Nerves before a trip

A bed of tomatoes and roasted garlic with a poached egg on top sprinkled with crispy prosciutto.

As you can tell I am fairly obsessed with the San Marzano tomatoes.

The dogs also got some:

I just got back from having my hair cut and colored. I tried to take a picture but it came out awful. I will try again tomorrow.

The dogs are fed and I am heading out again. I leave this coming Wednesday but these days of prep are zooming by!

Night all!

Pisto Manchego

Pisto Manchego.

I know I have been a bit egg-centric lately. Sorry for that - but at the moment eggs are one of the only protein sources I have in the house.

I really must look into getting a protein powder of some kind.

But back to the recipe of the day - Pisto Manchego. Pisto Manchego is essentially a vegetable stew - usually including tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini with a poached egg on top.

As usual, I didn't have all the ingredients so I just made my own version.

My favorite part of the dish was that the egg came out perfectly cooked.

The whites were well set and the yolk was still just a little bit runny - perfect!

My favorite restaurant, Iberia, used to serve a version of this dish that they called 'Peasant's stew' which I loved but when they closed their second restaurant it never showed up on the menu at the other location - Boo!!((

On the bright side, I now have a nice starter recipe that fills my craving for Peasant's stew :-)
 

Pisto Manchego (Spanish vegetable stew)

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 cup of canned chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup of  cannelli beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup of stale bread chopped into small cubes
1 green onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 carrot, chopped
1/2 cup of chopped yellow bell pepper
1 tsp of olive oil
2 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup of water
one pinch of oregano
1/2 tsp of dried parsley
2 eggs
1 tsp of Siggis plain yogurt
salt and cracked black pepper to taste
a pinch of paprika for garnish

Instructions:

Put the olive oil into a sauce pan on low heat. Add in the green onions and let cook until translucent. Add in the garlic and let cook for another 2 minutes.

Next, add in the tomatoes, beans, bread, vegetable broth, carrot, yellow bell pepper, water and spices. Turn the heat up to medium and when the pot begins to simmer turn the heat back to low, cover and let cook.

When the vegetables are tender and the mixture begins to get thick, make two wells in the pot and carefully crack an egg into each well.  Cover the pot and cook another 5 minutes. This should result in set whites but with a slightly runny yolk. Adjust this final cooking time depending on how you like your eggs cooked.

When the eggs have set up, pull the pan off the heat and carefully scoop out the eggs and set aside. Spoon the vegetable stew into two bowls and stir in 1/2 of a tsp of Siggis plain yogurt into each bowl. Then gently place an egg on top. Sprinkle with a bit of sweet paprika.

Enjoy!

Salmon fried rice and one for the dogs

This morning I groaned when I realized that the kibble bin was empty.

Then I remembered I had leftover rice in the fridge. 

This can only mean one thing - breakfast fried rice for all!

Salmon fried rice.

I chopped up a carrot and some kale and sauteed them till tender in a little olive oil. I set the veggies aside (these veggies went into my dish and the dogs' meal).

I initially took out three salmon patties from the freezer and defrosted them before remembering they had onion in them and the dogs couldn't eat them.

Well, I could give it to the dogs if I wanted them to get a horrible case of anemia but that usually isn't fun for anyone...

I went a little overboard on crisping up the salmon patty.

I set the salmon patty aside and apologized profusely to Abby who was drooling in anticipation of a fish breakfast.

For the dogs' meal I scrambled on whole egg in a little olive oil. The dogs have been obsessing over the local tofu I brought home the other day so I cubed up a handful and tossed that in with the egg.

Then 2/3 of the carrot and kale mixture went into the pan along with some canned peas (drained), 1 cup of cooked brown rice, soy sauce, oyster sauce and a little chicken broth.

This is a large stainless steel dog bowl.

I wanted to give you an idea of the portion sizes I feed if I am cooking a whole meal for the dogs. Abby weighs about 37lbs so she got about 1 cup of food. Connor weighs around 42lbs so he got 1 1/4 cup of food.

A drizzle of golden Udo's oil on top.

For my meal I put some chopped yellow onion and minced garlic in a pan with some olive oil.

I realized I had tomatoes I needed to use up so I gave one a rough chop and tossed that into the pan. 

Then I added 1/4 cup of cooked brown rice, the carrot and kale mixture, chicken broth, soy sauce, peas and the salmon patty chopped into pieces.

It was pretty tasty. What I liked most about it was that I got a hearty amount of protein and healthy fats with this breakfast.

Now I have to figure out what to do with the other salmon patties. I've got a feeling it is going to be a salmon-centric day.