Lazy Sunday

While I was out and about today, last Sunday was a perfect lazy Sunday, where I did nothing but lounge around the apartment, watch Netflix and make some easy brunch and dinner.

When I finally rolled out of bed and made my way to the kitchen, I decided to finally use up the egg whites leftover from making ice cream at my last dinner party (post to follow...eventually). I feel like I'm always looking for easy recipes that use up leftover egg whites since egg yolks always seem to be the more favored child.

So I felt like I found the perfect use for it with this mini egg white frittatas recipe - where I don't need to keep track of exactly how many eggs whites I actually have, and the other ingredients can be manipulated to anything I want them to be! This time I used spinach, red onions and cheddar cheese.

The various stages of frittata (counter clockwise from top left): pre-baked, baking, post-bake

Brunch is served!

Maybe the most productive thing that I did all day after eating was start posting on this blog again - with the stuffed baguette post, which I also ate the rest of along with the frittatas.

Then all of a sudden, my stomach was telling me that it was dinner time!

Seriously one of the best things that I have discovered this year other than the fact that Fairway Markets opened up another store closer to home, was that said Fairway Market also sells pizza dough! So I threw together some of the things we had in the fridge for Sunday pizza night - spinach, red onion, button mushrooms, tomato & mozzarella cheese on top of garlic & herb pizza dough.

The ingredients

Layers

Final Product

All in all, one of the best Sundays that I have had - I think this is me finally learning how to relax properly! And it is AWESOME.

Steak & Rice

In an effort to improve my ability for cooking meats, and in celebration of my recently acquired electric skillet, I picked up a cut of meat at the market and a head of broccoli and got to work!

I had this amazing broccoli rice at a Brazilian restaurant months ago, and I believe it was mostly finely chopped broccoli, garlic and rice with olive oil. So I sauteed some garlic with chopped broccoli (below) in olive oil before adding the cooked rice.

In the meantime, I had the meat marinating in soy sauce, sesame oil and a little bit of sugar and dried rosemary. Set the skillet to 400 degrees, put the steak on for a few minutes on each side just so it was browned on the outside...

 ...and medium rare on the inside! I erred on the side of being more rare b/c then when reheated for lunch, it wouldn't get too overcooked. One must think ahead about such things!

"Take This Baguette & Stuff It"

I'm baaack! And super excited about my latest culinary adventure!

On Friday I received a daily email from Tasting Table with the subject "Take This Baguette and Stuff It." Due to my love for breads and just carbs in general, I was intrigued. Upon opening the email, I see marinated mushroom, Gruyere cheese & thyme stuffing??? AND I have almost all the ingredients? Must. Make.This.Bread.

So I picked up some mushrooms on my way home (I used button mushrooms instead of cremini), and began the marinating process in soy sauce and balsamic vinegar.

Next day after a run up the Hudson River Path with my running buddy, and brunch (because we earned it!), I came back to make the dough. I have never truly had great success with getting pizza dough to rise properly, so I was super excited to find the difference in dough size an hour later:

After rolling it out and dividing the dough in two, it was time to add the stuffing. Layered out the mushroom and grated Gruyere, then sprinkled it with dried thyme leaves (I opted for dry because it's always so difficult to buy just enough fresh herbs for what is needed without having a bunch left over that end up going to waste). Rolled it all up, and left it to rise again for another hour.

10 minutes in the oven covered in foil, and then another 15 uncovered...and voila! I MADE STUFFED BREAD! And it was golden and beautiful and yummy! I could barely contain myself when I pulled it out of the oven =)

This opens the door for so many more opportunities!!! Can't wait to try pizza dough using bread flour and trying to make different breads (totally geeking out about this right now)!