The Bitten Word

Fluffy Omelets with Asparagus and Ramps

Cook's Illustrated (April 2013)

As the write-up accompanying this Cook's Illustrated recipe says, there are basically three kinds of omelets.

There's the French omelet, with its uniform, creamy crepe-like texture and sparse accoutrements.

There's the American diner omelet, with its thicker texture and slightly scorched exterior bursting with cheese and other fillings.

And then there's the fluffy omelet. It's light and delicate and ethereal.

Well, we've tried French omelets. And we've tried diner omelets.

It was time for us to round out the trifecta.

 

Crunchy French Toast with Cap'n Crunch Coating

Cook's Country (April/May 2013)

Our friends Drew and Ralph -- characters you know doubt recognize from many a dinner featured here on The Bitten Word -- have just opened a restaurant (a second restaurant, technically, that just so happens to be very favorably reviewed in today's Washington Post).

As they've been getting the new eatery up and running, they've been understandably busy, so we haven't been able to hang out as much. To make up for lost time, they invited us to come over to their house for brunch on Sunday. 

"What's for brunch?" Clay casually asked Drew a few days beforehand. 

"We saw this recipe in the latest Cook's Country that looks awes---," 

"The Really Crunchy French Toast with the Cap'n Crunch?!?!"

The answer: a resounding yes.

We'd spied this recipe when picking out April recipes. We loved the idea, but it seemed a bit of an overindulgence to just make for the two of us. 

But when friends invite you over for a French toast feast, you don't turn them down. 

 

Tofu Scramble

Bon Appétit (January 2013)

Back in July, we spent a wonderful July 4th week at the beach in Provincetown, Mass. As it turned out, we knew tons of other people vacationing in P-town that week, too. (The gays like to travel in herds, you know.)

Anyway, we spent the week biking to the beach, meeting friends for lunch and hopping around various house parties. It was all super fun.

One afternoon while we were there, our friends Sean and Nathan texted to invite us over for brunch the next day. "Sounds great!" we texted back. "See you then!"

Then the horror hit us: Sean and Nathan are vegans.

A vegan brunch? On vacation at the beach?

Were we being punished?

Spicy Zucchini Frittata

Whole Living (July/August 2012)

There are a few specific times when we make a frittata:

We're craving eggs but are a bit bored with our routine of scrambled or fried...

It's after work and we're ready to eat but haven't gone to the supermarket and have very little on hand...

We find ourselves with an overflowing crisper drawer and need a quick way to use up a bunch of vegetables...

And often, it's a combination of all three. 

The frittata (or FRRREEE-TAH-TAH if you're Giada) is a handy, simple recipe to have in your back pocket when hunger comes calling. 

And you can't find a more basic template for creating your own frittata than this version from Whole Living that combines ingredients that are in their prime time right now: zucchini and corn. 

Avocado Toast with Chile Flakes and Crushed Pistachios

A Bitten Word Recipe

Here's a breakfast item we've been making for ourselves a lot this spring. Inspired by a delicious appetizer we ordered last year at Cork Wine Bar here in D.C., we decided that avocado on toast sounded pretty yummy for breakfast, too.

To find our perfect avocado toast, we played around with different variations of this dish. Cork actually drizzles theirs with avocado oil, which is delicious if you happen to have some (but pricey and probably not worth buying if you don't). We even tried a drizzling hot bacon grease over these, but it was just too much (yeah, we said it).

Fluffy Diner-Style Omelets

Cook's Country (January/February 2012)

If we serve eggs at our house, chances are they're going to be scrambled.

If we're feeling fancy, we might do over-easy, maybe served on top of a vegetable or beef hash if we're being industrious. 

Poached? Forget about it. Over-hard? Blasphemy. 

Omelets are another matter altogether. We love omelets and often order them when we go out for breakfast, but we hardly ever make them at home. Why is that? Well, in truth, we're not very good at making omelets.

We build big, beautiful omelets, cooking the eggs and then filling them with delicious vegetables and meats. And then it comes time to seal the deal (literally), and the whole thing falls apart, making for a really ugly omelet that we then hack up and serve as a scramble, as if to make ourselves feel better. 

And we're not talking about Julia Child-style omelets. (If you've never seen the Omelet Dinner Party episode of "The French Chef," you should.) We want to make omelets that are stuffed with deliciousness and then folded over, an omelet that sits tall on the plate, oozing with cheese and fillings.  

When we saw this recipe for Fluffy Diner-Style Omelets in Cook's Country, we knew the wizards at America's Test Kitchen would show us the errors of our omelet ways. 

Poached Scrambled Eggs with Goat Cheese Sauce

Food & Wine (January 2012)

We like to think we're pretty good at scrambled eggs. We have a particular way of doing it that makes eggs just the way we like 'em: creamy and soft and delicious. Essentially, it involves cooking them over very low heat and stirring almost constantly. (Also, we picked up a tip a very long time ago from an otherwise ridiculously over-the-top omelet recipe: Stirring eggs with a chopstick or the thin end of a wooden spoon yields perfect fluffy eggs every time.)

We love the way we make scrambled eggs. The only problem is that it can take 15 or 20 minutes of near-constant stirring.

So we were more than a little intrigued by this recipe, which promises perfectly scrambled eggs in only 40 seconds. FORTY. SECONDS.

Incan Super-Power Bars

Food & Wine (September 2011)

Don't you feel like this recipe name is just begging to be followed by an exclamation point? "Incan Super-Power Bars! Power-blasted with ancient Incan energy secrets to give you the boost you need!!! INCAN SUPER-POWER BARS!!!"

No? Just us?

Well, here's a sentence that definitely needs to end in an exclamation point: Zach is running a marathon! (Actually, maybe that calls for an interrobang: Zach is running a marathon‽)

Anyway, yes, Zach's running the Marine Corps Marathon on October 30 here in D.C. It's his first marathon, and he's been training since May. Prior to this, the most either one of us had ever run was the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler, which we've run the past two years.

Sidenote: The team that Zach is training with is called Team to End AIDS. It's a very, very good cause, and all the fundraising proceeds go to AIDS United and the Washington AIDS Partnership. If you'd like to donate to Zach's fundraising page -- even a buck, or five bucks or 10 bucks -- you'd be helping out an excellent organization. And we would love you forever.

As a result of all the running he's been doing over the past several months, Zach has blissfully been eating everything in sight. (Seriously, we should have purchased stock in a peanut butter company this summer....) He's constantly been on the hunt for foods that are nutritious, delicious and full of energy.

Which is why we were thrilled to find these Incan Super-Power Bars (Incan Super-Power Bars!!!).

Skillet Eggs With Squash

 Food Network Magazine (July/August 2011)

We went to Cape Cod this weekend. Friends presented the opportunity for a free house in Provincetown for several days, and we jumped at the chance to go. And it was lovely! We read, we napped, we read some more. We took walks to the beach and made dinner at the house most nights.

Before we left for the trip, we diligently cleaned out our fridge, working through all the produce that we had on hand. And that, friends, is a challenge these days, because our CSA share is getting hefty each week.

One of the main culprits? Zucchini. We have it in spades right now. A few weeks ago, our weekly share had 12 (twelve!) pounds of zucchini. This week, we got another four pounds.

So needless to say, when it's summer, we're on the lookout for new zucchini ideas. 

And one of those ideas -- Skillet Eggs with Squash -- is already a new favorite. 

Morning Glory Muffins

Cook's Country (May/June 2011) 

 

We've been to our fair share of coffee shops. So we were already familiar with the glories of the Morning Glory Muffin before seeing them featured in the most recent Cook's Country.

If you're not familiar with them (several friends we've discussed them with over the last week haven't been), they're those beautiful, carrot-studded concoctions of fruit and nuts, typically filled with raisins, cinnamon, walnuts and pieces of carrot. They're like the breakfast equivalent of a Compost Cookie -- a little bit of everything thrown in.  

Now, we're not usually muffin people. Breakfast around our house typically consists of protein shakes or oatmeal. On weekends we'll usually make some kind of eggs or the occasional pancake or waffle. 

But the arrival of guests is a great time to break out of your breakfast tradition. So when Zach's mom visited recently, we seized on the opportunity to make muffins.