My nearly daily breakfast is an egg white omelet or frittata, which is just the Italian word for an open-faced omelet. It’s fast, luscious, nutritious, and maybe best of all uses up my odds and ends of raw or cooked vegetables, restaurant leftovers (pizza toppings, too), bits of meat, and even a grate or two of cheese.  I try and blog one of these a couple of times a year just to give a high five to

• eating healthy foods continually
• using up leftovers
• not throwing food out
• eating vegetables for breakfast
• getting a good start on the day.

There are times when I’m on a fresh fruit and Greek yogurt jag and even eat that with some of my homemade low-sugar granola, but this summer finds me working hard to lose weight and I’ve cut back both my fruit and my dairy in hopes of finding success. It seems to be working! I’m down a size or more and perhaps have taken off 20 pounds. No scale in the house; the clothes are the indicator.

Last Saturday, I made a brown and jasmine rice salad to take to my granddaughter’s birthday party (see below for opening presents through playing peek-a-boo, to eating cake and the very-necessary after cake sink bath–sorry for phone pics) mostly like any luscious summer pasta salad but with a combination of brown and jasmine rice added to a huge bowl of vegetables and a spicy mustard vinaigrette.
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My daughter-in-law Jami is home for a couple of months with a new baby. While this is a wondrous and incredible moment in time, she also has to come up with meals.  Just like many other people who talk to me about food, she says she simply has a hard time coming up with anything for dinner for her family.  Her husband, our son Sean, has often done the cooking in their household, but Sean is working nights and the dinner is, to coin a phrase, now on Jami’s plate.

I’m not sure why this is the case for so many people when the stores are full of food, the tv is even more full with its cooking or food shows, the internet is jammed with food blogs and magazines and recipes galore, but I can relate.  Here are a few thoughts followed by a group of recipes that might help solve the problem. Continue reading →

The first Friday of the month, I group-blog Ina Garten recipes with a great group of writer cooks. Scroll down for more info and to click on the links for more desserts.  Come back August 1 for Ina Fridays appetizers!

I’m a glutton for making cheesecake.  One cheesecake, actually.  If your husband was as crazy about one particular cheesecake as is mine, you’d make it, too.  If you were crazy about your husband, that is.  And I am.  That’s not to say he doesn’t drive me out of my mind occasionally; he does.  Did this last Monday, in fact. (Insert huge scream and multiple #$*%7## words.)  But if God is good — and God is good, for us, anyway — I always seem to get past the odd supremely irritated moment (hour, week) and fall back in love with him.  Or at least stay in the house.

Here’s the sweet couple loving it up on vacation last year.  We never fight on vacation, though there’s the occasional morning where I say, “I’m going to pool.  I’ll see you at lunch.”  I don’t swim.  (Not anymore, anyway.) Continue reading →

Long time readers know I’ve been working on a soup cookbook for a couple of years.  The day has come; it’s published!  Get yours now! Available on amazon.com; click HERE! to order. Ebook on the way and I’m not sure how long that will be.  If you’ve eaten something, cooked something, read the book, or ordered the book, reviews — even a line or two — on my amazon page would mean a great deal.

Many thanks to all involved — testers, tasters, encouragers, lovers, and especially the group of great folks who worked with me to make this happen.  This doesn’t happen without huge support and lots and lots of love and help.

If you’d like to review the book, leave a comment or email me; I’ll mail you a book or email a pdf.  If you’d just like to blog a recipe (Ina Fridays writers?!) I’m happy to share and will also do that on this blog a few times over the coming weeks.

My team, amazing always, was:

• Patricia Miller, Editor  (photo courtesy Trish Triff Noack)

• Amanda Weber, Designer (photo courtesy Mena Xiong)

Daniel Craig, Artist (below with his beautiful wife, Kim Craig, at Opus and Olives)–Cover and chapter icons

• Drew Robinson, CS — Wine Pairings  (photo by Alyce Morgan)

My biggest thanks goes to my hub of nearly 40 years, David Morgan, who worked and paid my bills while I struggled along cooking, writing, testing, and making a big soup mess in the kitchen on and on..and on.  He bought the groceries, ate enough soup to float a boat, did the dishes, and took out the garbage. He even made soup.  He got me away on vacation, too–more than once.   Love you always! Continue reading →

The first Friday of every month, I blog INA FRIDAYS (all Ina Garten recipes) with a great group of writing cooks who just happen to be big Ina fans.  Scroll down nearly to the bottom to check out the list of blogs participating, then read up and cook some Ina with us this weekend. ♥♥♥

If there is any food more desirous than a simple, full vegetable soup, I don’t know what it is.  (Perhaps a garlicky roast chicken.  Or the most moussey of chocolate mousses.  A big warm loaf fresh from the oven maybe.  But I’m not sure.)  And I’m not talking about the long-simmering vegetable-beef we make mid-winter to use up the last of the pot roasts and carrots.  I mean the lithesome brothy pot-full of just vegetables: onions, leeks, fennel, carrots, potatoes, garlic, green beans, asparagus.  Perhaps a pistou.  But not necessarily.  Maybe some lovely bread, but there are days when only the rind of the cheese in the soup is enough.

(below:  our grandson Rhyan with a whiff of the rolls he helped make to go with the soup.  Recipe here.)

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Huge zucchini–sliced very thinly and sauteed–then fanned into the caprese.

I’d like to say this little meal came up during my salad days.
But I can’t put that down without a little head tilt and one-sided smile.

From Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, 1606:

CLEOPATRA: My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
To say as I said then! But, come, away;
Get me ink and paper:
He shall have every day a several greeting,
Or I’ll unpeople Egypt.

Come the dog days of summer–ah, geez– I have times when the grill isn’t quite as appealing as it was in, say May when the heat began.  I’m more interested in what I can do with the vegetables from my neighbor’s garden or from the farmer’s market, or even from our own tiny patch–which is just tomatoes and herbs.  I just want to sit under the tree with a quick, cold meal, a bottle of wine, and my husband.  Making hay while the sun shines. Watching the grass grow.

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At some point, I’m migrating to this space!

Until then, read me at http://www.moretimeatthetable.blogspot.com  or

http://www.dinnerplace.blogspot.com

Thanks,

Alyce

Here is it out of the cup.

Here it is in the cup.  You can eat it either way.

Spread 2 thin, trimmed slices of pumpernickel or rye with Dijon Mustard and place in buttered, oven-safe large cup or small bowl.  (For crispy toast, bake the mustard bread in oven for 5 min. before continuing.)  No oven-safe cup?  Use a Pyrex measuring cup.

Add 2 thin pieces of corned beef.

Top with 1/4 cup rinsed/drained/squeezed-dry sauerkraut, a piece of Swiss cheese, an egg, and a pat of butter. Salt and pepper to taste.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes until egg is set to your liking.  (30 min was a runny  yolk for mine.)

While egg bakes, make a Horseradish-Yogurt Sauce, set the table, and make the coffee.

Sauce: Whisk together 2T plain yogurt or sour cream, 1/2 t Dijon mustard, 1/4 t horseradish sauce, 1 T milk, pinch  each salt/pepper.  (Optional:  a drop of hot sauce.)

Drizzle with sauce and eat in or out (like this!) of the cup.

Sing a new song,
Alyce

originally posted on my dinnerplace blog in march of 2012