Does anyone remember those old "Beef: It's What's for Dinner" commercials set to music from Aaron Copeland's ballet "Rodeo"? That music has been going through my head over the last couple of days as I've been thinking about this blog entry.
This past Wednesday brought the latest CSA box, chock-full of apples and pears, along with buttercup (not sure how it differs from butternut) squash, purple-top turnips and a few other veggies. When the box first arrives, I really do my best to cook to those ingredients and minimize the number of things coming from the store. Some boxes lend themselves to this more than others.
Wednesday was a long day at work, with an ugly case settling practically at the door of the hearing room. That was cause for celebration, but more importantly it meant that I didn't have a lot of energy for dinner.
David arrived home even later than I did, saw the carton of eggs sitting on the counter and groaned. We eat a lot of omelets in our household, and he was unexcited about eating another one. Fortunately, I had secret ingredients. Exhibit One:
Or, as I like to call it, the leek that ate Anchorage. This sucker was enormous. Exhibit Two:
Shallots (pictured here with the chopped leek). Why doesn't everyone use them? They have a flavor that combines onion and garlic with, as Garrison Keillor says, "special mellowing agents." Delicious.
Exhibit Three:
When it doubt, a good bottle of wine never hurts. This is from Maysara, a small producer in Oregon's Willamette Valley. It's gorgeously colored and fruity, but perfectly dry. It tastes like summer in a bottle.
Eggs love rosé. I could get all wine-geeky and explain why I think that is, but I'm going to spare you.
Exhibit Four:
I forgot to take a photo, but truffle sea salt, also from the Willamette Valley, gives killer flavor and aroma to any savory dish. It can be ordered here:
Taken together, these things take an average omelet (including one that fell apart a bit when turned over) from blah to a great weeknight dinner. It's not original--for that I've got the next CSA box entry--but it is satisfying.
CSA Box Omelet
1 medium shallot, chopped
1 regular leek (or a portion of the above leek), white and pale green parts only, chopped
5 eggs
Generous pinches of truffle or good-quality sea salt and fresh-ground black pepper
1 tbsp. 2% milk
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. blue cheese crumbles
Whisk together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper.
Preheat a medium-sized skillet over medium heat. Add a tablespoon of olive oil and then sauté the leek and shallot until light brown. Remove the pan from the heat and scrape the leek-shallot mixture into a small bowl.
Reheat the pan over medium heat and add the other tablespoon of olive oil. When it is warmed, swirl the oil to thoroughly coat the pan. Add the eggs and cook, running a spatula and lifting it along the side of the skillet to loosen the omelet and swirling so that the runny egg is incorporated. When it begins to look cooked, loosen the omelet again and flip it over with a spatula.
Spread the leek-shallot mixture over one half of the omelet, and the blue cheese crumbles on the other half. Cook briefly and then fold the omelet over.
Remove from heat and cut into slices. Serves two with a side of veggies and a bottle of wine.
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| The omelet-flipping didn't go so well that night, though I did manage to patch it back together and tried to hide its ugliness by slicing it into wedges. |
