I usually make myself an omlet of some kind or other on Sunday
mornings but today took a simpler approach. 3 eggs, beaten with a
teaspoon of water and a pinch of salt. Olive oil in pan, soften 1
chopped clove garlic and a small handfull of chopped green bell pepper
and Vidalia onion. Cook eggs till half done, add small handfull
finely shredded "mexican" (jack and cheddar) cheese. Add good grind
of tellicherry peppercorns, a palm fulll of chopped water chestnuts
and about a 2 tablespoon splash of "Curry sauce with tandoori spices"
(Aldi brand). A pinch of cayenne. Usually use plain curry powder.
Scramble till soft and moist (you're not one of those "hard" scrambled
egg people, are you?). Serve with a piece of dry toast and coffee.
Time for a nap.

Sunday's right in the middle of my work-week, so I rarely make a substantial
breakfast. But I'd been meaning to cook steel-cut oats again for weeks, so I
finally forced myself to get up early enough to have a "real" breakfast.

I followed Alton Brown's recipe in general, but I ended up tweaking it right
off the bat.

Here's the original recipe, from foodnetwork.com:

================================================== ==========================
Steel Cut Oatmeal
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown
Show: Good Eats
Episode: Oat Cuisine

1 tablespoon butter
1 cup steel cut oats
3 cups boiling water
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon low-fat buttermilk
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

In a large saucepot, melt the butter and add the oats. Stir for 2 minutes to
toast. Add the boiling water and reduce heat to a simmer. Keep at a low
simmer for 25 minutes, without stirring.
Combine the milk and half of the buttermilk with the oatmeal. Stir gently to
combine and cook for an additional 10 minutes. Spoon into a serving bowl and
top with remaining buttermilk, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
================================================== ==========================

First, I decided to double the recipe, so I'd have ready-made oats for
breakfast for at least the next few days.

I surmised that melting the butter and then adding the oats would lead to an
uneven distribution of butter, with 5% of the oats getting 90% of the
butter. So instead, I started toasting the oats in a dry skillet, and when
they were good and hot, I added the butter in little pieces while stirring
the oats.

Since I was doubling the recipe, I had to boil six cups of water. I
dutifully put six cups of water into a Pyrex measuring pitcher (with a
wooden skewer to keep it from superheating) and put it into the microwave.
Here's where it got interesting: I was doing a load of laundry at the same
time, and I needed to put fabric softener into the washing machine when the
rinse cycle started. So there I was, stirring the oats, watching the
pitcher for boiling to start, and listening to the washing machine for the
telltale sounds of the rinse cycle. It turns out that I have no idea what
that telltale sound might be, because I reacted to false alarm after false
alarm, rushing to the washing machine only to find that it hadn't reached
the rinse cycle, then rushing back to stir the oats before they burned. And
it takes FOREVER to boil six cups of water in my microwave! Well, not
forever, but a helluva lot longer than it took to toast the oats. Maybe
twelve minutes. I ended up taking the oats off the heat for fear of
over-toasting them -- and naturally, the water started boiling just as the
washing machine reached the rinse cycle.

Once the crucial laundry milestone had been passed, I put the oats back on
the heat and added the boiling water. I started out adding it a little too
quickly, because the hot pan reacted fiercely to the introduction of
already-boiling water, vaporizing it almost instantly with near-explosive
results, and sending little bits of steel-cut oat shrapnel in every
direction. But it wasn't *too* disastrous, and I eventually got all the
water into the pan. Okay, I looked at the recipe and saw that it was
supposed to simmer for 25 minutes, so I turned the heat to medium-low and
left it alone. Checking back when 25 minutes had elapsed, it turns out that
maybe I should have tweaked the recipe again: The oatmeal had formed a mound
just off-center in the pan. The mound was protruding from a ring of
standing water, and was emitting puffs of steam like a little oat volcano.
Next time I try this, I'll level the oats at the beginning of the simmering
phase. At any rate, I tried to level it out by spooning some of the
standing water onto the volcano. (You're not supposed to stir the oatmeal at
this point. I forget the exact reason, but AB explains it in the Good Eats
episode cited above. I think it's something to do with avoiding a gluey
texture.) Spooning the water didn't loosen up the oats, so I squashed the
volcano below the surface of the water, and let it simmer some more, until I
judged that it was ready for me to add the milk and buttermilk. Being
cholesterol-conscious, I used skim milk rather than whole milk. After
adding the dairy and simmering an additional ten minutes, I turned the heat
off and just let it sit and soak for another ten minutes or so. At that
point, I spooned it into storage containers, except for the modest cup I
allowed myself for breakfast.

Problem was, I was still hungry. Mindful of TheAlligator's Sunday scramble,
I put some homemade chorizo into a skillet and cooked it over medium-high
heat for a while, until it became abundantly clear that it wasn't fatty
enough to render its own cooking fat. So I added some olive oil and cooked
the chorizo through, then added a couple eggs and scrambled the whole thing
with lightning-fast passes of my heatproof spatula. (I *like* my heatproof
spatula!) Meanwhile, I toasted a single piece of whole wheat bread (which
contained a panoply of seeds: poppy seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, millet,
and wheat berries). A glass of chocolate malt Ovaltine and a glass of
tangerine juice completed my repast.

By the way, I've posted the chorizo recipe here before; you can find it by
going to Google Groups and searching for "chorizo kaffir". It's in the first
search result.

Bob

I did something similar about a week ago. They had small bags of the
small shrimp on sale, and for $1.50, I knew I could find something to
do with them.

So I chopped up an onion and a poblano, browned it in butter, added the
shrimp and cooked until thawed. Added eggs and curry powder. Served
with Pita bread and red El Yucatecco (sp?) hot sauce. We also had green
tea.

It looks like I forgot the garlic, and I know I had a bulb sitting
around. Also, my ex is holding the mortar and pestle hostage (and
everything else, but that isn't important...) , so it was pre-ground
black pepper for me.

Then it was time to go to work, but a nap would've been good.

Dean G.

wrote:
>It looks like I forgot the garlic, and I know I had a bulb sitting
>around. Also, my ex is holding the mortar and pestle hostage (and
>everything else, but that isn't important...) , so it was pre-ground
>black pepper for me.
>
>Then it was time to go to work, but a nap would've been good.
Sounds pretty good to me. I CAN'T forget the garlic, BTW, since I'm
completely addicted. And, by the way it IS important . . . hope
things work out OK for you. Not a nice thing to go through.