I am not above waxing poetic about my love of breakfast. At least ¼ of my instagrams feature breakfast as the subject. I wasn’t always this way. Until I was in my 20’s, I wasn’t crazy about eating the morning. When I did eat breakfast, it was almost always savory; I remember eating spinach for Saturday morning breakfasts when I was five or six. Soup was another favorite.
And then, I met Joshua. When we were first dating, I cooked a lot of breakfasts for my man. (Take that as you will). It went that way for five whole weeks, and then, I took a job in LA and said goodbye to my handsome San Francisco “fling”. When I got to Southern California, I realized two things.
- Angelenos LOVE breakfast. It seemed there was an “Omelette Haven” or an “Egg Hamlet” or a “Nice Yolks” on every corner.
- I was head over heels for the guy who liked his eggs over medium, his cereal bowl overflowing, and his oatmeal served nice and hot.
Living in a hotel near work while I searched for an apartment, I ate at a lot of those egg-centric diners (ha ha). I switched from my usual scrambled to fried, just to feel nearer to my guy. Each time I dipped my toast in yolk, I thought of how Joshua eats his eggs: He carefully eats the whites, getting as close to the yolk as possible. Then, he scoops the yolk up with his fork … get the recipe
Let’s just start this post with a series of thank yous. To whoever said “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, thank you. To whoever came up with the idea of breakfast, in the first place, thank you, and to the person or persons who invented huevos rancheros, thank you, muchos gracias, and thank you again. I love breakfast. I love it a lot. Most of all I love eggs, fresh from the farm, or the ranch if you will.
Joshua and I have a secret breakfast place, not too far from our house. We’ve shared this place with only a few people- the type of people who are not going to tell the entire city. You see San Francisco breakfast places are veritably overrun and nearly impossible to get into on a Saturday or Sunday. This place we love has the most outstanding huevos rancheros, and I always get them when I go there. Since October #unprocessed began, I’ve been grain-free and, I’ve not been able to fully enjoy these magnificent huevos (teehee, that sounds so naughty).
I decided I’d create my own huevos rancheros with grain-free tortillas. Totally inspired by those at our favorite spot. Socca is a garbanzo flour crepe which comes from Nice in the south of France. Shauna, of Gluten Free Girl, reminded me of Socca, when we were eating gorgeous fluffy garbanzo pitas at another of my favorite restaurants, Saha. I’ve come to love garbanzo flour (or bessan) over the … get the recipe
It’s day two of Cinco De Mayo Week at The Tomato Tart and I’m really excited to share this recipe with you. In the words of my husband it is “SOOOO GOOD” and then when he took some to work, it was “extremely popular” and then just “gone”. I’m talking about Latin-spiced smoked salmon. It’s kind of like spicy fish candy- unless that sounds gross to you. Then it’s not like that at all.
Being a nice Jewish girl (eh, half), lox has been ubiquitous in my life, but I have never made my own. I’ve read, bookmarked, ogled, and pinned, countless recipes, but it wasn’t until a week ago that I finally decided to make it. When I got home, I realized I’d forgotten the dill. Unwilling to go back out, I looked at the giant bunch of cilantro sitting in the glass on my butcher block, and the wheels began to turn.
What if I made a Latin-Spiced Lox? Could it be delicious? Would my grandmother turn in her grave? Is that the silliest expression of all time? In true rebel fashion, I bucked tradition & reached for the cumin seeds, hot smoked paprika, paper lantern chilies (aye papi those are hot), sea salt, brown sugar, white sugar, and cilantro. Two days later Latin Spiced Homemade Lox were born. Thank goodness.
I cut some of the lox into chunks, put them on homemade chips with avocado and ate them like cured salmon tartar. This is a new … get the recipe
On Sunday, we sold my parent’s dining set. Though I knew we wouldn’t have it on our home, we held onto it for a number of years after my mother passed. The big French table, straw covered seats, and carved oak buffet were an almost perfect match, not like “something out of the Sears catalog” as my mother used to say.
Elisabeth and John bought the dining set; we met on Craigslist. At some point I realized I may have been treating the sale as more of an adoption, I really wanted it to go to a good home- not to some dealer who planned to split it up. I chose Elisabeth and John because in her emails,Elisabeth sounded like she really loved furniture. She mentioned that she just couldn’t part with a bedroom set that John’s great grandfather had made, but most importantly, she wanted to put the set in their big kitchen/family room where it would see many family dinners.
On the day of the sale, I pulled out the leaves of the table and the evidence of nearly 100 years of dinners and celebrations- the ever so slight ring from the time my mom forgot to put down a trivet. I added a bit of oil to a cloth and I wiped the table, the chairs, and the buffet for the last time.
Mom’s Roasted Potatoes (With Fennel Pollen)
These are roasted potatoes just like my mom used to make and like her mother made before her. … get the recipe
As Valentine’s Day nears, it seems that everything is tinged with sweetness. I love the movement towards DIY Valentines, and old-fashioned handmade candies make me squeal.
Who cares if Hallmark popularized the day, take it back! Celebrate this time by treating yourself , your friends, your family, and your sweetie (if you have one) with love and kindness and special treats.
Of course, I can’t go around eating cake balls, and truffles, and lollipops for the entirety of the Valentine’s Day season, but does that mean I should miss out on pretty pink things and polka dot paper straws? It most certainly does not.
This raw and vegan cashew milk is thick and creamy and so luxurious. It almost doesn’t seem fair that cashews are lower in fat that almost all other nuts, and the fat they do contain is mostly unsaturated fatty acid. To be specific, it’s the same fatty acid found in olive oil! Love that. To that, we’re adding freeze dried strawberries which are full of antioxidants, dietary fiber, and crazy deliciousness (scientific term).
All of the health stuff, cannot begin to describe how good this little shake tastes and feels. I got a text yesterday from Joshua “Strawberry cashew milk, seriously, the best thing ever. I want to have it every day”. I guess that says it all. A little Valentine to my sweetheart, pretty, and pink, and sweet, each morning. I can do that.
A quick shout-out to my friend Tracy at Shutterbean whose amazing … get the recipe
I was born with what people call a “sunny disposition”. Maybe it’s because I’m an August baby, ushered into the world at the height of summer. Or maybe I’m just wired that way. Though, like anyone, sometimes I get the blues.
With so many inspiring opportunities on the horizon, 2012 promised to start off with a bang and… a sniffle. Yes, a New Year’s Eve cold- one that lingered a bit too long- and two weeks later it was tonsillitis, a sinus infection, and a fever of over 100º. Rest and fluids seemed to do the trick, or so I thought, until last weekend left me with a stomach bug.
I guess my body might be telling me to take a break, be gentle, maybe get away from The City for a weekend and just sit in a hot tub while looking at the redwoods. But until then, there is always jasmine tea, a good book, an extra kiss, an extra blanket, cranking the heater up to 63º, and some homemade vegan rice pudding.
I love this rice pudding for a several reasons.
- 1. I can’t tell if it’s dessert of breakfast; therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to eat it whenever I please
- 2. It is completely culturally confused, part Thai with its sweet sticky rice and coconut milk, part Indian with its cardamom and pistachios, and part European grandmother because all European grandmothers make rice pudding
- 3. It is relatively healthy even though it tastes decadent and totally naughty.
… get the recipe
Autumn comes in fits and starts in northern California, but at the first sign of winter squash and crisp mornings, something in me begins to take stock of the seeds I’ve sown over the year. Suddenly steamy cups of tea in the morning and warm blankets on the sofa lead to contemplation.
This fall, my thoughts have often turned to this blog- asking myself what is The Tomato Tart really about? I have spoken with friends, about this, and it was Andrew Wilder (eatingrules.com) who looked at the Mason jars in my open pantry. Row upon row of flours, grains, beans, and nuts from the bulk bins of my local co-op prompted him to say, “This visual gives a pretty good idea of what you’re about”.
Get me talking in a room, and I will passionately speak about farmers markets, food politics, living small, and trying to shop as ethically as possible. When talking with Andrew, I realized I’ve been sensitive to coming off as preachy when wanting to share more about how we eat, shop, and live—not just how we cook. It’s something I’m continuing to mull over as I grow with my blog which is now one year and one month old.
October 24th is Food Day, it’s a day to celebrate and promote eating real, to promote eating from sustainable sources, and to limit subsidies to big agribusiness. It’s a day to talk about protecting the environment and animals by standing up … get the recipe
Hot slaw? Really? This is one of those times when my lack of a traditional American upbringing had me a little stumped. As I read the recipe, I was still having a hard time imagining a hot slaw until one phrase sang out, “cook all ingredients over fire until it looks like custard”.
I’ll back up a little, some of you may know that I participate in a vintage recipe swap led by my friend, Christianna, who writes the blog Burwell General Store. Each month, Chris selects a recipe from a vintage cookbook/hymnal that she picked up at a junk store. So far we’ve tackled chicken pie & drop biscuits, lemon cake, jelly cake, taffy apples and potato doughnuts, to mention a few.
This time, it’s hot slaw. While I adore all things cabbage, and I love making homemade slaw, I had never heard of this. A perfunctory search proved that “Alfred E. Brumley’s All-Day Singin’ and Dinner on the Ground” is not the only place hot slaw exists. As a matter of fact, it seems to be a fairly popular dish. It also appears to contain bacon in many instances. Custard, bacon, cabbage, these are ideas a girl- even a girl who didn’t grow up with recipes from the heartland- can understand.
I popped down to the farmers market; apparently cabbage is not quite in season for us Californians yet, but that’s alright, because escarole is. A lovely bitter green, escarole begs to be … get the recipe
