Skillet-Poached Eggs with Braised Peppers and Onions

If you ask anybody what the worst standard interview question is, I'm pretty sure most people would say it's, "What's your greatest weakness?" Ugh, that question sucks. Most people try to come up with an answer that's really a strength (see: "I'm a perfectionist") and it just never works out well. But if you were to ask me, "What's your greatest weakness as a cook?", I have an honest answer for that one. It's impatience.

Let's be real, by the time 7 or 8 o'clock rolls around and I've been working all day and it's time to cook dinner, I am a hungry hungry hippo. I've been known to shave a few minutes off of recipes here and there in the interest of getting food into my stomach faster. Once in a while, though, this approach works out better than expected. Take this skillet-poached egg recipe (which is delicious, by the way): I was feeling super impatient so I took the eggs out of the skillet even though I was sure they weren't done enough. Lo and behold, they ended up being done perfectly -- runny but not too runny, just right for dipping hunks of bread into. Yum.

Skillet-Poached Eggs with Braised Peppers and Onions
From Real Simple

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 red bell peppers, sliced
• 2 medium onions, sliced
• 1 14-oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon paprika (or smoked paprika if you're feeling crazy)
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 8 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• Country bread or baguette, for serving

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the bell peppers and onions and cook, stirring often, until beginning to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until very tender, 6 to 8 minutes more.

Add the tomatoes (with their juices), paprika, and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and black pepper to the skillet. Cover and simmer until the liquid has thickened slightly, 3 to 5 minutes. Taste and season again as necessary.

Using a spoon, make 8 shallow wells in the vegetables and crack an egg into each. Season each egg with a pinch of salt and a twist of the pepper grinder. Cover and cook over medium heat until the egg whites are set, 2 to 3 minutes. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve with the bread.

Salsa Verde and Peach-Pepper Relish

Remember when Joe did that guest post a while back about pickling? Well, we've expanded our repertoire even further. Now we're canning. Yes, canning! It's not that weird, really. Actually it's pretty cool. It's what all the hipsters are doing these days.

Home canning is actually really easy. You just need the right equipment. Basically, you just need Ball mason jars of various sizes and a canning kit, which you can buy online (like on Amazon). The kits contain a huge pot that can accommodate a bunch of jars, a funnel for filling the jars, tongs for taking the jars out of the boiling water, and a couple other things. 

Basically, all you do is put stuff in the jars (always use a canning recipe!), submerse the jars completely in boiling water for a specified amount of time, and when you take them out, they've formed a vacuum seal that allows you to store them at room temperature for an indefinite period of time. It's a great way to preserve a lot of stuff at once, because you can just stick the jars on a shelf somewhere, instead of taking up precious refrigerator space.

Today we did two canning projects: salsa verde and peach-pepper relish. The salsa verde is, of course, a tomatillo-based salsa with roasted peppers, onions, lime, and garlic. It's awesome with chips, tacos, or really anything Mexican. The peach-pepper relish is a sweet and spicy condiment that's kind of a Southern thing. I grew up eating it as an appetizer with cream cheese and crackers.

Salsa Verde

From The Joy of Pickling

Makes 3 pints

• 2 1/2 pounds tomatillos, husks removed, halved
• 1/2 pound (about 8) roasted, peeled, and seeded Anaheim chile peppers, chopped
• 2 cups chopped onions
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 2 1/2 teaspoons pickling salt

In a nonreactive pot over medium-low heat, cook the tomatillos, stirring occasionally at first, until they are tender, about 10 minutes. After they have cooled a bit, blend them briefly in a blender or food processor.

In the pot combine the tomatillo puree and the remaining ingredients. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat and then reduce the heat. Simmer the mixture for 15 minutes.

Ladle the salsa into pint or half-pint mason jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Close the jars with two-piece caps and process the jars for 15 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

Store the cooled jars in a cool, dry, dark place.

Peach-Pepper Relish

From The Joy of Pickling

Makes 6 half-pint jars

• 1 1/2 pounds (about 6) red bell or pimiento peppers, minced
• 1/2 pound red hot peppers, such as Fresno or jalapeno, minced
• 2 pounds (about 6) peaches or nectarines, pitted, peeled, and chopped
• 3 lemons, halved
• 6 cups sugar
• 2 cups cider vinegar

Put all of the peppers into a nonreactive bowl and cover them with boiling water. Let them stand until they are cool.

Drain the peppers and put them into a nonreactive pot with the chopped peaches or nectarines. Juice the lemons and add both the juice and peels to the pot. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

Remove the lemon peels and add the sugar and vinegar. Bring the mixture to a boil again. Let it boil, stirring constantly, until it forms a 2-inch thread or reaches 230 degrees F on a candy thermometer.

Remove the pot from the heat and immediately ladle the relish into half-pint mason jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Close the jars with two-piece caps and process the jars for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

Store the cooled jars in a cool, dry, dark place for at least 2 weeks before eating the relish.

Uighur Noodles with Peppers and Sweet Potatoes

Between yesterday's post and today's, I think I've really got a good colorful meals thing going on. This one's a quick and easy weeknight meal -- I find that Asian noodle dishes are really good for that (and for some reason I always end up making them on Thursdays, when I'm starting to run out of steam for the week). For those of you who don't read the news, Uighurs are a minority ethnic group living in northwestern China. Their cuisine is very different from most Chinese cooking and uses an interesting mix of spices that sometimes resembles a blend of Indian and Middle Eastern flavors. Try it!

Uighur Noodles with Peppers and Sweet Potatoes
From Vegetarian Times

• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed (about 2 cups)
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 1 small sweet onion, chopped
• 1 medium red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 medium yellow bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper
• 28-oz can diced tomatoes
• 8-oz package dried udon noodles, cooked and set aside, or 12-oz package precooked udon noodles
• Chopped cilantro for garnish (optional)

Place sweet potato cubes in microwave-safe bowl, and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Microwave on high power 4 minutes.

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and bell peppers, and cook 2 to 3 minutes, or until slightly softened. Add garlic, cumin, coriander, and Aleppo pepper, and cook 1 minute more. Stir in sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and 1 cup water. Cover, bring to a simmer, and reduce heat to medium-low. Uncover and cook 10 to 12 minutes, or until sweet potatoes are tender. Stir in noodles, and season with salt if needed. Serve garnished with cilantro.

Pickled Peppers & Eggplant

A guest post by the wonderful Joe Fray...

Recently, Becky and I found a fun, delicious hobby. We've begun to pickle. Becky found an article in one of her plethora of food mags with what appeared to be simple pickle recipes. We made a batch of pickled cucumbers and carrots. It took twenty minutes, they were ready the next day, and they were delicious. We got a little more daring and pickled some brussel sprouts and sweet peppers. Both came out perfectly again. After that we were hooked.

I've taken the lead on doing most of the pickling because I get some sort of dorky pleasure out of it, and I'm painstakingly precise in my measurements, often to Becky's annoyance. So, for Christmas Becky got me a pickling recipe book (from which the two recipes below were taken), and our pickling has since reached new and interesting levels. We've pickled onions (excellent with bread and a sharp cheddar), cauliflower (one batch was yellow, the other pink), watermelon rinds (probably won't be making those again), and eggs (surprisingly good, though I need a better method for peeling hard boiled eggs). I've also just started my first batch of fermented pickles (sour through natural fermentation in saltwater rather than from vinegar), but I'll have to update you later on how those turn out.

Pickling is as simple as mixing a fresh or very lightly cooked vegetable with seasoning and vinegar.  That's it. All you need is the ingredients and a jar.  The jars are easy to find; we have a mix of screw top jars from Sur La Table and flip tops from Ikea and the Container Store.

The two recipes below are incredibly easy and are definitely our favorites so far (batch two of the peppers is just about gone).

Refrigerator Pickled Peppers

From The Joy of Pickling

• 1 pound bell peppers, preferably of mixed colors, cut into strips
• Half a celery stalk with leaves, chopped
• 1 large garlic clove, chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon pickling salt (a.k.a. fine sea salt) (if using kosher salt, add an extra 1/2 teaspoon -- do not use iodized table salt)

In a large bowl, toss the peppers with the celery, garlic, and fennel. Pack the vegetables and seeds with the bay leaf into a quart sized jar. Combine the water and vinegar, and dissolve the salt in the liquid. Pour the brine over the vegetables. Close and refrigerate the jar. The peppers will be ready in a week. Refrigerated, they will keep well for 6 to 8 weeks. 

Quick Pickled Eggplant with Basil

From The Joy of Pickling

• 1 quart water
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pickling salt (a.k.a. fine sea salt) (if using kosher salt, add an extra 1/2 teaspoon -- do not use iodized table salt)
• 2 medium-large eggplants (about 3 1/4 pounds), cut into 3/4-inch cubes
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh basil
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/4 cup olive oil

In a saucepan, bring the water and 1 tablespoon salt to a boil. Add half the eggplant cubes and simmer them for about 5 minutes, until they are tender. Put them in a colander and cook the remaining eggplant cubes in the same way. Add them to the colander and rinse and drain all of the eggplant. In a quart sized jar, mix the cooked eggplant cubes with the vinegar, basil, pepper, garlic, and the remaining 1 teaspoon salt. (There will not be enough liquid in the jar to cover all the eggplant, but that's okay -- just shake the jar around whenever you get a chance.) Cover the jar and refrigerate it for at least 8 hours. The eggplant will keep for about 1 week in the refrigerator. Just before serving, stir in the olive oil.