A plethora of recipes...

Yesterday I baked. And I cooked. And I prepped.

I baked:


Healthified Ginger-Pear Muffins, but used apples instead of pears.
Healthified Fresh Apple Cake
Healthified Raspberry Bars, but used Strawberry preserves instead of Raspberry


I completely prepped (so all we had to do was turn the crockpot on)

Steak Fajitas with Tomato Corn Relish, and added jalapenos to the relish

and I cooked

Healthified Mediterranean Chicken Panini for last night's dinner/lunch leftovers.

The fajitas were delicious, although they weren't really fajitas. The bars were delicious, would definitely make again. The muffins were good and the panini was ok, but those thin, sandwich rounds could not hold up. We haven't tasted the cake yet.

My feet really hurt last night.

Italian Eggs Benedict....

I've been wanting to make this for a while now. I actually read about it years ago in a men's magazine, they claimed it was a great "morning after" meal. :-) I've taken to calling it "Italian Eggs Benedict."

I actually bought everything to make this for dinner a couple weeks ago. But, I used the basil for something else and the baguette became so hard it was only good as a baseball bat. But, I picked up a loaf of Salem Sourdough from Cascade Baking Co on Saturday, knowing Sunday would be a great day to make this.While the recipe above looks great, it was early and we were trying to diagnose an overheating problem in the car (fan relay failed, if you are interested) so I wanted something even quicker.

1 jar of your favorite marinara
Eggs (you can easily cook 6 - I cooked 4 and had a lot of sauce left over)
Prosciutto
Crusty Bread
Parmesan Cheese (the real stuff, none of that powdered crap)

Heat the entire jar of marinara in a large skillet.

Reduce heat to medium-low. Add marinara and adjust heat to maintain a simmer. Crack an egg into a small bowl, taking care not to break the yolk. Make a well in the sauce roughly large enough to hold the egg and slip it in so that the yolk and most of the white is contained (some white may spread out). Repeat with the remaining eggs, evenly spacing them around the pan.

Cover and cook for 6-8 minutes or until desired poached done-ness.

Toast slices of bread.

Serve toasted bread with slice prosciutto with egg and sauce on top. Sprinkle with Parmesan.


Next time, I probably will use pancetta instead of the prosciutto, just because it's less delicate.

Sit back and enjoy, delighting in the fact that you made such an wonderful, delicious meal with only 5 ingredients and hardly any energy.

Stan the Welder Man...

For as long as I can remember, we had Volkswagens. When I was in elementary school, my dad drove a metallic Blue Bug with bubble windows to work every morning. I learned to drive on a Red Rabbit that was missing first gear as well as reverse. When that one died, I drove a Blue Rabbit - when the starter went out instead replacing it, my dad installed an on-off switch under the dashboard to start my car. The Christmas before I turned 17, he worked in secret with his best friend to rebuild a motor for a 1974 Volkswagen Bug for me. While the other kids at my high school were driving their parents' fancy cars, I was driving the best car around with a super sweet engine. I loved that car.

During all those years, we spent A LOT of time at the VW shop. Autocraft was our home away from home. My dad would take my sister and I on a Saturday and we would be there for what felt like hours. I went in a couple weeks ago to get my brother-in-law a gift certificate for his birthday and I asked how long they had been open. 35 years. I told the owner I had been coming in for 31 of those years, with my dad, Stan. His reply? "Stan the welder man, he was a good guy." I wonder how many hours my dad stood there bullshitting with him? Probably more hours than I can ever imagine.

Today marks nine years since I saw my dad's face, held his hand, heard his voice. It was good to talk to someone else who remembers him too. Sometimes it feels like only my sister and I remember.