Kind of a hot mess.

Let it be known! For any Tex-Mex dish in existence, there is an equally delicious breakfast version of that dish.

For evidence to back this idea, I offer exhibit A – The Breakfast Nachos.

The topping possibilities are pretty unlimited, but should probably include some sort of egg and cheese, plus some good veggies.

They are actually very easy to make and definitely fun to eat. Just be careful or you might find yourself in a very solid food coma for the day.

Breakfast Nachos

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

8 ounces spicy pork sausage
4 large eggs, scrambled
1/4 red onion, diced
1 jalapeno, minced
2 cups pepper jack cheese, grated
Tortilla chips
Avocado
Cilantro
Salsa
Sour cream

Directions:

1) Lay out tortilla chips on a baking sheet in an even layer. Top with grated cheese.

2) In a medium pan, add sausage and begin to brown over medium-high heat. Crumble sausage as it cooks and cook until it's well-browned, about 10 minutes.

3) Scramble eggs and pour into pan with sausage. Cook until eggs are barely cooked, another few minutes.

4) Add eggs and sausage to tortilla chips on top of the cheese.

5) Top with diced veggies.

6) Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes until cheese is melted.

7) Top with avocado and cilantro and serve with salsa and sour cream.

The Prep

There’s actually very little prep for these bad boys. Feel free to combine them with some of the more advanced nacho techniques I’ve used over the years like the individually topped chip or the cheese sauce method.

If you’re starving though, you can just throw some chips on a baking sheet!

The chips are down.

Obviously you could add a lot of veggie toppings to these. I kept it pretty simple though and just diced up a jalapeno and a chunk of red onion.

Just some basic chopping

Eggs and Sausage

When it comes to a good hardy breakfast, it’s pretty hard to beat eggs and sausage. So that’s what I used here! While you could definitely leave off the sausage for a veggie version, I’m not sure I’d leave off the eggs because then you’d just have nachos and not breakfast nachos.

If you are using the sausage though, just add it to a pan over medium-high heat and break it up as it cooks until it’s nice and browned.

Well-browned!

Then pour in your scrambled eggs! The grease from the sausage will be more than enough to help the eggs cook.

This will work. Trust me.

Stir the mixture vigorously as it cooks and it’ll just take another minute or so to cook the eggs.

Don’t worry if the eggs are slightly under-cooked. We are going to bake them also so it’s better to under-cook them a bit at this point.

A bit undercooked is fine.

Finishing the Nachos

Nothing rocket science about it. Add your cheese to the tortilla chips. I like a good pepper jack, but feel free to use almost any cheese.

Then add your egg/sausage combo followed by your veggies.

This guy is ready for the oven!

Cheesed and topped.

These will need to bake for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile you can prep your toppings. I think Betsy would leave me if I served nachos without avocado, so I sliced up one.

It is the most marriage saving of all toppings.

Essential.

As soon as the nachos come out of the oven, top them with some avocado and cilantro (if that’s your thing).

I like to serve salsa and sour cream on the side so people can add their own.

Delicious breakfast.

This is obviously a pretty filling breakfast, but it really hits the spot on a cold winter morning. Especially if you maybe had a longer than expected night at the bar the previous night!

And yes. We did eat this entire tray of nachos. Do not judge!

Pretty healthy for tex-mex!

My dad stopped by a few weeks ago and brought me some salmon that he caught on a recent trip to Alaska. When you catch the fish, they basically filet it and flash freeze it so it’s still incredibly fresh when you eat it later.

At first I was going to just grill or sear the fish to really let the fresh salmon flavors shine, but then my creativity got the best of me.

I’ve made a lot of fish tacos, but a lot of times the fish is fried which is delicious but not healthy and definitely hides the fish flavor. So I thought I would keep these tacos very simple with just a few toppings.

While the tacos were absolutely outstanding, what I did with the salmon skin was even better.

Salmon Tacos

Yield: Makes 6-8 tacos

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound salmon, skin removed and seared
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Flour Tortillas
Avocado, sliced thin
Salsa

Marinated Red Onions
1/2 red onion, sliced very thin
1 lime, juice only
1 teaspoon Kosher salt

Spicy Sour Cream
1 cup sour cream
1 jalapeno, diced (remove seeds for less heat)
1/2 lime, juice only

Helpful Equipment:
Silpat mat (for skin)

Directions:

1) For marinated onions, slice them thinly and toss them with lime juice and salt. Let them sit for at least 15 minutes before using.

2) Mix together ingredients for sour cream.

3) Remove skin from salmon and, optionally, cut the skin into strips and lay out on a silpat mat.

4) Sprinkle skin chips with oil and salt and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until very crispy.

5) For salmon, rub with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Sear on medium-high heat in a large skillet for about 3 minutes per side, until it's cooked through.

6) Using some small/medium flour tortillas, add a spoonful of salsa and sour cream. Lay in a piece or two of salmon (or some salmon skin). Top with avocado, cilantro, and marinated onions.

The Toppings

There’s really nothing to these tacos and you can throw them together in under 30 minutes. The toppings are where it’s at though.

I started by jazzing up some sour cream by adding some fresh jalapenos and lime juice to it.

Dice that pepper.

If you want the sour cream to have some some real heat to it, leave the seeds and guts in the jalapenos, otherwise you can just scoop them out before dicing the peppers.

Stir these into some sour cream with a squeeze of lime juice.

This stuff is fantastic on tacos.

Tasty stuff.

Marinated Onions

One of my favorite toppings for tacos is simple marinated red onions. The key to these is to slice them as thin as you can. No need to use a professional slicer or anything, but just take your time and get them thin.

Toss them with some lime juice and salt and let them sit for a few minutes. The onions will get slightly soft as they marinate and will be really delicious.

One of my favorite toppings

In my house, tacos without avocados is a pretty big no-no.

Also good to have.

The Salmon

Salmon comes in many different shapes and sizes these days depending on how you get it. I prefer to buy salmon with the skin on because it keeps it a bit fresher (I think) and I also think the skin is delicious (more on that in a minute).

But for tacos, step one is slicing the skin off the filets. This isn’t too hard if you have a decent knife. You can just run it under the filet and the skin should peel off pretty easily.

Straight from Alaska!

For the actual salmon, just rub each filet with some olive oil and season them well with salt and pepper on each side. Then just sear them over medium-high heat for about 3-4 minutes per side. Salmon, like most fish, will cook pretty quickly and you don’t want to over-cook it or it will get really dry.

The total time it’ll take to cook depends a lot on the thickness of your filets so just keep an eye on them and start checking on them after they’ve been cooking for 6 minutes or so.

When the salmon is done, just dice it up into big pieces that would fit nicely in a taco!

Try not to overcook it!

The Skinny

The first time I had salmon skin was actually at a sushi place. They were charging like $5 for a roll with salmon skin in it. I thought this was very inventive and a great use for a piece of the fish that most people probably just throw away.

Oh… and it also happened to be delicious. It’s one of my favorite rolls now and I order it every chance I get.

I quickly learned how to reproduce it at home.

The key to doing this correctly is to cut the skin into strips and use a nonstick mat (like a silpat mat). I’ve made these without the mat and they still work (parchment paper is another option), but you really need something like that or they will just stick pretty badly to the baking sheet.

So just lay out your skin pieces and drizzle them with oil and give them a good sprinkle of kosher salt.

The skinny.

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until they are very crispy. No need to turn them or anything, just let them bake.

Normally, I eat these just like this. Little salmon chips!

It may sound weird, but they are seriously addictive and use a piece of the fish that most people discard.

These are seriously delicious.

The Tacos

I think you know the story from here on out. Basically just spread some of that delicious sour cream mixture on a tortilla and maybe a spoonful of salsa. Top with a few piece of salmon, some cilantro, avocado and some of the marinated onions.

A salmon taco!

If you want to get crazy, you can put the salmon skin right in a taco! While I made a few all skin tacos, a better way to do it is to just put one or two salmon chips in with a normal taco which makes it nice and crispy.

An all skin taco was great also though.

My favorite.

The next time you get your hands on some salmon, consider the taco. It’s about as healthy as a taco can get and is super-flavorful. It’s also a good way to stretch out what can be an expensive cut of fish.

But seriously, salmon skin. Sounds weird. So delicious!

So colorful!

After a lot of holiday eating over the last week or so, Betsy discovered an interesting cleanse diet in the most recent Whole Living issue.

I’m not huge on body cleanses after a brief stint trying out The Master Cleanse many years ago. Frankly, I think most of them are BS.

But what I liked about this cleanse is that it really just reduces your diet to fruits and veggies for a few weeks. There’s no gimmicks or strange rituals. Just healthy food.

That said, I’ll be honest. I’m only dabbling in the cleanse. Betsy is doing it more intensely, but I’m cheating quite a bit.

I thought about actually doing the entire 3 week program and posting on it here, but a fair number of their recommended meals aren’t something that I would consider post-worthy here.

This is mainly because I’ll only post things that I like to actually eat. And while a kale, Romaine, and parsley smoothie (actual recipe from the diet) may be super-healthy, it tastes like cow vomit.

But, a few of the meals are very unique and I actually really enjoyed them. This is one of those meals. Not only is it completely delicious, but look at all those colors. Anytime a dish is that colorful, you can bet that it’s good for you.

Steamed Squash Salad

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 bunch broccoli rabe
2 delicata squash, peeled and sliced
Sesame seeds, toasted
Salt and pepper

Slaw Mixture:
2 cups mixed greens
2 cups red cabbage, sliced thin (about 1/4 of a cabbage)
1/4 cup red onions, diced
1/4 cup carrots, shredded

Tahini Dressing:
1/2 cup tahini
1 lemon, juice only
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/2 teaspoon paprika
3/4 cup water

Helpful Equipment:
Mini food processor
Steamer

Directions:

1) In a food processor, mix together ingredients for tahini dressing. Blend until smooth.

2) For slaw, slice cabbage and red onion thinly. Toss with greens and carrots and set aside.

3) Wash broccoli rabe and cut off any large stems leaving leaves and florets.

4) For squash, peel squash and slice down the center. Scoop out seeds and then slice squash into 1/4 inch slices.

5) Set up a steamer and steam squash for 5-6 minutes.

6) Add broccoli rabe on top of squash and continue to steam for another 4 minutes.

7) Serve steamed veggies on a bed of the cabbage slaw. Drizzle with dressing and top with toasted sesame seeds and season with salt and pepper.

8) Leftovers are great in a wrap with a drizzle of hot sauce.

Adapted from Whole Living Jan 2012.

The Dressing

This dish has some really hearty vegetables in it, but the flavors would be a bit bland without this dressing. This is the star of the show in my opinion. It has a similar flavor to hummus, but is much more intense which is why you just need a drizzle of it.

Dressing stuff

You could use any food processor to make the dressing. I used my mini food processor which is getting a lot of use these days for me.

If you don’t have a food processor, I think you could still make this. Just mash up the garlic clove really well and whisk together all the ingredients. It’s thin enough that you should be able to mix it together okay without a food processor.

Pretty straightforward!

The Slaw

While the main veggies for this salad are steamed, there’s a really colorful slaw that the steamed veggies are served on.

The backbone is a nice fresh purple cabbage which I just sliced into tiny strips.

The purple and the red.

Combine the cabbage with some greens, red onion, and a handful of slivered carrots (my addition) and you’re all set.

I love the colors in this slaw.

Good lookin' slaw.

Steaming the Veggies

There are two veggies that you need to steam to finish off this salad. Both are kind of awkward and probably aren’t everyday ingredients for most people.

Stuff for steamin'

The first ingredient is Delicata squash. I’d never used these before this recipe but I found them pretty easy to prepare. You just need to peel them and then slice them in half and scoop out the seeds. These squash are more tender than other winter varieties so they are actually really easy to peel.

Once you have them peeled and cleaned, just slice them into 1/4 inch pieces. Don’t slice them too thin or they will just turn to mush as they steam. You want them to have some texture.

Peeled and sliced.

Broccoli rabe is the second ingredient that we will be steaming. While these guys look like baby broccoli, they actually aren’t related to broccoli at all.

You can steam the little florets and the leaves so just cut off any thick stems and give them a rinse.

Washed and ready.

Set up your steamer and add all your squash to the basket. Steam this for about 5 minutes. That won’t cook the squash all the way through, but it’ll get it started.

Here was my half-cooked squash.

After about five minutes.

After five minutes, just add all your broccoli rabe to the pot and put the lid back on! Since the rabe doesn’t take as long to steam, you can add it at the halfway point and then everything is done at once.

Full steamer!

After another 4-5 minutes all of your veggies will be perfectly steamed.

These were my finished veggies and they turned out great!

Pretty quick prep.

Serve the steamed veggies over the slaw with a drizzle of the tahini sauce and some roasted sesame seeds for a super-healthy and flavorful meal. The squash has almost a meaty texture but is slightly sweet and really filling.

Another serving option which I tried out on day two is to wrap all the ingredients with maybe a drizzle of hot sauce.

These would be perfect for a lunch option. Again… check out those great colors!

Really awesome wraps.

As I was writing this post I was browsing through the healthy category on the site and I have to say that I think this is one of the healthiest full meals I’ve ever made on Macheesmo.

But I didn’t post it because it was healthy. I posted it because I really loved eating it!

Whoa man.

Warning: Some people are going to read this post and think that either A) this requires too much work or B) sweetbreads are gross.

That’s fine.

I pretty much guarantee though that if I were to sell you one of these for $5 out of my street cart you would say it’s the best sandwich you’ve ever had. That’s because sweetbreads are delicious and maybe the most under-rated offal of all time.

Much like the oysters that are typical for a po’ boy, these little bites just melt in your mouth. And for those of us who live in the mainland and can’t get fresh oysters easily, sweetbreads are a wonderful (and much cheaper) substitute.

Sweetbread Po' Boys

Yield: 4 sandwiches

Prep Time: 30 minutes + soaking time for sweetbreads

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

Sweetbreads:
1 pound sweetbreads
1 quart buttermilk
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 quart vegetable oil, for frying

Pickled Slaw:
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1/4 red onion, diced
1/4 red pepper, diced
1/2 cup carrots, grated
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons tarragon vinegar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Pinch of salt

Walnut Mayo:
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup walnuts, toasted
1 lemon, zest and 1/2 lemon juice

Other Sandwich Ingredients:
4 Hoagie buns, toasted
Lettuce
Sriracha hot sauce (opt.)

Helpful Equipment:
Mini Food Processor for mayo
Deep Fry Thermometer

Directions:

1) Soak sweetbreads overnight in cold water.

2) Poach sweetbreads in simmering water for 4 minutes. Remove and cool.

3) Slice sweetbreads into 1 inch bites. As you go, discard any tough tendons on the sweetbreads.

4) Soak sweetbread bites in buttermilk for at least a few hours.

5) When ready to make sandwiches, heat about 1 inch of oil in a large high-walled frying pan or in a heavy pot. Heat to 350 degrees.

6) Toss all-purpose flour with paprika, salt, and pepper. Drain sweetbreads and add to flour mixture. Coat well with flour.

7) Fry sweetbread bites for about 4-5 minutes until they are golden brown. Remove and let drain on a paper towel. Add sweetbreads to sandwich while still warm.

To Make Slaw:
1) Combine slaw ingredients in a large bowl. Toss with vinegars and oil and season with salt.

2) Ideally, make this a few hours before so the ingredients have some time to pickle. You could make the night before without a problem.

To Make Mayo:
1) Toast walnuts in a dry pan for a few minutes until fragrant.

2) Pulse with lemon zest and juice from 1/2 a lemon and mayo. Pulse until smooth.

3) Store in the fridge for up to a week.

To Make Sandwich:
1) Toast bread and slather with walnut mayo. Add a piece of crispy lettuce.

2) Top lettuce with fried sweetbreads. Add slaw to top of sweetbreads and drizzle with hot sauce if you want.

3) Slice the sandwich in half and serve immediately.

Planning and Prep

Unfortunately, this isn’t a sandwich that you’re just going to toss together on a whim. It requires a bit of planning.

For starters, the sweetbreads which we’ll get to in a minute, require at least a day of prep. You need to soak them overnight to clean them well.

Besides the sweetbreads, I also recommend making the slaw for the sandwiches in advance as well. The quick pickled slaw will just taste better on day two.

So, while none of the individual steps for this sandwich are super-hard, it does require some planning to pull it off.

If I can do it, you can do it.

The Slaw

The sweetbreads and mayo on this sandwich are really buttery and creamy so I thought it would be a good flavor addition to add something acidic. This quick slaw that I came up with was literally from leftovers in my fridge. It worked great though.

Basic stuff.

Just dice up all the ingredients pretty finely and toss them in a bowl with the vinegars and oil. Season this with a pinch of salt and let it sit for at least an hour or two.

Like I said, it would be best if you could make this the day before, but it’s not completely necessary.

The day before would be good...

Walnut Mayo

Any good sandwich worth its bread will have some sort of dressing. I started by thinking that a spicy mayo would work well with this sandwich. I still think that it would. So if you wanted to make a chipotle mayo like this one, it would also work well.

I ended up going a slightly different route though. For this mayo, I just toasted a handful of walnuts in a dry pan until they were fragrant (about 3 minutes), then pulsed them with some lemon zest and lemon juice and mayo until it was relatively smooth.

This is really good stuff and would be awesome on a bunch of different sandwiches actually.

Not bad at all!

Ok. Enough with the condiments. Let’s get down to business.

The Sweetbreads

Sweetbreads, if you’ve never used them, are from the thymus gland or pancreas gland of a cow. The ones I’m using for this post are the pancreas.

While they look intense, they have a super-mild flavor. Once they are fried, they melt away in your mouth. Like butter.

One of the hardest parts about sweetbreads is just finding them! Most likely, your grocery store won’t carry them. They just aren’t popular enough to keep in stock. You’ll have to ask around at butchers and farmer’s markets and you can normally get your hands on some.

The good news is that they won’t be very expensive if you can find them. They are, after all, a gland that most people just throw away…

I was pretty nervous about prepping these guys, but it turned out to be pretty straightforward.

To start, soak the sweetbreads in cold water overnight. This will help flush out any blood or liquid in the glands. It’s probably a good idea to change the water at least once also. (top left)

Next, you need to lightly poach the sweetbreads. This really just makes them easier to work with because they firm up a bit when they are poached. I cooked mine for about 4 minutes in simmering water.

After the sweetbreads are poached, slice them into 1 inch bites. While you do this, remove any tough tendons that are attached to the sweetbreads. It’ll be pretty obvious what you should be removing as it will be very tough while the actual sweetbread material is very tender. (top right)

Once the sweetbreads are soaked and poached, soak them in buttermilk for a few hours. You could do this a day or two ahead of time though if you wanted. I just soaked mine for two hours before frying them. (bottom left)

When you’re ready to fry, drain the sweetbreads and toss them in the flour mixture (all-purpose flour, salt, pepper, paprika). Now they are ready to fry!

Frying the Sweetbreads

You don’t need a lot of oil to fry these guys. Just about an inch of oil in a large pan with high edges is more than enough.

I did a test run with just one sweetbread bite to make sure these were going to work.

I can’t really explain how delicious this was. Golden brown and slightly spicy on the outside with a really creamy and delicious center. So good!

Testing testing...

I fried my sweetbreads in two batches at 350 degrees.

As always, I highly recommend using a deep fry thermometer to make sure your temperature is in a safe range.

Just a few minutes will do the trick.

The setup.

When the sweetbread bites are done, let them drain briefly on a paper towel.

I can’t get over how good these were.

Very good.

Making the Po’ Boys

Ok. Now for the easy part.

Toast your sandwich bread and slather both sides with some of the walnut mayo (or spicy mayo if you went that route).

Then lay down a piece of crispy lettuce and add a good thick row of the fried sweetbreads.

Pile it on.

Top with the slaw and, as an optional step, add a good drizzle of sriracha hot sauce.

How could you not want this?!

Had to do the hot sauce.

These sandwiches are messy, but man are they good. I sliced mine in half to make it a bit easier to eat.

Adventurous, but delicious.

This is an adventurous meal. No doubt about that.

But the payoff is awesome. Definitely one of the most unique and interesting sandwiches I’ve ever made.

If you love sweetbreads, hate sweetbreads, or have questions about sweetbreads, leave a comment!

Hello delicous salad!

I can only think of two possible explanations why orzo exists:

1) Elaborate joke. ”Look at this huge rice! But wait… joke’s on you. It’s not rice. It’s pasta. I just blew your mind!”

2) Elaborate mistake. Something went horribly wrong with the spaghetti machine and orzo happened.

Anyway, I’m glad that this joke and/or mistake happened at some point in history because orzo is one of my favorite ways to make pasta salad. This was one of my most recent versions of the dish that went over really well. It’s very fresh and reasonably healthy for a pasta salad.

Greek Orzo Salad

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound orzo pasta
1 cucumber, seeded, peeled, and diced
1 red pepper
1/2 red onion, diced
6 ounces feta cheese
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 avocado, diced
Salt and pepper

Quick Lemon Dressing:
1 clove garlic
1 lemon, juice only
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt

Directions:

1) For dressing, dice garlic clove and mash it together with salt in a small bowl to form a rough paste. Then whisk in lemon juice and olive oil and season with salt. You might not need all of the dressing.

2) Cook orzo according to package.

3) Dice all the veggies finely. Take your time to make sure they are even-sized. For the cucumber, be sure to scoop out the seeds and peel it.

4) Mix orzo with veggies and crumble in feta cheese.

5) Drizzle on dressing and stir well. Start with half the dressing and add more if you want. It should be very lightly dressed.

6) Stir in chopped avocado and sliced almonds and season with salt and pepper.

7) Serve room temperature or chilled!

Orzo. What are you?

I like to imagine that at some point in history there was an old Italian mother who learned how to make orzo by hand. She then promptly relegated the task to her children.

Whatever your job is, be thankful that it’s not making orzo by hand.

I do not know how you are made.

Luckily, orzo is much easier to cook than to make. Just boil it like you would any pasta, in a large pot of salted water. Check your orzo directions for cooking times, but you’ll probably want to cook it for around 8 minutes.

Be sure not to overcook the orzo or it will get really mushy. Mushy pasta is no good.

The Salad Ingredients

Besides the orzo, just a few simple vegetables and some feta cheese is all it really takes to make a great salad here.

Basic veggies.

I’ve given onion cutting lessons a few times on Macheesmo, but to review: The best way to cut an onion is to slice it in half down the root. Then lay it flat on a cutting board and cut off the stem end.

Remove the skin and slice the onion horizontally and vertically to form a grid.

Then you can easily turn the onion and dice it up.

Get it?

Spend some time with the veggies in this recipe to make sure they are all chopped up evenly.

For the cucumber, be sure to scoop out the seeds and peel it.

Take your time with these.

Once your pasta is cooked and drained, toss it in with the veggies and stir everything together.

This is a good start, but it would taste a bit bland if you left it like this.

All mixed up.

The Dressing

I recommend using a very light lemon and oil dressing for this salad. To start it, use the garlic technique from my ranch dressing recipe. Dice up the garlic finely and then mash it with the salt to form a rough paste.

A quick dressing.

Then just whisk in your lemon juice and olive oil and season it well with salt. You might not need all of the dressing for your salad. I recommend starting with half of the dressing and taste it. You can always add more, but it’s pretty hard to get dressing out of a pasta salad once it’s in there.

So go slow on it.

Some Good Add-ins

Besides the veggies, pasta, and dressing, I recommend tossing in some extra add-ins just to give the salad a bit more flavor.

First, feta cheese is a logical choice. It goes well with all the flavors and will give the salad some saltiness and creaminess.

Second, avocado. Who doesn’t love avocado?

Third, slivered almonds. They give the salad an awesome crunchy texture.

The almond toss.

Stir this all together and serve it in a big old bowl.

Such a good salad.

You can serve this bad boy at room temperature or chill it.

It’s perfect as a side for a dinner party or you can make it and eat it for lunch during the week.

If you wanted to make a meal of it, you could grill some chicken or tofu and serve it on top of the salad. I think it’s a pretty filling salad as is though.

Give those orzo makers some business and give this a shot!

Pretty Omelet

Growing up in a small Wyoming town, I wasn’t privy to the deliciousness of bagels and lox until I was in college. Sure, we had a good amount of smoked fish growing up, but smoked salmon, capers, red onions, and cream cheese on a bagel?

That was completely new to me and I’m pretty sure I ate nothing but that for about six months after discovering it. It’s one of my absolute favorite flavor combos so I try to sneak it into dishes every chance I get.

Some people (my wife) have a serious aversion to capers for some reason and you could definitely leave them out of this omelet if you want. To me though, they make the whole thing work.

The Lox Omelet

Yield: 1 omelet

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1-2 ounces smoked salmon
1 tablespoon capers
2 tablespoons red onions, diced
1-2 ounces cream cheese
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Fresh dill

Helpful Equipment:
Omelet pan

Directions:

1) Roughly chop or shred smoked salmon and dice red onions.

2) Add butter to a small omelet pan until melted over medium-high heat and then add the smoked salmon, red onions, and capers. Try to distribute the fillings evenly over the surface of the pan. Cook for about 2 minutes.

3) Meanwhile, whisk eggs together with milk with a fork to scramble them.

4) Pour eggs over the filling mixture in the pan. Turn heat down to medium and cook eggs. As the eggs cook, use a flat spatula to push the cooked eggs to the center and tilt the pan slightly to let the uncooked eggs flow to the outside.

5) Cook the eggs until they are almost all the way cooked. There will be a very thin layer of uncooked egg on the top and that's fine.

6) Add cream cheese to one half of the omelet and use a spatula to fold the egg over to form an omelet.

7) Cook omelet for another 30-45 seconds on each side to melt the cheese and finish cooking the eggs.

8) Serve omelet with fresh dill.

The Basics

It’s true that smoked salmon is a pricy ingredient, but the good news is that you don’t need to use a lot to get a lot of flavor from it. The same goes for capers. A little go a long way.

This four ounce package of smoked salmon set me back about $7, but it’s enough salmon for four omelets so that isn’t too bad.

It’s not my normal weekend omelet, but it’s a fun treat every once in awhile.

Not pictured: red onions

To get the fillings ready, dice the red onions pretty finely and just kind of shred the smoked salmon so it’s in pieces. Again, you don’t need a lot of each filling to get the flavors going.

Good looking plate.

Cooking the Omelet

In a small nonstick pan (this is a good one), add your butter over medium-high heat. Once it’s melted then go ahead and toss in all your filling ingredients: capers, onions, and salmon.

Let this stuff cook in the butter for just a few minutes. Basically, you just want to cook the onions a bit and heat everything up nicely.

Just a light saute.

While that’s cooking, you can go ahead and scramble your eggs. Just mix together a few eggs with some milk and whip them together until they are nice and fluffy.

I snapped a cool action shot of my scrambling. I was even using my left hand!

Action shot!

Go ahead and pour your eggs right over your fillings in the pan. It’ll sizzle and hiss and complain, but that’s good.

As the eggs cook, use a spatula to kind of push the cooked eggs into the center of the pan. Tilt the pan a bit then to let the uncooked eggs flow to the outer parts of the pan and cook.

After doing this for about 2-3 minutes you should end up with a lovely almost 100% cooked egg. There will still be a very thin layer of uncooked egg on the top, but that’s okay. It’ll finish cooking after we add the cheese.

Just a few minutes of cooking

For the cheese, just kind of toss a few spoonfuls of cream cheese on one side of the omelet. Don’t worry about smoothing it out or anything. Cream cheese melts quickly and as it melts it’ll even out.

Cream cheese melts pretty easily...

Then just take your spatula and fold over the omelet like so…

Looking good.

Put this back on the heat and cook it for about 30-45 seconds per side. When you’re flipping this guy, don’t be nervous about it. The melted cheese should keep everything together.

Cooking it briefly on both sides will make sure the cheese is melted and also finish cooking any uncooked egg on the inside of your omelet.

Serve this bad boy just like that or if you want to get fancy you can sprinkle on some chopped dill.

I could've eaten two of these...

This was one of the more flavorful omelets I’ve made for Macheesmo actually. All these flavors together just work.

It’s really delicious and would actually be a nice treat for the holidays also.

Assuming you can get your hands on some good smoked salmon, you’ve got to give this a shot!

Best hard tacos ever.

When it comes to tacos, I’m a big fan of the hard shell, but sometimes I find store-bought hard shell tacos to be kind of flimsy. Like with some tortilla chips, I feel like the manufacturers aren’t starting with whole corn tortillas. They’re probably starting with some strange paste that they can mold and fry, but the end results are always a bit sub-par.

Homemade hard shell tacos are a bit tricky though. You need to hold them in place and fry them until crispy. They do make a strange device that will make it possible to do this at home, but personally that seems like more work than it’s worth.

So I came up with a much quicker and easier method for making darn good crispy tacos at home. These are actually a delicious mash up between an enchilada, a taco, and a taquito. But trust me, you’ll have a hard time giving them up once you try them!

Shredded Chicken Hard Tacos

Yield: 12 tacos

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, poached and shredded
1 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 red onion, diced
1-2 jalapenos, minced
1/2 Cup salsa
6 ounces pepper jack cheese, shredded
12 corn tortillas
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Toppings:
Sour Cream
Avocado
Lettuce
Hot Sauce

Directions:

1) Add chicken breasts to a medium pot and cover with water by 1/2 inch. Bring to a simmer and simmer for about 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.
2) Once chicken has cooled a bit, shred it. Also, dice onion and pepper and drain and rinse the beans.
3) Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to a medium pan over medium heat. Once hot, add onions and peppers and cook until soft. Then stir in shredded chicken, black beans, and salsa.
4) Stir mixture until it's heated through and season with salt and pepper.
5) On a large griddle or in a large skillet, add a tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat. Working with one tortilla at a time, add it to the hot pan and top one half with chicken and shredded cheese. Fold tortilla over to form a taco. Press down on it lightly so it holds it's shape and move it to the outer part of the pan while you work on a second one. Do as many tacos as you can fit at once without them overlapping.
6) Cook tacos for about 3 minutes per side until tortilla is crispy and cheese is well-melted.
7) Serve tacos immediately with avocado, hot sauce, lettuce, and sour cream.

Preparing the Filling

There are really no rules when it comes to fillings for these tacos. I used some chicken and black beans, but you could take it in any direction really.

If you do want to use chicken though, the easiest way to prep it for the filling is to lightly poach it in a few inches of water for about 10 minutes or until it’s cooked through completely. Depending on the thickness of your chicken breast, you might need a few more minutes. Then, once your chicken is cool, you can shred it up with a fork.

You could also use leftover chicken from a different meal.

Poached and shredded.

Besides the chicken, I also recommend using some fresh red onion and jalapeno which gives the filling great Tex-mex flavors.

Just dice both relatively small. If you want more heat, then leave the seeds in the peppers.

Good Tex-mex flavors.

To finish off the filling, add a drizzle of oil to a medium pan over medium heat and add your onions and peppers. Cook them until they are soft, about 4-5 minutes, then stir in your chicken drained black beans.

The filling stuff.

I like to add some salsa to mine also which just kind of rounds out the flavors and ties everything together. It’s a bit of a shortcut, but it works like a charm.

Stir this all together over medium heat until the filling is hot.

Salsa is a helper here.

Making the Tacos

These tacos are actually pretty easy to make. Don’t be intimidated!

Corn tortillas are really strong. They don’t burn easily so you have a lot of flexibility in your cooking time which is nice. I like to make mine on a large griddle but you could also use a large skillet.

Just add a drizzle of oil to the pan and get it hot over medium-high heat. Then work with one tortilla at a time. Start by just warming the tortilla up for a seconds and then top half of it with a large spoonful of filling.

Like so:

Try not to overstuff.

Next, top it with some grated cheese. Any cheese will work, but I like pepper jack.

A little goes a long way.

Then the only tricky part is to fold the top part of the taco over. Once you have the taco folded over, press down on it lightly so it holds it’s shape.

The very important fold.

Once you have one taco shaped, you can move it out to the side of the pan and get started on a second taco. When I’m really rocking and rolling, I can do about six at a time on my griddle.

Cook them for about 3-4 minutes per side so they get nice and crispy on the outside.

Nice and crispy.

Toppings and Servings

I made up a plate of some of my favorite taco toppings for these guys including sour cream, avocado, and chopped lettuce. Hot sauce wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

Standard taco fare.

Serve up a few of the tacos with some toppings and you are in for a treat! Three tacos is a pretty hearty meal. Two would be a good lunch.

Awesome plate of food.

These guys turn crispy and delicious as they cook and then you can kind of pry them open and stuff them with all kinds of delicious toppings. The shells are a lot more substantial than those flimsy guys you buy in the store that crack and shatter with the slightest touch.

I know these are good because my Tex-Mex aficionado wife requested them two nights in a row!

Doesn't get fresher than this!

This is what I refer to as a Flavor Bible salad which is something that happens frequently at the Macheesmo household. Usually, it means that I have one ingredient that I want to throw in a salad… say… peaches. I flip open my Flavor Bible to the peach section and pick four or five other things that go with it.

Toss them in a bowl with some dressing and it’s almost guaranteed to be delicious.

To kick this salad up a notch, I also passed on the store bought dressings and shook up some homemade lemon-tarragon dressing.

Summer Peach Salad

Yield: Serves 4 as an app.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 large peach, pitted and diced
1/4 red onion, sliced thinly
1/2 cucumber, seeded and sliced thin
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
Arugula or a mix of greens
Handful of fresh basil

Lemon-Tarragon Dressing:
1/3 Cup oil (I like a mix of light olive oil and canola oil)
1 lemon, juice only
1/4 Cup tarragon vinegar
1 small shallot, diced
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
1 Teaspoon fresh cracked pepper

Directions:

1) Take your time dicing up the veggies. Slice the red onions thinly, Seed the cucumber and slice it thin. Pit the peach and roughly chop it.

2) Add greens to a large bowl and add crumbled feta. Then top with veggies and peaches. Dice basil and add to top of salad.

3) Whisk or shake dressing ingredients together.

4) Let people dress their own salad.

The Veggies

The veggies for this salad are nothing exotic, but all the flavors work really well together. So just go with it.

Salad Basics.

The hardest thing to dice up is actually the peach. I’ve seen people absolutely mutilate peaches when trying to get the pit out. Assuming you are working with a ripe peach, it’s a fairly straightforward operation though.

Start by finding the small crease in the top of the peach next to where the peach was connected to the tree. This crease shows you the direction that the pit is facing. If you don’t cut along the crease you’ll have a hard time getting the pit out.

Just follow the crease and run your knife all around the peach.

There's a science to the peach.

Then just as if you were cutting an avocado, lightly twist the two peach halves and they should easily pop apart. Once half will be ready to dice up and one half will have the pesky pit in it still.

Perfect!

You could use your knife to pry the pit out of the peach half, but honestly, I find it easiest just to grab the edge of it where it meets the peach skin and lightly pry it out of the peach. If your peach is ripe, it should pop right out!

Then you can just dice up the peaches. For this recipe, I recommend leaving the skin on so don’t worry about peeling them.

For the onions and cucumbers, just slice them up pretty thinly.

Big pieces are good.

Add all the veggies and peaches to a large bowl with the crumbled feta and greens.

This is a very colorful and pretty salad.

Almost done...

As a final touch, chop up some fresh basil and sprinkle it on top of the salad. Don’t skimp on the basil either. It’s an awesome flavor when paired with the peaches.

Don't skimp on the basil!

The Dressing

I originally just wanted to make a lemon dressing for this salad, but it wasn’t quite flavorful enough for my liking so I added some tarragon vinegar to kick it up a notch.

Store bought dressing sucks.

If you’re a longtime Macheesmo reader, you might remember that tarragon vinegar is my secret ingredient in my house salad dressing!

This stuff is really flavorful and perfect for salad dressings.

Secret salad dressing ingredient!

When serving this salad up just make sure to get a bit of everything in each bowl and I recommend letting people dress their own salads.

Delicious.

For a salad with only a few ingredients, it has a lot of flavor and you can really taste summer in it. The peaches are obviously the star, but they have a pretty awesome supporting cast also.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for a main course for peach week. There will be pork involved. And bourbon.

Pretty good taco.

As I mentioned in my hash brown benedict post on Saturday, Betsy and I had a few friends from the big city come visit a few weeks ago. This was a big deal. You can pretty much guarantee that if you fly 2,000 miles to visit me, I’ll cook you anything you want.

These friends were easy to please though. Besides brunch, they just asked for something Tex-mex and something grilled. So I decided to slam the two together and make some awesome grilled carnitas.

The benefits of grilling these guys (they are normally braised like this), is that you don’t have to turn your oven on! This might seem like a small win, but if you’re cooking something for 4-5 hours, it’s a big deal. Also, grilled things tend to taste good.

The downside of grilling these guys is that you want to cook them as low and slow as possible. So get ready for a day of cooking. I don’t really consider this a downside, but some people just might.

Grilled Carnitas

Yield: Serves 10.

Prep Time: 20 minutes + Resting Time

Total Time: 10 hours

Ingredients:

1 5 pound pork butt (shoulder) cut. If you get a full pork shoulder (~10 pounds) you can just cut it in half or do the whole thing if you need to feed a million people.
Flour Tortillas
1 Red onion
2 limes, juice only
1/3 Cup spice rub (below)
Salsa Verde (below or jarred is okay)
Cojita Cheese, crumbled
Radishes, sliced thin (optional)
Guacamole (below)

Spice Rub: Enough for a 5 pound pork butt
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 Tablespoon paprika
1 Tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 Tablespoon ground cumin

Salsa Verde:
1 pound tomatillos, halved
1/2 white onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic
2-3 jalapenos
1 lime, juice only
1 handful of cilantro
Pinch of salt

Basic Guacamole:
4 avocados, pitted
2 shallots, minced (you can also use red onion)
2 serrano peppers, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 handful cilantro, minced (optional)
1-2 limes, juice only
Pinch of salt

Helpful Equipment:
Oven thermometer
Meat Thermometer
Blender (just for salsa)

Directions:

1) For rub, mix ingredients in a bowl.

2) Butterfly pork butt but leave a piece attached. Don't cut it completely in two. Cover entire butt with rub. Let sit overnight in the fridge.

3) Preheat grill to 250 degrees. Use an oven thermometer to ensure even temp.

4) Cook pork butt for 8-10 hours on grill, rotating every 2 hours.

5) Once butt hits 190-200 degrees, it's done. Then wrap in tin foil and let sit for 30-45 minutes.

6) Use two forks to shred pork butt into strips.

7) As an optional step, mix in 1/4 cup of melted butter in with pork and broil the meat for a few minutes on high to really crisp up the carnitas.

8) Serve with tortillas, guacamole, salsa, onions, cojita, and radishes.

Prepping the Carnitas

There were a lot of variables that went into this dish. Since it was my first time trying it, I decided to follow one of my basic cooking rules which is that if you don’t know what you’re doing, keep it as simple as possible.

That means that I didn’t get fancy with my rub, I didn’t use charcoal or try to smoke the shoulder in any way. My main goals were just to flavor it decently and cook it perfectly. And that’s what I did.

I kept my rub very simple with these guys.

Keep it simple.

I wanted to really maximize the surface area that the rub was on, so I decided to butterfly my shoulder a bit and really coat the entire thing in the rub.

If I would’ve had my way, I would’ve gone with a pork shoulder with the bone in, but the butcher was fresh out so I had to go with the boneless variety. Not a huge deal.

Really feel free to go heavy on the rub.

Butterflied and rubbed.

Now, you could throw this on the grill right away, but you’ll get a lot more flavor out of it if you can let it rest overnight – in the fridge of course.

This normally isn’t a huge deal because since it’s going to need to cook all day anyway, any prep you can do the night before is good.

Grilling the Butt

I’m not sure if you can tell from the photos, but this is a big hunk of meat. It weighed in at about 5 pounds and this was only half of the shoulder. I’d guess that most pork shoulders are 20-30% fat which really works to our advantage here. That means that we can cook it low and slow and the high fat content will make it almost impossible to over-cook.

What you don’t want to do is cook it on a grill that’s too hot. If you do that, you run the risk of completely charring the outside and leaving the inside really tough still. No good.

The only way to make sure your grill is the right temperature is to get yourself an oven thermometer and plop it down right on the grill. If you’re using a gas grill like me, it’s just a matter of playing around with your heat until you get a steady 250 degree heat.

For me, the setting that finally worked was to turn on only the very back fire element and turn it on its lowest setting. With the lid closed, the grill kept a steady 250-255 degree temperature.

The start of something beautiful.

One Note: If your grill has a built in thermometer, just ignore it. Those things are WAY off. Mine was registering 50-75 degrees off the entire cooking time.

One Other Note: If you’re using charcoal/wood, more power to you. I want to do my next one this way. You just have to be diligent about adding coals and keeping the temperature in a good range.

A five pound pork but will need about 9-10 hours on the grill. This was mine after about 6 hours.

I also turned my butt every two hours just to make sure it was cooking evenly.

A bit over halfway.

The Fixings

Ten hours is a long time. At some point during that time, you’ll want to make some good fixings for your tacos.

Guacamole never hurts and is a requirement at my house for any Tex-Mex dinner.

Essential.

I also decided to whip up a batch of salsa verde to go with the pork. I figured the slightly bitter salsa would go really well with the pork.

To make the salsa, just roast all the ingredients except the cilantro and limes for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Then blend them up and season with salt!

Feel free to use jarred stuff.

I also marinated some sliced red onions in a bit of lime juice, sliced some radishes thinly, and crumbled some cojita cheese. In my opinion, the radishes and cheese are optional, the onions are not!

Fun toppings.

Finishing the Carnitas

Let me warn you. When you are cooking five pounds of meat for an entire day, you need a meat thermometer.

You also need a lot of beer, but that’s neither here nor there.

The meat thermometer is really the only way to know when this guy is done. When it hits 190-200 degrees in the center, it’s done. That may seem really high, but that’s the temperature when all that fat is melting away, which is what you want.

Done deal!

When you pull your pork butt off the grill, it will be falling apart. Do your best to keep it in one piece and wrap the whole thing in foil. Let it sit for about 45 minutes. This will give it time to cool slowly so you can work with it. Trying to do anything with it when it comes off the grill is a recipe for second degree burns.

It’ll still be plenty hot after 45 minutes, but you should be able to easily handle it and pull it apart.

Fall-apart tender.

Grab a few forks and get to work shredding. The meat is so tender that it should be a pretty easy task.

Shred it, dude!

You can serve the tacos just like this if you want or you can take it to the next level!

If you want to kick it up a notch, melt about a 1/4 cup of butter and stir the melted butter into the carnitas. Then stick the whole thing under the broiler for about five minutes to get the carnitas extra crispy and delicious.

Not a necessary step at all, but it does add a nice touch if you have the time.

I don’t think I need to tell you how to make a taco. Just pile it high and deep!

The finished deal.

I’m not sure there’s much left to say about these guys. They turned out to be a lot easier to make than I thought they would be.

If you’re in a situation where you need to feed a small army, this is a fantastic way to go.

It should be no surprise that the leftovers make really good burritos or breakfast hash.

Come on...

If I told you that I once ate an entire red onion in one sitting you would probably feel very bad for my loving wife, Betsy.

But you know what? I did it and I can’t take it back now. Nor do I want to frankly because when you slice red onions really thinly and fry them they just turn out to be these crispy little delicious strings. They have a slight spice to them that you wouldn’t get with normal onions.

And that made it impossible for me to stop eating them.

Red Onion Strings

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large red onions, sliced thin
3 Cups buttermilk
3 Cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon paprika
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1 Tablespoon black pepper
2 quarts oil, for frying

Homemade Buttermilk Ranch:

1 Cup buttermilk
1 Cup Greek Yogurt
1/8 Teaspoon paprika
1/8 Teaspoon dried mustard
1/4 Teaspoon fresh dill (don't over-do it)
1 Teaspoon fresh parsley
1 Teaspoon fresh chives
1 Teaspoon lime (or lemon) juice
1 pinch of salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Deep Fry Thermometer

Directions:

1) Slice onions thinly and soak in buttermilk for at least 30 minutes.

2) For ranch, dice fresh herbs finely and mix together with other ingredients in a mason jar. Shake for 10 seconds to combine well. You can also whisk everything together in a bowl.

3) Set up a fry station with a thermometer. Heat oil to 350 degrees.

4) Mix flour with spices (paprika, salt, pepper).

5) Drain onions and let sit for a few seconds.

6) Dip onions in flour and coat lightly. Then transfer straight to the fryer.

7) Fry for about 5 minutes until they are golden brown. Work in batches and make sure your oil stays hot.

8) Let drain on a paper towel for a minute and serve immediately!

Prepping the Onions

These aren’t rocket science to make. You need some onions obviously. Might as well get the biggest ones you can find!

Pretty basic...

The key to these suckers is to slice them as thin as possible. If you wanted to be exact about it you could use a mandoline slicer. If I were making a bunch of them, I would. But for just a few, I think it’s easier and good practice just to slice them up with a sharp knife.

And frankly, I kind of like it when the strings are a bit irregular.

If you sliced them too thick though they would be over-powering. So keep them on the thin side. And I wasn’t going for onion RINGS really so it doesn’t matter if they are whole rings.

Nice and thin...

Let these guys soak for at least 30 minutes in some buttermilk. The buttermilk will actually pull out some of the strong onion flavor and mellow them out a bit. This is a good thing considering how strong red onions can be.

A nice soak.

The Dipping Sauce

Honestly, these are good enough to be eaten on their own. But I was in the mood to make some salad dressing and a good ranch dressing happens to be a good dipping sauce also.

If you’ve never had real buttermilk dressing before, I highly recommend it. It’s a lot different than the stuff in the store. It requires some fresh herbs and stuff, but it’s really simple to mix up assuming you have most of the ingredients.

Looks like a lot, but not bad.

Make sure to mince all your fresh herbs really finely so they mix well.

You could whisk everything together in a bowl, but I prefer the mason jar method. Just stick everything in a jar and give it a good shake!

Mason jar WIN.

After about 10 seconds of shaking you should have a really nice dressing.

This will keep in the fridge for one or two weeks without a problem and it’ll get stronger as it sits in the fridge.

Be especially careful of the dill. It can completely over-power the other flavors if you over-dill it.

REAL ranch dressing

Frying the Strings

When you’re ready to make the strings, set up your fry station. As always, I recommend using a good deep fry thermometer to make sure your temperature is correct. You’re shooting for 350 degrees.

When you’re ready to go, drain the buttermilk off the onions. I just throw mine in a colander and let them sit for a few seconds to make sure most of the buttermilk has drained off.

Then give them a quick toss in your flour and seasoning. Obviously, make sure to stir the flour and seasoning so it’s mixed well.

A light coating is all you need.

Seasoned and floured.

Then straight into the fryer!

You’ll want to work in batches to make sure the temperature of your oil doesn’t drop too much. Depending on the size of your pot, two onions will take three or four batches probably.

These are looking great though.

Perfect.

These guys will need 5 minutes to fry nicely and turn golden brown. Don’t rush them.

Use a slotted spoon or tongs to get these guys out of the hot oil and let them drain for a few seconds on a paper towel.

Eat NOW.

This probably isn’t a surprise to you, but these are best if you eat them right away!

The dipping sauce is good, but completely optional. These are delicious as-is.

Not much beats these guys with a good burger so the next time you’re grilling out, give them a shot!