Huevos Rancheros

It's safe to say that huevos rancheros is a favorite breakfast dish of both Sarah and I when we go out to eat. Lately though it's become a favorite week night dinner in our house. Perhaps a little less than a traditional version of it, it's super easy (and delicious) to make. 

So for a while we had been making it on corn tortillas, which is how it's typically made, but we find that while we don't always have corn tortillas around we almost always have flour tortillas in the house, and it works out equally as yummy either way. I spread refried beans on one half of the tortilla and fold it in half (if using corn tortillas, since they're typically smaller, I use two tortillas and spread the beans in between them).

Heat one side on the stove over a medium (I put our knob to 6) heat. 

Once it's flipped over put some salsa on top and next to it. (I usually put one spoonful on it and two next to it and spread them out). Then you want to quickly crack two eggs into the salsa being careful not to break the yolk. I tried for a long time to get the eggs to sit on top of the tortilla and not slide off, but found that the whites didn't cook quite enough (really for Sarah's liking, I'm a little less picky about having some stray runny whites) so usually just crack it on the tortilla now near the edge and let it slide off so that there a some amount of whites over most of the pan.

As soon as the eggs are in cover it with a glass lid. It'll get steamy and hard to see pretty quick, but you'll want to leave it on there until it almost looks like the yolks have turned pinkish when looking through the lid, but really it's just that the whites over the yolk have cooked. 

Carefully remove them as soon as they're done cooking from the pan and put them on a plate so that you still have ooey gooey runny yolks, yummmmmm. Toss some shredded cheese on.

And serve with some avocado and sour cream. Seriously, the best. See you next Tuesday!

Roasting Coffee

Okay, so maybe I've gone completely off the deep end, but I've begun roasting Sarah and I's coffee at home. It all started on a car ride home from an outlet mall just before the holiday season came underway when I decided it would be cool to own a coffee roaster because aside from freshly roasted coffee for yourself you could custom roast it for the coffee lovers on your list. So I decided I'd keep a casual eye out for a cheap roaster on craigslist/ebay, but in hopping online and looking up info about home roasting it turns out the gateway roaster for most people is an old popcorn maker. Challenge accepted. I went to my (then) local thrift store, The Lucky Dog, and got an old air popper for five and a half bucks. From my research when selecting one the older the better as they tend to get hotter. I didn't have many options since they only had one on hand, but I figured I'd give it a go. I'm pretty convinced the one I ended up with must be newer since it doesn't get hot enough to go very far beyond a light roast and even that takes a little longer than most of the time charts I've looked at. Anywho, I did end up making coffee for people for Xmas, but never again. Birthdays perhaps, but the amount of coffee it took to even do little (adorable) tiny bags that would make a single pot for everyone took what felt like foreverrrrr. But I have been roasting coffee every Sunday night for Sarah and I, and for a weeks worth of coffee it takes around 45 minutes from getting everything out to putting it away, which I can live with most weeks. 

I got my green coffee beans from smokinbeans.com where a 5lb bag clocked in a between twenty and thirty bucks. Aside from the beans and the air popper I use a measuring cup (1/3 seems to be about the right amount for the popper), a rubber spatula (both for the rubber part and for the wood handle), a mesh strainer, and a bowl. 

If you're going to try this at home make sure there's good ventilation. Near an open window. Outside on a porch. In the past two months I can't even tell you how many times I've set off the fire alarm roasting coffee. Currently since I'm still in New England and it's hella cold out so I'm not going to open a window (spoiler alert to adult life: heat is expensive in the winter) I set everything up on a cookie tray on the stove top under the exhaust vent like so:

The bowl is there to catch the chaff when it flies off the coffee bean, it certainly doesn't catch ALL of it, but most of it for sure. 

Once you turn the popper on and put in the beans in you want to make sure that the beans don't stop moving. I usually pour them in fairly slowly and they keep moving, but if they need a little help give them a stir with the wooden handle of a spoon or spatula.

I find that a little over six minutes is the right amount of time for how Sarah and I like our coffee. Below is an example of the chaff off a round of roasting:

Like I said I'm pretty sure my popper doesn't get quite hot enough, so I stick a rubber spatula over the opening for three to four minutes of the roast to try and trap a little extra heat in there. Once the coffee is done roasting it needs to be cooled off as quickly as possible, so I dump it into the mesh stainer and gently shake it around for a few moments.

While Sarah liked the coffee I was roasting she missed flavored coffee, which is what we normally were buying beforehand. The last couple of batches I added a little bit of vanilla extract and some cinnamon sticks to give it some flavor. Then more recently in addition to the vanilla and cinnamon I added coco powder. 

Once the coffee is done roasting it does need to be in a container that will allow it to off-gas over night, I just keep the mason jar we store it in cracked open a little the night after I make it and then close it for real after I make my coffee in the morning. If you're a crazy person like me and want to try roasting your own coffee in an air popper I'll leave the links I used to figure it out below. See you next Tuesday!

Roasting Links:

Coffee Geek

Sweet Maria's (has videos)

DIY Coffee Roasting

Dry Bean Slow Cooker Chili

Much like the Brother Green Eats (I finally subscribed to a new youtube channel) I whole heartedly prefer starting with dry beans vs canned. Sure canned beans are more convenient, but, they have all that slimly stuff on them you have to rinse off and you get so much more bang for your buck with dry beans and the texture of beans you cook yourself is just straight up better. 

So anyways, this is the first time I just didn't use a recipe at all to make chili and it came out pretty damn good. I started with two cups of dry beans into the slow cooker. Now I used six cups of water, which in theory is the correct ratio of water to dry beans, but I ended up having to cook off a fair amount of liquid at the end, so next time I'll only use five to five and a half cups. 

Then I put the seasonings in. I started with one table spoon cumin, two of chili powder and one of salt, and then seasoned it a little more to taste after it had cooked.

A can of tomatoes, a little can of green chilis. A bag of frozen peppers, an onion (chopped), and two cloves of garlic (crushed).

A package of ground meat, I used turkey. Side note, raw it totally looks a bit like brains:

I set the slow cooker to low and let it cook allllllll day.

At the end I added half a bar of baking chocolate and a bag of frozen corn. I topped each portion with some shredded Mexican Cheese and Sarah and I had chili every day for lunch last week. While it may look gross (like seriously) it was tasty. See you next Tuesday!

Portabella Caps

I don't know if I've discussed my love of my Bj's membership much here, but for better or worse Bj's is my jam....though I don't get jam at Bj's, lots of peanut butter though, lots and lots of peanut butter (my mom and mother in law were a bit horrified by the peanut butter stash when they helped us move). Anywho, amongst the many things Sarah and I procure at the club (...yes I did just do that, even I'm embarrassed for myself) are portabella mushroom caps, cause for just shy of five buck for half a dozen, yes please! And this is a dinner Sarah loves, so lets get on with it...

Line your pan. You don't have to, but the one time I didn't cleaning it was ...less than fun. Spread out the caps and drizzle each with a bit of balsamic vinegar and a bit of olive oil. 

Add cheese! We had been using mozzarella, but we were running low on it this time around and used feta instead. Both. Delicious. Season those suckas...Italian seasoning? Sure! Basil? Yeah! Oregano? Why not! (I mean don't go crazy, one of those options will do, you really don't need more than one). Throw them in the oven at 400*F until the cheese looks melty and delicious....

Nom, nom, nom. See you next Tuesday!