Mike's Second Favorite Breakfast

The honor of first favorite goes to Frijoles Charros and eggs, which I'll save for another post. This is a close #2: Huevos Rancheros. If you're a regular reader, my Mexican food fetish is probably known to you by now. If not... now you know. I could start every morning with eggs, beans and salsa and probably never grow tired of it. I don't think. Anyway, I was captivated by a version I found at Smitten Kitchen, but the task of flipping a tortilla with a raw egg sitting on top of it without making a bloody mess proved to be elusive. So, I made the salsa cruda as instructed on SK- which is devastatingly simple and delicious, just diced fresh tomato, onion (I used a sweet yellow, which I like best for salsa) and raw jalapeno; dismembered several stalks of cilantro; heated up the tortillas in a hot oiled skillet, melted cheese on each; and fried eggs in a separate pan, with the yolks still runny, naturally.SK's devilishly clever take was to use, as a delicious shortcut, Goya Black Bean soup for the bean side dish; I simulated this by spicing the beans with garlic, cumin and chili powder and copious amounts of black pepper, then letting a cup and a half of chicken broth reduce in the pan until the beans were sauced with the reduction. It felt strange trying to recreating canned soup manually, but the results were fantastic, I daresay better in the end for having been made from scratch. I doubt if I'll ever master that egg and tortilla over easy method, but this was mightlily satisfying, regardless.

Quinoa: the other other ancient grain

Finally! I've sold Michael on quinoa.  I never thought he would come around, but he's actually been looking forward to leftovers of this dish.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this is a tasty ancient grain with a full complement of amino acids which makes it a complete protein (perfect for vegetarians), but there, I just did.

Pictured here, our simple evening meal of black bean and tomato quinoa from Serious Eats.  This particular recipe is built upon familiar Latin American flavors like lime, cilantro, black beans, and tomatoes--ideal when you consider that quinoa originated in South America.  If anyone finds themselves trying this recipe, there will be a point where you agonize over how to strain the water off the tiny grains after the initial boiling in salted water.  Don't panic.  Just drain MOST of the water off over the finest sieve you own, but don't dump it all out of the pan into the sieve.  Leave a little bit of water in, loosely fit the lid onto the pan and turn the heat as low as possible, allowing the quinoa to absorb the water (similar to rice) for another 10 minutes.  Follow the rest of the instructions as written after that point.  Quinoa is an extremely unfussy grain and it's such a hearty food that it makes an ideal one dish simple supper.

Black Bean Brownies...

...just as bad as they sound.  I thought I was going to be clever and bake brownies that used no flour and no sugar (just agave nectar).  Guess I had some unreasonable expectations.  This recipe comes from the Baking with Agave Nectar cookbook by Ania Catalano.

To the author, I must apologize for this post.  I must be missing something, but I followed the recipe about as well as I could and ended up with formless, overly sweet, and greasy lumps of dough that I could have used to sculpt a big gooey booger.  I'm pretty sure that's what the kids wanted to do with them.

When I eat a brownie, I'm always expecting some bit of chewy crunch on the outside, or at the very least a bit of cakey goodness that melts into fudgie gooey-ness in the middle.  This recipe certainly tasted of chocolate and no one would have identified the black beans, but the texture was all wrong.  Brownies just need some frickin' flour and granulated sugar.  Why are we kidding ourselves?  Good question.