Breakfast Bread Pudding

We invited our niece Tracie to watch a Redskins game with us a couple of weeks ago. It was an East coast game which started at 10 a.m. our time. Since we get back from the farmers' market at 9 a.m., I decided to make a brunch dish that could be prepared the night before and just warmed up to be ready for the start of the game.

This Breakfast Bread Pudding fit the bill. I let the melange of bread and sautéed vegetables, smothered in eggs and cheese, sit in the fridge overnight so the bread absorbed the egg and milk, and then I popped it in the oven when we got home from the market.

Served with a plate of fresh fruit, it was a simple all-in-one breakfast casserole. I got the idea from The Big Book of Breakfast by Maryana Vollstedt - a great source for frittatas and muffins, as well as the meat-based breakfasts some enjoy.

I used an Italian loaf, cutting it into 1-inch cubes and using enough to make a double layer of tossed cubes in the baking dish. Don't worry about layers - just toss the bread in until you can't see the bottom of the dish.

Leftovers were great for lunch the next day - either reheated or at room temperature. Serve with a little salsa to give it more kick if you are so inclined.

Breakfast Bread Pudding
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup chopped red pepper
1 small zucchini, chopped
1 cup chopped mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, chopped
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp salt
pepper
3-4 drops tabasco
1/2 loaf bread
softened butter
1 1/2 cups grated cheese (I used a combination of cheddar and swiss)

Sauté onion, bell peppers, zucchini, mushrooms and garlic in butter until tender, 6-7 minutes.

Slice the end off the bread and discard. Butter the cut end of the loaf, then slice of an inch and dice it into 1" cubes. Put the cubes in the greased 9"round or 8"x11" baking dish. Repeat until you can't see the bottom of the dish.

Scatter the cooked vegetables over the bread. Spread half the cheese over top.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, pepper and tabasco. Pour over the bread, making sure it is completely covered with the mixture. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

Let the casserole come to room temperature while you preheat the oven to 350°F. Then bake it, uncovered, until set - about 45-50 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 6

Quick Dinner

The other night I prepared a quick dinner of rice and greens. The secret to the speed was the wise use of leftovers.

I keep cooked rice in the freezer for meals like this. The greens were leftovers I found in the fridge. Stirred together, they made a filling main dish.

Before I went to work, I moved the cooked rice from the freezer to the fridge to defrost. I had leftover white rice from Thai takeout, but I could have used brown rice, or any other cooked grain. The greens were leftover lacinato kale that I had cooked a couple of days earlier as an omelet filling. Any cooked green would have been fine.

At dinner time, I sautéed a chopped onion in a little olive oil in a large skillet. When it was soft, I stirred in the rice, added a little water, and let it cook, covered, until the rice was warmed through. Then I stirred in a lightly-beaten egg, some leftover greens and a little grated cheese. I covered it again and let it warm through and then seasoned with salt and pepper. I served it with steamed green beans and leftover curried kidney beans for a great meal.

Black Bean and Yellow Rice Salad

Larry and I went to a potluck barbecue on Sunday.

I tend not to take vegetables to grill on a communal barbecue - I know that meat juice is going to fly.

So I took this colorful salad - a nutritious combination of rice and beans that looks like a party.

It's good warm or at room temperature, and there's no mayonnaise in it to go bad if it sits outside on a picnic table for a few hours. I made it with white rice so the yellow color would be more obvious, but when I make it just for us I use healthier brown rice.

Best of all, it gets stirred together and cooked in the rice cooker. Easy and fast. If you don't have a rice cooker, cook it in a pot on the stove, but keep an eye on it so it doesn't scorch on the bottom when all the water is absorbed.

Black Bean and Yellow Rice Salad
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 1/2 cups basmati rice
1 bay leaf
15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed (or 1/3 cup dry beans, cooked)
1 green pepper, cored, seeded and chopped (or 2 stalks celery, diced)
15 cherry tomatoes, halved

Dressing
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Sauté onion in olive oil until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic, tumeric, cumin, salt, pepper and rice. Cook, stirring frequently, about 2 minutes. Transfer to rice cooker. Add 1 3/4 cups water and bay leaf. Cook until done.

Put the rice into a large bowl and remove the bay leaf. Add the black beans, bell pepper and tomatoes. Gently toss. Add the dressing ingredients and adjust seasonings as needed.

Serves 6-8

Green Omelet

Spinach is a common omelet filling. Last night I used lacinato kale instead for an exceptionally healthy dinner. I served the omelet with stovetop beets and carrots, and stewed green beans and tomatoes from our garden.

I'm a fan of the complete food that is an egg. All that guff about them raising cholesterol was debunked years ago. Very little dietary cholesterol gets passed into the blood. Stress, sugar and trans fats are worse for your blood fat numbers than eggs.

Eggs are a good source of nutrients. One egg contains 6 grams of protein and some healthful unsaturated fats. Eggs are also a good source of choline (which has been linked with preserving memory) and lutein and zeaxanthin (good for the eyes).Eggs are also a good source of Vitamin D.

Surprisingly, there's only been one large study that looked at the impact of egg consumption on heart disease, and it found no connection between the two.

I'm lucky enough to be able to buy eggs laid by true free-range chickens - they live in an orchard eating bugs. I'm sure their eggs are healthier than those of factory-farmed, corn-fed chickens. Or worse, chickens being fed ground-up chicken feathers in their diet.

But if you can get good eggs, enjoy them.

I cooked the kale especially for the omelets, but I could have used leftover cooked greens instead. One bunch made enough for four omelets, so I stored the extra in the fridge to stir into cooked rice later this week.

I'm not an omelet expert, so if you have a way that works for you, use it. Or follow my instructions and remember that the worst thing that can happen is you'll wind up with scrambled eggs with the filling stirred in. How bad is that?

Omelet with a Filling of Lacinato Kale
1 bunch lacinato (dinosaur) kale
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup diced onion
1/2 inch sprig fresh rosemary
dried chile flakes
1 small clove garlic, thinly sliced
salt to taste

Remove the stems from the kale and discard. Blanch the leaves in boiling salted water for 3 minutes until bright green. Drain and chop coarsely.

Heat oil in a heavy pan over medium heat. Add the onion, rosemary and a sprinkling of chile flakes. Cook 2 minutes then add garlic and a sprinkling of salt. When the onion is translucent and starting to color, add the kale. Cook over medium-low heat, covered, for 30-40 minutes, stirring often. The kale will turn a deep almost black color, become soft, and then almost a little crisp. If it starts to brown, add a little hot water from the kettle and scrape the browned bits off the bottom. They'll add to the flavor. Sprinkle with salt. Set aside.

Omelet
2 eggs
1 tbsp butter
cooked greens
1 tbsp diced mild cheese
1 tbsp diced tomato
salt and pepper to taste

Warm butter in an 8- or 9-inch omelet pan over medium heat. Lightly beat eggs with 1 tbsp water and a little salt and pepper. When the butter stops sizzling in the pan, pour in the eggs. Let the eggs sit until the bottom dries a little, then lift up an edge with a thin metal spatula and let the runny egg flow underneath. Keep going for a couple of minutes until the top is almost dry. Place the filling ingredients on one half: 1/4 of the greens, 1 tbsp diced cheese, 1 tbsp diced tomato. Fold the other half over the filling, and carefully slide the omelet onto a plate. Serves 1

Late Summer Black Bean Salad

This is a wonderful time of year at the farmers market: corn on the cob, all colors of peppers, vine-ripened tomatoes.

I like to combine them in this colorful black bean salad. It's a great dinner on a warm evening, and fast to make if you use canned beans. (I cook dried beans the night before so it's easy to put together at dinner time.)

Add hot peppers or some salsa if you'd like a spicier salad. (Sweating is cooling!) Serve the beans with a green salad for a meal that is filling but not too heavy.

I don't cook the corn in this recipe. I get sweet organic corn at the Hollywood Farmers Market from Finley Farms. It tastes great raw, although I do cook it for corn on the cob.

Taste your corn by removing the husk and slicking off a kernel. It should taste fresh, sweet and grassy. If it's flavorless, cook it in boiling water for a couple of minutes after removing it from the cob. I slice the raw corn off the cob by lying the ear on its side and cutting off a few rows with my big knife, then rotating the ear a little and doing a few more.

(If you can't find organic fresh corn, use the frozen kind. Cook it a couple of minutes before adding to the salad.)

This bean salad will last a few days in the fridge, so save some to take to work for lunch the next day. It's like having late summer in your lunch bag.

Summer Black Bean Salad
2 cups dry black beans, cooked (or 3 14-oz cans)
1/2 red onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced
2 green onions, white and some green, sliced thinly on diagonal
2 cups corn kernels (from about 3 ears)
1/ 2 bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped
2 cups small cherry tomatoes, halved or whole
salt and pepper to taste

Dressing:
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
juice from 1 lime (2-3 tbsp)
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Cook dry beans in a large pot of boiling water until they are tender but still retain their shape. Drain well.

If using canned beans, drain and rinse well.

Whisk together the dressing ingredients. Pour over the beans. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well.

Serves 6-8

Frozen Bananas

I like to buy organic bananas even though they don't grow locally. I feel good about supporting chemical-free agriculture in tropical countries.

I don't buy non-organic bananas because I choose not to support agriculture that poisons the workers. Conventional bananas are grown with pesticides categorized by the World Health Organization in the first and second most dangerous categories. Typical banana plantations in Central America apply 30 kilograms of pesticides per hectare each year. That is 10 times more than the amount used in intensive agriculture in developed nations.

Fortunately, organic bananas are becoming easier to find at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. Even my local grocery store carries them pretty regularly.

Since they tend to go brown faster than we can eat them, I throw the extras in a zip-loc bag in the freezer and get ready to enjoy my favorite frozen treat.

On hot days like today, I pull a banana from the freezer, peel it, slice it, and enjoy a treat that is better than ice cream. And healthier too.

Bananas are a good source of fructooligosaccharide, a compound that nourishes probiotic (good) bacteria in the colon. These beneficial bacteria produce enzymes that increase digestive ability and protect against unhealthy bacterial infections. Similar to eating yogurt or taking probiotic pills.

Frozen bananas might also make you happy. They're a good source of tryptophan, an amino acid converted by your body into the mood-booster serotonin.

Frozen Banana
1 ripe banana

Put the banana with peel in a bag in the freezer. Let it freeze at least a few hours until it is solid, but you can leave it there for up to 6 months.

Take the banana from the freezer just before you want to eat it. Let it sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes until the peel has defrosted enough for you to remove it.

Peel then slice the banana. Eat while it's still hard. If it defrosts too much it gets mushy - great for banana bread, but not so good for dessert.

Serves 1.

Hibiscus-Lime Iced Tea

September can be the hottest month here in Southern California, and this hibiscus-lime iced tea is the drink I turn to when plain water just isn't cutting it.

I don't buy bottled drinks because they are made with tap water and chemicals in the guise of flavorings. Making tea at home keeps it real. I use filtered water and natural foods.

I get jamaica flowers from my local Mexican supermarket, but well-stocked grocery stores and health food stores will have them too. You'll recognize the taste from Celestial Seasonings' Red Zinger tea. Although jamaica is in the same family as the hibiscus that grows in our garden, they are not interchangeable. The jamaica flowers we drink are picked from a tropical vine that grows in India, Africa and Mexico.

While I usually eschew the use of sugar, in this drink it's essential. The sugar syrup gives the tea a satisfying feel in the mouth, especially if you're used to bottled iced tea. Plus it gives me the energy boost I need to get back to work in the garden.

Add enough sugar syrup so the tea tastes good to you. The extra syrup will last a few weeks in the fridge to be added to your next batch of tea. I think the iced tea will last at least a week in the fridge, but it's never spent more than 3 days in ours.

Hibiscus-Lime Iced Tea
1 cup sugar
zest of 4 limes, removed in strips
3/4 cup dried hibiscus (jamaica) flowers - 1/2 a 2oz packet

Combine the sugar and lime zest with 1 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring it to a boil. Remove from heat and let steep 30 minutes. Strain into a measuring cup.

In a large saucepan, combine the hibiscus flowers and 8 cups cold water. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let steep 20 minutes at room temperature. Then refrigerate until chilled.

Strain the hibiscus water into a large pitcher. Stir in 1/2 cup of lime syrup, or more to taste. Serve in tall glasses over ice.