Stovetop-Baked Eggs over Vegetable Stew

 

I have been running a lot recently, since I'm training for a half marathon in mid March. Even though I've been jogging since high school as a workout, this is really the first time that I've worked on increasing my mileage and the first period I've ever regularly run more than four or five miles at one time. So I've been hungry. I'm running with a training organization, Team in Training, and we have our long training runs early on Saturday mornings, so I've gotten into a pretty regular routine of coming home and making a huge brunch on Saturdays.

 

I thought it could be an interesting tangent to add running recipes to the blog- the longer I do this the harder of a time I have of coming up with new ideas, so I thought this could be a good new topic! So watch for similar posts in the future.

I was curious, first, to do a little research on what a good post-running meal should include. None of it is super surprising, but I found some good reminders.

 

Cooking After a Long Run

 

Post-running recipes should have a couple of main components:

Carbohydrates

Protien

Antioxidants

Says Discovery Health, "A run that lasts an hour or more taxes your body in such a way that you need to give it carbohydrates and protein in a particular proportion -- ideally, a 4-to-1 ratio of carbs to protein -- that will maximize immune function while restoring energy and rebuilding your muscles better than before."

So, protein and carbs are obviously both very important. I thought it could be a good challenge to come up with a vegetarian protein-rich recipe, since a vegetarian protein is typically more environmentally-friendly than a meat protein.

The resulting recipe was a modification of something I'd read about on another cooking blog and had been wanting to try. It's heavy in eggs and vegetables, which is good:

Eggs: From Runner's World: One egg fulfills about 10 percent of your daily protein needs. Egg protein is the most complete food protein short of human breast milk, which means the protein in eggs contains all the crucial amino acids your hard-working muscles need to promote recovery. Eat just one of these nutritional powerhouses and you'll also get about 30 percent of the Daily Value (DV) for vitamin K, which is vital for healthy bones.

Vegetables: Research shows that eating a combination of antioxidants [found in vegetables including bell peppers and onions], such as beta-carotene and vitamin C, may lessen muscle soreness after hard interval workouts by reducing the inflammation caused by free-radical damage (from Runner's World).

 

The recipe is pretty simple once you have everything chopped up, and an added bonus is that it makes a LOT. Which is nice when you're using it as a post-running meal, since you can eat a lot and still have leftovers. I ate it with a sliced wheat baguette, since I felt like it needed something to sop up some of the liquid and balance out the flavor. I was really happy with it in the end- basically a nice way to eat a lot of different types of vegetables at once, and good flavor from the stewing. I think you could really do some creative, things, though, and use any vegetables or cheeses you have around.

 

 

Stovetop-Baked Eggs over Vegetable Stew
adapted from katechristensen.wordpress.com

1 onion
1 red bell pepper
1 8-ounce package of baby Portobello mushrooms
4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped and mashed
2 medium zucchini, chopped
1 T hot red peper flakes
4 eggs
1.5 C shredded parmesean cheese
about 6 C chopped baby arugula
"jot" of half and half (a few tablespoons)
sprinkle of paprika
salt and pepper
1-2 T olive oil

1. Chop the onion, mushrooms, and red peper. Saute these with the chopped garlic in a large oven-proof skillet with the olive oil until vegetables have softened but are not fully cooked.
2. Add the chopped baby arugula and let it cook until it wilts down to almost nothing. Season with the paprika, red hot pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to taste.
3. Stir and let simmer uncovered for five to seven minutes, until the vegetables are tender, and then sprinke parmesan cheese over it in a layer.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
5. Crack four eggs one by one onto the surface of the vegetables and pour a jot of half-and-half over each egg yolk.
6. Remove the skillet from heat and put in the oven. Cover and let bake until the egg whites are just barely set and the yolk is still runny.

Serves approximately six.

**I ate this with some baguette, which worked really well. This soaked up some of the liquid from the dish and balanced out the flavor and richness of the eggs and cheese.

Chorizo, egg and rosemary breakfast risotto

The weather has been autumnal here in DC, and as I was thinking about the weekend at the end of this week, I started to crave a really hearty brunch. After coming across a couple of recipes for savory breakfast risottos, as indulgent as that sounds (and is...), I couldn't resist. Colder weather + breakfast ingredients + risotto makes tons of sense to me.

I wound up combining two different breakfast risotto recipes, particularly because I wanted to make one that had a more autumnal flavoring, which to me means herbs like rosemary and sage.

The resulting flavor is interesting, because it's a bit like eating porridge, and a bit like eating a favorite comfort food, with the rosemary, roasted tomatoes and chorizo. I also love the addition of the egg on top - although it doesn't take away from the richness of the dish, the egg is such a different texture, and has such a bland (in a good way) flavor, that I think it makes it a lot more interesting. While it's rich, it's great for when you feel like something substantive for breakfast; it made a great post-run brunch this weekend.

 

 

This is also not the quickest of recipes. So make it on a weekend when you have some extra time, and want to dig into a cooking project. The reward is that it makes a pretty big batch, so you should have leftovers.

(Try to ignore the imperfect job I did on this sunny-side-up egg... which turned out to more of just a fried and slightly scrambled egg.)

Chorizo, egg and rosemary breakfast risotto

Adapted from the Smitten Kitchen and Jamie Oliver recipes

Serves: Approx. six

6 cups low-sodium chicken stock or vegetable broth
3-4 links of chorizo sausage
3-4 tablespoon olive oil
2 large or 3 smaller leeks, quartered lengthwise, cleaned of grit, and chopped small
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
2 cups arborio rice
1/3 cup dry white wine or vermouth
6 small Roma tomatoes or other small tomatoes
4 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 cup finely grated fresh Parmesan cheese, plus extra for garnish if desired
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
approx. 6 large eggs; one per serving

1. First, start the tomatoes roasting. Heat the oven to 350 F, wash the tomatoes, cut then in half, and place skin up in a roasting dish. Coat with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Throw in a spring of rosemary and cook for about 30-35 minutes. After tomatoes are finished, set aside to cool and then cut into chunks, discarding rosemary.
2. Place stock or broth in a small-medium saucepan over very low heat on a back burner and keep it heated until steaming, but not so hot that it simmers.
3. Heat a second medium saucepan (3 quarts) or skillet over medium heat. Add chorizo, leeks, and rosemary, and cook for 10-12 minutes. Leeks should be softened and mostly tender. Next remove all from pan and set aside, but leave pan with sausage flavoring. Transfer to bowl with bacon and set aside, leaving stove on.
4. Add olive oil to pan and cook onions until translucent and tender, about 5 minutes. Add rice and cook sauté until faintly toasted, about 4 minutes. Add wine or vermouth and cook until it almost disappears, about 2 minutes. Ladle 1 cup of hot broth into the rice mixture and simmer until it absorbs, stirring frequently. Add remaining broth 1/2 cup at a time, allowing broth to be absorbed before adding more and stirring frequently until rice is al dente, about 25 to 30 minutes.
5. From smitten kitchen regarding the risotto's consistency: "What you’re looking for in well-cooked risotto is a creamy but loose dish. When ladled onto a plate, it should spill into a creamy puddle, not heap in a mound. You might need an extra splash of broth to loosen it."
6. When risotto is the desired consistency, add the cheese and chorizo, leeks and rosemary mix, and then add the chopped roasted tomatoes.
7. Then, quickly, in a small skillet, heat a olive oil over medium-high and swirl it to coat the pan. Crack one egg into the skillet, season with salt and pepper and reduce heat to medium. Cook egg sunny side up. Cook one egg per serving of risotto.
8. To serve, garnish each serving of risotto with a bit of Parmesan cheese, and lay the egg on top.

Breakfast Burrito Sauce

Some successful dishes are based on reading a recipe, being inspired by an idea you wouldn't have thought of, and perhaps having a new experience. Alternatively, others are based on a random flash of a thought that illuminates a hole in your food world and makes you crave an inexplicable food experience, or even emotion, and trying to create a recipe to fill that void.

This recipe is in the later category, as a couple of weeks ago I became obsessed with the idea of making a sweet but also spicy breakfast burrito sauce. I was thinking of making a homemade breakfast burrito sauce, and all of a sudden had a very specific image come to mind of a sauce that would combine different elements from a breakfast plate (picture maple syrup mingling with the huevos racheros). I ended up starting with a smokey tomate-chipotle sauce, and adding in maple syrup, cinnamon, and fruit preserves to try achieve this savory-sweet goal.

This recipe included an ingredient that I've been curious about, but haven't used before, canned chiles chipotles en adobo. They're basically a very smokey-tasking canned chile. The flavor is definitely kind of strong, so I would use them sparingly, but I liked the flavor.

I was really happy with how this sauce turned out; this is mostly a spicy sauce, but the sweet and fruity flavors come through, making it a more complex addition than the typical sauce to whatever you put it on. Honestly, I envisioned this as a breakfast burrito sauce, but I mostly ate it with fried eggs and cheese on toast. And it was pretty amazing, especially after sitting for a few days. I think pretty much how I pictured.

Breakfast Burrito Sauce

Adapted from Rick Bayless's Essential Quick-Cooked Tomato-Chipotle Sauce

Makes about 2 cups

3 canned chiles chipotles en adobo

4-5 garlic cloves

1 1/2 lbs (4-5 medium) tomatoes 

1/2 t salt

1 T olive oil

2 T apricot preserves

1 T maple syrup

1/4 t ground cinnamon

1. On a heavy, ungreased skillet over medium heat, roast the unpeeled garlic, turning occasionally, until blackened in spots and soft, about 15 minutes. Cool, slip off the papery skins, and roughly chop. 

2. Lay the tomatoes on a baking sheet and place about 4 inches below the top of the oven with the stove set to the broiler mode. When they blister, blacken and soften on one side, about 6 minutes, turn them over and roast on the other side. Cool, then peel, collecting all the juices with the tomatoes. 

3. Scrape the tomatoes and their juices into a food processor and add the canned chiles and garlic. Pulse the food processor until the mixture is nearly a puree. 

4. Heat the oil in a medium-sized saucepan over medium-high heat. When hot enough to make a drop of the puree sizzle, add the mixture from the food processor, as well as the apricot preserves, maple syrup, and cinnamon, and stir for 5 minutes as it sears and concentrates to an earthy, thickish sauce. Lastly, add the salt. 

Keeps for at least a week in the refrigerator.