less butter than you think, more time than you think along with the most patience. And this, the best advice of all, remember that “the first pancake is always bad”.

Now just because I have no idea how to segue into this, can I let you in on a little secret? Not only are these pancakes so seasonal, made from mostly local ingredients, quite possibly organic and totally gluten free --- they’re also birthday pancakes. June 29th was sizzle & sass kitchen’s first birthday. Since my first post, every day behind the stove, the camera, and the keyboard in the pursuit of this site has never felt more right. This project has turned into a full-on passion and there’s really nothing I’d rather do with my days. Thank you to those of you who take the time to read these posts. Here’s to many more! Let’s toast with these pancakes.

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Strawberry Cornmeal Pancakes

adapted from this smitten kitchen recipe

Ingredients:

¾ cup rice flour

¾ cup fresh milled organic fine ground corn flour

½ teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey

2 eggs

3 tablespoons melted butter (plus extra for greasing griddle)

1 cup roughly chopped strawberries

Directions:

Heat oven to 200 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix rice flour, corn flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

In a second bowl, whisk together buttermilk, maple syrup, and the two eggs. Lastly, whisk in the melted butter. Switch to a wooden spoon and gently stir in the strawberries.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and using the wooden spoon, gently fold the batter until it just comes together.

Heat a skillet over low to medium heat. Melt just enough butter to lightly coat the skillet. Using a ¼ cup measure, scoop a ¼ cup of batter onto the skillet. The batter is a bit thicker and doesn’t spread as easy so I found that I needed to flatten the batter a bit into a pancake with my fingers. Let it cook on the first side for about two minutes, until golden brown and cooked through. Flip and cook until golden on the second side. Place in a 200 degree oven to keep warm, if desired. Continue with remaining batter.

Serve with whipped cream and maybe rhubarb sauce if you want to be annoyingly seasonal or plain ole’ maple syrup or overkill it with some homemade strawberry jam like I did the second these pictures were done.

Makes about 8 four-inch pancakes. If you're really awesome you could probably get 10. Serves 4 to 5.

Carrot Top Garlic Scape Pesto

I’m not exactly sure what to say about pesto. Because I’ve felt deeply for most of my adult life, that no, I do not like pesto. But now what I realize I actually don’t like is, I think, basil.

Something possessed me this past farmer’s market to pick up a bunch of baby carrots. It wasn’t a hard sell, they were ridiculously adorable looking and came with a bunch of fluffy green tops and they just screamed SPRING! and HEALTH! I had it in mind to use up last haul’s dill weed up by making this from the archives.

Not sure if you know this, but it’s pretty trendy these days to be a Dan Barber fan-girl. If you don’t know him, he is one of the poster boys for the sustainable food movement. One of his more recent ventures was turning his fancy Manhattan restaurant into a pop-up called wastED to bring attention to food waste. It was already a farm to table establishment, garnering most of its ingredients from Barber’s upstate and New England working farms. So basically he’s running for sainthood. You should check out his "Chef’s Table" episode on Netflix so we can all be fan-girls together. When does the pesto come in? I’m getting to that. 

Between him and resident cool girl, April Bloomfield, whose “top to tail” and “nose to tail” cooking has also inspired many a food waster to cut down. The recent author of “A Girl and Her Greens”, has lately had her roasted carrots with carrot top pesto making the internet rounds. So to state the obvious and get to the pesto, as I was shearing the greens from my baby carrots, I choose not to throw those greens out, but whirled them together with some usual pesto suspects.

It doesn’t taste like the pesto you know, because as noted above, I probably wouldn’t like it. But it’s herby and salty and lipsmackingly slick with olive oil as any good pesto probably should be. Since I used farmer’s market darling, the garlic scape instead of garlic, you can sub in two garlic cloves if you can’t find those.

I’m a total pesto convert, I’ve basically put it on and in everything this whole week. I even started dipping baby carrots in it, it seemed wrong...but also right...

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Carrot Top Garlic Scape Pesto

adapted from “A Girl and her Greens”

Ingredients:

2 cups packed roughly chopped carrot tops

3 garlic scapes roughly chopped (can sub 2 cloves smashed garlic)

salt and pepper

¼ cup packed grated parmesan

¼ cup toasted pine nuts

½ cup olive oil

Directions:

I made mine in my nutribullet, so I just dumped it all in the large vessel and let it do it’s blending thing.

If you are using a food processor, you are going to want to lightly pulse all the ingredients except for the olive oil until mostly combined. Then set it to process on a low setting and slowly pour the olive oil in through the opening of the top of the processor, blitzing just until it comes together.

Use on and in everything.

Store in the refrigerator in an air tight container with a light layer of olive oil on the top. It also freezes well.

Makes about 1 cup

Note: A few days later I smothered some grilled vegetables in this pesto and topped it all with burrata. Recipe here.

Very Green Salad

Back in the dead of winter, definitely in the middle of a snowstorm, I was desperate for a few things --- inspiration, hope, and maybe some fresh greens wouldn’t hurt. After being a really diligent seasonal eater, I had reached a point where ragged and frostbitten vegetables had gotten the best of me. I remember it very specifically (Feb 21st) because I had clocked quite possibly the worst week in work history ever and even had to work on the weekend because of it. I left my office that Saturday afternoon feeling defeated and weary and a little annoyed that because of both the snowstorm and it being late in the day, I had most likely missed my weekly farmer’s market run.  (Hence the need for inspiration and hope.)

Feeling resentful I headed downtown anyways to see if maybe, just maybe, I could still catch a few stands. There was one stand that particularly stood out amongst the few remaining. It was because through its clear plastic sheath the shock of green was blatant against the white blanket of snow that had coated the square. It was too springy and green and welcoming to not step in and admire for just a moment. I lost my steely seasonal resolve in about 30 seconds.

I remember thinking --- I’m sure these little leaves are grown inside and are not truly seasonal but they are everything to me right now. The little flower that was tucked into the top of each box was the bright spot in the eye of the storm and it made the whole day, week, world okay. It doesn’t take too much to make me happy, obviously. But seriously, at that moment it was just the ticket. 

I went home and made the greenest thing I could possibly manage because I needed it to not be cold and snowing and winter and the worst week ever. And somehow this salad helped me to pretend that, yes, maybe it was actually okay, and don’t worry spring is just around the corner, the days are getting lighter, and soon the flowers will bloom and it will all be fine.

This salad has been on repeat in my lunchbox/random dinner/midnight snack rotation for weeks now. But its true season has only just appeared. The baby lettuces, crispy romaines, and soft spinach leaves are being tucked into pillowy beds in every market stand these days. It’s perfect for a late spring salad, but obviously served me well through the dreary winter weather we only just left.

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Very Green Salad

Ingredients:

1 head romaine, cut into 1-inch pieces (or 8 ounces baby greens)

½ bunch lacinato kale, shredded

½ cup sunflower seeds

½ cup raw or roasted pepitas

1 cup golden raisins

1 avocado, sliced or cut up into 1-inch chunks

¼ cup shredded parmesan

juice of one lemon

good drizzle of olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Whisk lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper in a small bowl until well combined.

Add the greens and toppings to a large bowl and pour dressing over. Toss gently to coat in dressing.

Serves 4 to 6

Rhubarb Swirl Cake

I took several lessons straight to heart as a young Connecticut country kid. One was that foraging for random things in the woods was a great way to get poison ivy on your hands (oh the misery). And that running around barefoot all summer in the clover covered lawn was a guarantee of many bee stings to the toes, which I now file under -- wish that was still a problem. And lastly – don’t ever, ever eat rhubarb’s toxic leaves.

My good friend Sarah, another city transplant who grew up in the fields of Connecticut’s countryside, said she also remembered foraging for rhubarb in the springtime. Once snatched up, she would dip the raw stalk briefly into the sugar bowl before each bite. (Pro tip)

Even now, I could lead you by the hand with my eyes closed to the place where the rhubarb grows. Each spring it matures in an uncultivated space on the right side of my mother’s garden, just outside the fence. There, it mingles with weeds, and grasses, and pricker bushes, waiting to be plucked and tucked into something sweet.

The rhubarb arriving every year was something I always looked forward to. The deep satisfaction of the seasons changing seemed to be important to me, even then. It’s arrival meant that the weather was getting warmer, school was almost over, summer was so close you could smell it. It meant that we were going strawberry picking so soon. However, I have no associations with actually consuming it. You see, my mother never really did anything with her rhubarb.

I wish I could tell you all that I have fond memories of strawberry rhubarb pies swirling around in my springtime memories of growing up. But in truth, it seems my mama wasn’t ever too big on pie. Which is why I’m probably not too big on pie. I have no consistent culinary memory link to it. I have one vague recollection of her making a crisp.

Rhubarb was one of the first things I picked up at the farmer’s market last year when I started going. I picked it up with only faint purpose since I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I knew it was seasonal, I knew it was fleeting and still --- those seem to be only two things I need to know to spend my entire savings account at a market stand. I ended up making this. And then I made it a few more times with the rhubarb I’d begged my mother to pick from her garden and freeze for me. A few weeks ago when I was not-so-patiently waiting for rhubarb and strawberries to show up, buried within my too full freezer I discovered a baggie of both rhubarb and strawberries from last summer --- a bonafide win. They soon found themselves stirred into a pot with some vanilla to make some more. I have new associations and now (strawberry) rhubarb compote means that spring is here.

Once I finally got my hands on some actual rhubarb, swirling some saucy fresh stuff into some cake was definitely an upgrade. Say you want those swirls even more shockingly pink, (if you couldn’t tell by my instagram feed), strawberries are here people(!!!) Use this compote recipe to swirl in instead. I, however, really liked the puckery rhubarb all by itself. I also love this rhubarb sauce’s demure shade of pink. Almost like it’s not quite calling attention to itself until it hits your tongue and it’s an explosion of pleasant tartness.

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Rhubarb Swirl Cake

adapted from this recipe by Cannelle et Vanille

Yield: 1 nine inch square cake

Ingredients:

Rhubarb sauce:

2 cups diced rhubarb

½ cup raw sugar

juice of half a lemon

Cake:

3 eggs

1 cup raw sugar

1 cup full fat greek yogurt

1/2 cup melted unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup white rice flour

1/2 cup millet flour

2 tablespoons tapioca starch

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

powdered sugar for sprinkling (if desired)

Directions:

In a small saucepan over low to medium heat stir together the diced rhubarb, ½ cup of sugar, and the lemon juice. Stir occasionally. Keep at a simmer. It will take about 30 minutes for the rhubarb to breakdown and come to desired consistency. Once it is thick and jammy, turn off heat and allow to cool down a bit.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a 9-inch square cake pan with parchment paper.

Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, yogurt, melted butter, and vanilla extract.

Add in the white rice flour, millet flour, tapioca starch, baking powder and salt. Whisk again to thoroughly incorporate.

Pour into the cake pan and spread it out evenly.

Dollop four thick lines of the rhubarb compote onto the top of the batter. Using a toothpick, knife, or skewer drag through the rhubarb lines to create a swirling design throughout the top of the cake.

Bake cake for 40 to 45 minutes minutes or until it’s edges have turned golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean.

Let cake cool in pan. Using the edges of the parchment paper, lift the cake out of the pan. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired. Cut into squares.

Note: You will probably have some rhubarb compote left over. Swirl it into other things like yogurt or ice cream or oatmeal. Sometimes I just eat it with a spoon, but that’s just me.

Spring Vegetable Brown Fried Rice

Do you smell it? Let’s try and guess what I might be talking about.

Am I talking about the May flowers that are making our eyes water and our noses sniffle? Perhaps I'm speaking of freshly cut grass or the smell of burgers sizzling on a grill. You probably don’t know what I'm talking about because you live somewhere beautiful and green and sane.

No. No, instead I’m talking about what Deb Perelman of smitten kitchen aptly describes in a post of hers as “eau de hot trash.” A distinct sign of rising temperatures in New York City, the overflowing trash buckets begin to literally bake in the sun. By 10a.m., if you close your eyes you might think you’ve commuted directly into a landfill.

Planning on visiting our fair city this summer or one day soon? Don't worry, you get used to it.

It seems that we’ve all but totally skipped spring. I’m not totally unhappy about it because I love this stinking hot weather and like I said, you get used to it. I like to think of myself as a cold blooded reptile. Now I can slither out to a nice sunny rock (my mother’s deck) and warm up my bones. You know what else likes this sunny weather? Strawberries. In season local strawberries, literally sunkissed and still warm to the touch, are worth these smelly, smelly mornings. They just started popping up at the New York greenmarkets and soon I will take a drive with my mother and we will handpick and drag home way too many pounds of them. Strawberries also mean that not far off in our futures are those other elusive summer standbys. In other words --- I’m dying for an August tomato.

This doesn’t mean that I’m sick of springtime’s well-timed fare. It arrives just when you’re about to go nuts that your market haul was a handful of wintered-over carrots and past-their-prime apples. Fresh and green comes to save you in the form of asparagus, peas, and the ever exclusive ramp. These three spring stars are the basis for this quick fried rice-esque side. Since ramp season is fleeting and just about over, feel free to sub any other springtime allium in if you can't find them anywhere. I also made it once with quinoa and it was just as good. Super simple, super seasonal, with minimal time spent at the stove. Plus, with similarities to the stuff that you can grab at your corner Chinese joint, it is so, so good cold from the fridge.

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Spring Vegetable Brown Fried Rice

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons neutral oil like avocado oil for sauteing

2 eggs

salt

1 cup chopped ramps (can sub spring garlic, spring onions, or garlic scapes)

1 cup asparagus chopped into 1-inch pieces

1 cup frozen or fresh peas

2 cups cooked brown rice (or white rice, or quinoa)

soy sauce to taste

sesame oil to taste

Directions:

In oiled pan over high heat, crack the eggs directly into pan as if you were going to fry them. Season with a bit of salt. Let the whites set for a few seconds then puncture the yolk with the spatula and begin to pan scramble them. Once the eggs are fully cooked remove from pan and set aside.

Add a bit more oil to the same pan and add the vegetables. Season them with a bit of salt. Saute over high heat until asparagus is bright green, peas have thawed, and ramps have wilted. This will take 2 to 3 minutes at the most. Once cooked, remove from pan and set aside.

Add a bit more oil to the pan and then add cooked rice to the pan. Stir rice to coat in oil and reheat. If you aren’t using a nonstick pan, the rice will probably stick a bit. Just do your best to scrape it up as you go. Once rice is fully broken up and heated through and beginning to “fry”, add the eggs and vegetables to the pan with the rice. Drizzle a touch of sesame oil onto the stir fry and a couple dashes of soy sauce to taste.

Stir the sesame oil and soy sauce into the stir fry to incorporate. Taste for seasoning, add more soy sauce if needed. Once all components are fully combined, remove from heat and serve.

Serves 4 to 6 as a side. Add protein to bump to a main.

What I Really Eat: Migas Style Breakfast Tacos

"What I really eat" are my Iron Chef meals. My pantry meals. Shit, my fridge is empty meals. The things that come out of necessity and lack of time. The ingredient list will usually be small and the execution usually simple. Something that is less of a recipe and more of a guideline. If something exceptionally awesome comes out of my Sunday night scramble, it will get posted as a “What I Really Eat” and probably be accompanied with a not-my-best photo.

Having not encountered much Tex-Mex growing up, I didn’t learn the genius of migas until I was watching the special features section for the movie Sin City. I was a bonafide film nerd growing up (I even went to film school!) so it was normal for me to pour over the special features of any movie I came across. Here is where Robert Rodriguez solidified himself as both a favorite director and a serious crush factor. He makes movies? He cooks? And eggs for dinner at that? Sold. I’m sold.

(I highly suggest watching his other cooking school videos. As he wisely says "not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to f...just watch the videos.)

My love of migas has now totally and completely been cemented since I began visiting friends in Austin, Texas. One night while everyone else was drunkenly digging into some deliciously sloppy nachos, I was happily inhaling migas breakfast tacos at one in the morning.

These should work for all your come-home-a-bit-tipsy midnight snack needs, breakfast for dinner indulgences, and are just as appropriate for the time of day when eggs are usually consumed. They would make an awesome assemble-your-own brunch item. I’ve even packed them up for “not a sad desk lunch". Eaten cold from the fridge with my fingers? Guilty.

These of course would be much more simple without all the frying of various carb sources, but it’s the crunch of the tortillas that gets me every.single.time. More power to you if you make your own tortillas, recipe is in the video link. I’ve done it before and it is for sure worth it. When I’m just looking to stuff my face though, some organic sprouted corn tortillas I found at Whole Foods have been doing the trick just fine. If you do watch the video, I did adapt the recipe to essentially combine the two different tacos he makes. Believe you me, when tomatoes are in season again, those are going right on in.

I don’t believe in Cinco de Mayo, but I do believe in tacos. Here’s my contribution to the “holiday”.

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Migas Style Breakfast Tacos

adapted from Robert Rodriguez’s 10 Minute Cooking School

Ingredients:

¼ cup olive oil for frying

2 smallish yukon gold potatoes, diced

2 corn tortillas, cut into ½ inch squares

2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, diced

1 jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed and minced

6 eggs

splash of heavy cream or whole milk

salt and pepper

6 additional corn tortillas for serving

sliced avocado

hot sauce to taste

Directions:

In a medium sized skillet heat up approximately a ¼ cup of olive oil over medium heat. Once the oil is hot enough add diced potatoes to oil. Fry up until golden brown on all sides and soft when pierced with a fork. Remove from oil and set on a paper towel lined plate to drain, sprinkle with salt to taste.

Add cut up tortillas to the same oil, watch these carefully they will brown up quickly. Fry until completely golden brown. Turn off heat and add to paper towel lined plate to drain. Sprinkle with salt to taste.

In a different skillet or the same with oil cleaned out, heat 1 tablespoon of butter over medium high heat. Once melted add onion and jalapeno to the pan. While the vegetables are cooking, beat the 6 eggs with the splash of heavy cream and salt and pepper until combined.

When onion and pepper are getting soft and starting to caramelize, crank up the heat to high and add the remaining tablespoon of butter. Swirl to coat pan. When butter is melted and starting to brown, add the eggs to the hot pan. Let eggs begin to set on the bottom and then quickly add the potatoes and fried tortillas to the eggs. Start to pull the eggs away from the sides of the pan as you would scrambled eggs. Continue to cook eggs until the desired consistency. Remove from heat and plate.

Here’s where you do you. To serve, if you want lightly warm a tortilla then scoop a bit of the eggs into it. Top with avocado and hot sauce to taste. Proceed to stuff face.

Serves 4 to 6