Bottomless, Boozy Brunch: fried eggs, roasted potatoes with fresh herbs, and cheesy mushroom caps

Inspiration abounds when you're open to it, even in old and familiar places.

I'm just back from Chicago.  Yes yes...you know it's got good pizza, Italian beef and hotdogs, historic architecture, 2 competing newspapers, rooftop bars with majestic views, and some pretty impressive sports history.  But I was blissfully reminded on this visit...twice!...that it's the home of the bottomless, boozy brunch.

I tell you it's like heaven, but with endless pitchers of bloody marys (which is kinda what I thought heaven was like anyway).

Chicago's a friendly city, so on the weekend between Christmas and the new year, invite some friends over and do it up like they do:  a laidback, low ley, unpretentious brunch with bottomless drinks and endless laughter, music with a cool funky vibe, and good times that last until the dinner hour.  Don't you think your friends deserve a little bit of heaven, too? :)

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(WHAT YOU WILL NEED)

eggs (2 per person)
large stuffing mushrooms, cleaned (2 or 3 per person)
russet potatoes, you decide how many
shredded cheddar and Monterey jack cheeses
sprigs of fresh thyme and rosemary, chopped
English Muffins
beef broth or consommé 
olive oil
butter
salt/pepper

whatever drinks you'd like to serve

The potatoes cook for 60 minutes.  Time it so that when you take them out of the oven, everything else is done.

Roast potatoes:  preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cut potatoes in bite size pieces.  Toss in bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, and fresh herbs.  Place on baking sheet and roast for approx. 50-60 minutes.

roasted potatoes--see the brown crusty bits? mmmm

In the meantime, prepare mushrooms:  if there are stems in the mushrooms, remove them.  Place mushrooms in a pan and add a tiny piece of butter in each cap.  Pour beef broth around them, and bake in oven for approx. 50 minutes.  So, after your potatoes have been in for 10 minutes, put the mushrooms in the oven next to them.

pour beef broth around and place in oven

Important:  with 10 minutes left to go on the oven, place shredded cheese inside mushroom caps to melt.

finished mushrooms

5 minutes before the mushrooms and potatoes are done, fry your eggs (I like mine in brown butter) and toast your English Muffins (I like strawberry preserves)

Serve immediately with your favorite drinks

bloody mary with a beer chaser

Columbia Restaurant's 1905 Salad

Growing up in the southern part of Florida, I'm hooked on Cuban food.  With Miami's Calle Ocho just 2 hours to the east, and Ybor City in Tampa 2 hours to the north, I'm surrounded by its goodness, and eat it every chance I get.  Whenever I find myself in Sarasota, a trip to Columbia Restaurant is a must and I always get the same thing--their very famous 1905 salad.

It's a tossed salad, made tableside, filled with cool iceberg lettuce, smoky Cuban ham, swiss cheese, salty green olives, and ripe tomatoes, tossed in a garlicky oil and vinegar dressing with freshly grated romano cheese sprinkled over the top.  OOOOOMGOSH it's so good.

It serves 2 amply, and trust me when I tell you with certainty that you will want more than one bowl.  Pair it with some buttery pressed Cuban bread and a sugary café con leche for dessert and you have one delicious meal to share with someone you love.  I'm so jealous...  :)

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(WHAT YOU WILL NEED)

It only takes minutes to throw together.  The recipe as written by Columbia Restaurant is below.  Add more or less of what you want. The changes I usually make are in italics

4 cups iceberg lettuce, broken into 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" pieces
    1 head iceberg lettuce, chopped
1 ripe tomato, cut into eights
    2 large plum tomatoes, sliced
1/2 cup baked ham, julienned
1/2 cup swiss cheese, julienned
1/2 cup pimento stuffed green Spanish olives
1905 dressing, see recipe below
1/4 cup romano cheese, grated
    1/2 cup romano cheese, grated
2 tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
juice of 1 lemon

1905 dressing:
1/2 cup extra virgin Spanish olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/8 cup white wine vinegar
    1/2 cup white wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Combine ingredients and toss with dressing.  Place in bowls and serve immediately, adding more grated cheese to the top-- 

To check out Columbia Restaurant and all things delicious, because I know you wanna go there, click on the link below:
https://www.columbiarestaurant.com/Menus-By-Location/Locations/St-Armands-Circle

Crab Puffs

The cocktail hour.  It's so civilized--small bites, refined drinks, scintillating conversation, background music, straight up 5:00 at the end of a long day before you settle in for dinner.

Bourbon, gin, vodka martini, twist or no twist, stuffed olives or onion, on the rocks or neat, wine, champagne, beer, manhattan, highball or old fashioned, maraschino or luxardo ... these crab puffs are the perfect accompaniment to whatever you're drinking.  They're cheesy, buttery, garlicky goodness, hand-held and gone in 2 bites so you can pick up another.  and another.  and another.  and still continue to sparkle with your subtle humor and witty remarks, fast and furious with your quips and bon mots.  Oh brother, these crab puffs are gonna be the second best thing at your party :)

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(WHAT YOU WILL NEED)

makes 96 crab puffs

12 English muffins, split
2 sticks butter, softened
2 jars cheese spread (I use Kraft Old English cheese spread)
2 cans crabmeat, drained
2 teaspoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon seasoned salt (I use Lawry's)
1 tablespoon garlic powder
ziplock bags, for freezing

Mix together cheese, butter, mayonnaise, seasoned salt, and garlic powder in bowl.

Add drained crabmeat to bowl and mix all.

Split English muffins.  Spread mixture on muffins.  Cut into quarters and freeze in ziplock bags until ready to use.

When you want them, take a bag out of the freezer and bake on 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  I have 2 in my freezer rignt now:

in my freezer with the other constants in there:  limoncello, gin, and a cannister of shelled Diamond walnuts (so good for snacking on while making dinner)

Coffee Ice Cream Pie

Truth:  I'm not a very good baker.  It's tedious and precise and I just don't have the patience for it:  candy thermometers, scales, sifters, leveling, and I'm not even really sure what blind-baking is....aarrrgghhh, it's too much.   I only know how to make 4 or 5 desserts, and this is one of them.

It's softened ice cream in a pan with a no-bake crust.  Foolproof.  Then it sits in the freezer for a few hours by itself while you do...whatever.  But what are you not doing?  Sifting, leveling, or that blind baking thing (at least I don't think so.  Again, I gotta look it up...).

The one thing I do know is that this pie is the perfect way to say goodbye to summer--the exact same way you welcomed it--with something easy, cool, and delicious.  Wasn't it a great nine weeks?  :)

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(WHAT YOU WILL NEED)

24 oreo cookies, crushed into crumbs
1/4 cup butter, melted
pinch sea salt
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
semi-sweet baking chocolate
1 quart coffee ice cream, softened (I use Haagen-Dazs)
pie plate


First toast the nuts:  put them in a small skillet on the stove over med-low heat and shake them periodically.  They are done when they start to brown and smell nutty.  Remove from heat and place in bowl.  Set aside.

toasted almonds

Grease your pie plate.
Mix cookie crumbs and melted butter in bowl.  Empty into pie plate and press in bottom and up sides to make a crust.  Sprinkle a pinch of sea salt on the bottom and place in freezer to set, approx. 30 minutes.

Remove from freezer and spread softened ice cream over crust.  Sprinkle with almonds, and grate some chocolate over the top.  Place in freezer, covered, for a few hours until the ice cream freezes again. When ready to serve, let soften on the counter for a few minutes and slice into wedges.

Linguine with Grilled Clams

Fresh clams.  Harvested in the mid-Atlantic states and off the coast of New England, they're at their peak (contrary to what we think about shellfish) in the months without an “R”, and  figure prominently in the dishes of the season:  baked, steamed,  stuffed, fried, sautéed, chopped, raw, and in chowder.  Good ones taste and smell like the ocean—both fresh and a little briny at the same time—the very essence of summer beachiness itself.

Hard-shell clams are all quahogs, though only the largest of the family go by the actual name:  the smallest are littlenecks, medium topnecks, then cherrystone clams, and the biggest are quahog/chowder clams. 

Because I’ve already confessed my dislike for whole belly clams…I just can’t…I’ve made them for us here in a way we can both enjoy them.  Grilled in the shell over mesquite charcoal, then chopped up in a simple butter, garlic, white wine sauce over linguine, there’s a subtle briny smokiness to this dish that gets woken up with a bright squeeze of fresh lemon at the end.  Serve it with crusty bread to soak up all the goodness, and a bottle of chilled white wine.  Labor Day’s right around the corner, let’s hold on to summer just a little bit longer :)

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(WHAT YOU WILL NEED) 

Serves 2

Approx. 2 dozen littleneck clams, washed and scrubbed

(any that are not closed should be discarded—better safe than sorry)

1 lemon

½ stick salted butter

Chicken broth

Dry white wine

Olive oil

Fresh Italian flatleaf parsley, chopped

3 or 4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped fine

½ pound linguine

Sea salt/cracked pepper

Note:  I like to use mesquite charcoal, but regular is fine too

Heat charcoal and place clams on the hot grill.  The shells will probably still be a little wet from washing, so close the lid and let them steam for a few minutes until they open (approx 4-5 minutes).  Remove the open ones to a bowl, and give the ones that didn’t open a few more seconds under the lid—they may not have been on direct heat.  Check again.  If they still haven’t opened, throw them away.  

Bring your bowl in the kitchen and set it aside with a towel over it until the clams are cool enough to handle.  In the meantime, start your pasta and make your sauce:

opened, and in the bowl

Melt butter and a drizzle of olive oil over medium heat.  Add garlic and saute briefly, some white wine, some chicken broth (maybe ¾ cup of each—I like a wet sauce so play around with it), and the juice of half a lemon.   While it’s simmering nicely on the stove, take the clams out of the shells and chop them.  Add to the sauce and stir until all is heated through, salt and pepper to taste.   

When pasta is ready, add to pan and toss all together.  Place in bowl with a squeeze of fresh lemon, some sea salt to finish, and sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley.

Roasted Jammy Tomatoes and Ricotta Cheese Toast

Summer's hot.  So hot.  Why's it gotta be so steamy, humid, and hot? It's like Africa desert, face of the sun, sizzling bacon, boiling point of caramel, pizza oven hot...and the worst month hasn't even arrived yet. 

Cool down with this--

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(WHAT YOU WILL NEED)

thick-cut bread (I use multi-gain)
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
ricotta cheese
fresh thyme
1 garlic clove, peeled and one side cut flat
sea salt/cracked pepper
red pepper flakes
olive oil
balsamic vinegar (I used white balsamic)


Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Place tomatoes in baking pan.  Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and sprinkle some sea salt over the top.  Remove some thyme from the stalks and sprinkle over.  Bake uncovered for 1 hour.

When tomatoes are done, take out of oven--they will have burst open and their juices turned a little jammy/sticky.  Help them along a little more and crush slightly with a fork.  Let cool for approx. 5-10 min.

 
Meanwhile, toast bread and rub the flat side of the garlic clove over the bread to flavor.  Spread liberally with ricotta cheese.  Spoon tomatoes over, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add a pinch of red pepper flakes.

This makes a nice summer brunch/light lunch, and I like to serve it with something cool like prosciutto and melon, and chilled prosecco. 

cantaloupe, prosciutto, and fresh mozzarella

Garbage Salad

You're hard pressed to find something called a garbage salad outside the Chicagoland area.  The rest of the country calls it a chopped salad.

As delicious and diverse as it is, that's really all it is:  a chopped salad, made with whatever you have in your refrigerator/pantry at any given time.  And because your groceries are always different, your salad is never the same twice.  There are no rules--anything goes--the only constants are these:  iceberg or romaine lettuce (sometimes both), some kind of salami, and an oil and vinegar based dressing.

The ingredients are limitless, it can be as big or as small as you want, you're in charge.  Yes, I said it:  you're in charge here, it's up to you, you're the boss.  You're limited only by your imagination and your leftovers.  Now please hurry up and start chopping before I try to jump back in the drivers seat...  :)

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This salad isn't before the meal, it IS the meal, so you want to make it hearty enough to sustain you.  There are just as many chopped ingredients as there is lettuce.

In the salad above, I used:
romaine lettuce
Italian hard salami
grape tomatoes
swiss cheese, chopped into cubes
Spanish green olives
black Kalamata olives
carrots
garbanzo beans
crumbs from the bottom of a bag of Snyders mustard pretzels
kosher salt/cracked black pepper
grated fresh pecorino-romano cheese on top

If my salad ends up being very savory, I like to add something sweet like raisins or dried cranberries.  If I don't have any, like today, I will add honey to my vinaigrette.

Vinaigrette:
I use a 2:1 ratio
2 parts red wine vinegar, 1 part olive oil, a teaspoon Dijon mustard, pinch dried Italian Seasoning (honey for sweetness, if desired.  YES, PLEASE!).  Whisk and pour over salad

Grate fresh pecorino romano cheese over the top and serve--

Artichokes

Growing up, artichokes were a big treat in the Spring.

With the weather turning hotter but the evenings still enjoyable, before the on-set of oppressive summer heat here on the Gulf Coast that keeps you inside until October, my mother would make them for dinner and we would take them onto the back porch and eat them by the pool...leaf by leaf...talking and laughing...about nothing really...listening to the crickets and the distant rumble of thunder that would bring the steamy rain.  She worked always, so it was enjoyable to have her all to myself, and those times were really savored and special to me and still are.

I still eat artichokes with my mother, but now I make them for HER, the back porch and pool are mine, and MY daughter joins us.  Talk about savored and special...these really are the best of times  :)

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(WHAT YOU WILL NEED)

1 globe artichoke per person
1 lemon, cut in half
a wedge of parmesan cheese (both for eating and grating)
kitchen scissors

Sauces for dipping:  it's most popular to have them with a lemony butter sauce, but my mother likes blue cheese dressing and shhhhh...I like to dip them in ranch dressing.  Buy your favorites.

** (If making butter sauce:  combine some melted butter, a pinch of garlic powder, and a squeeze of fresh lemon.  Mix together.)

Cut the bottom stem off the artichoke. 

Then cut 1 inch of leaves off the top.
Now go around each leaf with your scissors and trim off the pointy tip.  Rub the cut side of the lemon over the top so it doesn't turn brown.

In a large pot, let water just come up to a slow rolling boil, squeeze the lemons into the water and place in pot with artichokes.

Turn down heat and let simmer, covered, for approx. 50 minutes.  They will be done when you can insert a knife into the bottom easily with no resistance.

Drain in a colander and let sit upside down for a few minutes to drain and to cool down so you can handle them.  Place on plate with sauce(s) for dipping.  Sprinkle the top with course salt and grated parmesan cheese

I like mine with some parmesan cheese on the side, and a cold rose'

If you've never eaten them before and don't know how, that's okay:  pull off one leaf, dip into sauce, and pull the bottom meaty part between your teeth.  The closer you get to the middle, the more tender the leaves will be and sometimes you can eat the whole thing.  When you run out of leaves, you will get to the choke--it's bristly and thistley and needs to go away!  Scoop it out with a spoon...and there you have it...the promised land.  What all your hard work was for...the heart.  Aptly named because it's the sweetest and best part :) 

artichoke heart

Pickled Onions

Make your favorite tacos on Cinco de Mayo.  Make them EVERYONE ELSE'S favorite tacos by topping them with these:  pickled onions.

5 ingredients, 5 minutes, outrageous flavor.
I make them the day before or early morning of, and keep them chilled in the refrigerator until the tacos are ready to eat.  Once you try them, you'll be hooked!

You're welcome :)

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(WHAT YOU WILL NEED)

1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup apple cider or white vinegar

1 cup room temperature water
mason jar with lid

Place onion slices in the jar.

In a bowl, mix the sugar, salt, vinegar, and water.  Stir until dissolved.
Pour the water mixture over the onions in the jar.  Stir, and let sit uncovered at room temperature for 45-60 minutes.

Cover and place in refrigerator until ready to use the next day.  

pickled onions, ready for the tacos

When ready to use, drain and place in a bowl like the top picture.
Serve them on the tacos that everyone's gonna love.  They look like this:

Ohhhhh I'm so hungry....

Roasted Asparagus with Prosciutto and Fried Eggs

I've given you almost a month to regroup.
Holidays are over, decorations are put away, liver's rested...let's ease into the new year.

I know...I know, you still have resolutions.  No worries.  This is brunch, the most civilized of meals.  It's indulgent and leisurely at the same time. Can you drink champagne at 11:00 in the morning?  You can if it's brunch.  Can you take 4 hours in the middle of the day to do nothing but eat and drink and laugh with your friends?  Yes, it's brunch.  Then can you take a long and rejuvenating  nap until dinner?  OF COURSE, it's brunch!

This is the most luxurious of the protein and vegetable families, with no processed carbs to get in the way.  Wait, "no bread to dip into the unctuous, velvety egg yolk"  you're thinking? Nope, the prosciutto does it for you.  You won't even miss it.  Stick with me kid, I know things...  :)
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(WHAT TO BUY)

serves 2

1 bunch asparagus, not too fat
1 or 2 eggs per person (you decide)
prosciutto di parma
wedge parmesan cheese (plus a fine cheese grater or rasp)
salt/cracked pepper
olive oil
1 tablespoon salted butter
optional:  1 or 2 icy cold bottles of prosecco


Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Trim asparagus and place on cookie sheet. Drizzle olive oil over and toss.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast for approx. 20 minutes, then check it.  It will be done when a fork is inserted easily into the stalks.

Approx. 5 minutes before asparagus is done, start the eggs.

Melt butter in a non-stick pan and fry eggs.  I like mine over-medium, crusty around the edges.

If you timed it right, the asparagus should be done.  Take it out of the oven and grate parmesan over the top.  Use the fine holes, because it will almost melt into the food.

Divide asparagus among 2 plates.  Place eggs on top.  sprinkle with salt, pepper, and grate more parmesan over all.  Place prosciutto slices around the plate (as many as you'd like).  Serve immediately while it's still warm.

Pour some bubbly prosecco, choose a relaxing station on Pandora, and settle in for a simple brunch that's as rich and decadent as anything you ate during the holidays, but without any of the guilt.  This year is gonna be AWESOME...I can't wait to spend it with you!

salty asparagus, velvety yolk, buttery prosciutto...heaven...