cook: ethnic breakfasts and greek sunday dinner

Before Saturday clay, I decided to use up the half avocado in the vegetable bin and the two telera rolls in the pantry to make chorizo egg tortas.  There was no time for process pics as I had to get to the clay studio. Here in California, we're lucky that we can find Mexican bread at Safeway and chorizo at the Grocery Outlet. I shaped raw chorizo into a patty (more ground pork than filler from a particular sausage company) and fried it. On top I put a slice of cheddar and chopped pickled jalapenos to melt. On the split and toasted rolls, I spread chipotle mayo and guacamole and chopped green onions and cilantro.

The piece de resistance, of course, was the fried egg.

Oh my! Delicious AF, and next time I'll use a jalapeno cheese bagel to sandwich those ingredients. And because Sadie was on my heels, my dog came to clay class with me, where my cylinder turned into a small, tall pitcher.

It's now Sunday morning, and I've got leftover chorizo as well as pinto beans I boiled before clay class. I've also got leftover brown and white rice, which impelled me to pull out the longaniza in my freezer to thaw along with the package of phyllo dough. I fried the Filipino sausage with a few slices of tomato, and I added toasted garlic and its oil to stale rice.                               

 

And not having to fry the rice but just microwave it with the garlic and oil was so convenient. In the meantime, I fried my eggs sunny side up. I had bought expensive GreenPan from Food 52, but really any pan like my favorite stainless steel and cast iron are nonstick if you add enough oil. The company recommends cooking low to medium heat to prolong the longevity of the pan, but I consider a hot pan my friend. I want that Maillard process to brown my food. Also I don't find them that nonstick, and it kind of drives me crazy to not use the green side of a scrunge pad to scrub my nonstick cookware. However, I can't quite get rid of my nonstick cookware yet. I'll try to get more uses out of them before I donate them. Putting a lid over the eggs ensures that the whites cook to solid but that the yolks remain runny.

 

Another favorite weekend breakfast in the books.

I never got around to re-frying the boiled pinto beans, nor making breakfast burritos for the week. Maybe I'll have an afternoon free this week. 

Next up, a Greek dinner. And I started cooking after lunch! I started with chopping onions and washing spinach.         

I then chopped the spinach and sprinkled salt over it in a colander to sit at least 10 minutes before squeezing excess water. I then chopped the fresh herbs: dill, a bit of basil, mint, green onions. 

  

I then added yogurt and crumbled feta to the herbs and spinach. I knew I was still missing ingredients and referred again to the recipe. Good thing! I still needed to add nutmeg, cayenne (I substituted aleppo and harissa pepper), black pepper, lemon zest, lemon juice, and an egg. I totally forgot to add garlic. However, the filling was so yummy, which I kept tasting and adding a bit more crumbled feta.

The difficult part of making spanokopita is handling the phyllo dough. I didn't cut, nor get fancy with the crush. I used a stick of butter or half cup melted to brush on the 6 layers of phyllo I did use.

Afterward, I sprinkled lots of white and black sesame seeds and scored the spinach pie with a sharp paring knife.

Eggplant next, which I sliced before laying on a sheet pan and sprinkling salt. Not pictured is the zucchini I also sliced and sprinkled salt on. I always wondered if I had too many sheet pans, but they sure are handy for tasks like prepping and broiling vegetables.

I had blotted the slices of eggplant and zucchini with paper towels, and while they were roasting in a 400 degree oven, I also started the ragout. I browned the onions and the lamb and tomato paste and bay leaves and deglazed with white wine and vegetable bone broth. I then added a couple of chopped tomatoes as well as a teaspoon of bouillon chicken powder, a couple teaspoons oregano, one and a half tablespoons white sugar, and half a teaspoon of cinnamon. Instead of salt, I added dashes of Golden Mountain seasoning sauce and boiled the meat mixture until thick. I then laid all the slices of roasted eggplant into the bottom of my dad's cast iron pan. I should have put a few spoons of sauce first, but no matter.

On top of the eggplant, more meat sauce and then the slices of roasted zucchini. Then more meat sauce. Then a béchamel I made into which I forgot to cool and then combine with an egg and did not photograph because I was interrupted by a visit from Mocha, a neighbor's dog who wanted her treat. It was already past 6 o'clock, and Patrick had just arrived from the gym. I got to cooking the completed moussaka by popping it into a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for 30 minutes.

And I think it turned out beautifully. That's béchamel, not melted mozzarella on top of my finished moussaka.

There was no room in my upper oven too for the spanokopita, and so I turned on my lower oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit to bake at the same time. I think it turned out beautifully too.

And I was so ready for dinner after 4 hours of kitchen work.

 

Episodes of Before the 90 Days: 90 Day Fiancé and Ted Lasso later, I'm already in a quandary of over what to cook this week. Fish me thinks.