Happy New Year!

Last night, I celebrated the end of 2007 with good food and drink. For dinner I used a recipe from the Better Homes and Garden Vegetarian Cookbook to make "Miniature Mexican Frittatas."

Ingredients:
1 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
1 C cottage cheese, drained
1/2 C grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 C shredded cheddar cheese (2 oz)
4 eggs
1/4 C milk
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp pepper
2 TBS snipped cilantro or parsley
Salsa, warmed
Sour cream (optional)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
In a medium bowl stir together the spinach, cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, and cheddar cheese. In another bowl stir together the eggs, milk, cumin, pepper, and cilantro. Combine the two bowls. Spoon the mixture into 12 lightly greased 2.5-in muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 min or until eggs are set. Cool for five minutes. Top with salsa and sour cream.

Here's what the finished product looked like:














While I was on my lunch break yesterday, I stopped at the Market Street Wine Shop to pick up some fancy-smancy beer. I love that store so much. I am a bread-fiend and their bread always looks so amazing. I've heard that on Mondays you can get bread-ends there for free, but I have yet to try it. Here (minus the champagne, which my parents gave me) is some of what I picked up:









For dessert, I broke out the muffin tins again to make cupcakes (from the box). Those suckers were really tricky to frost. I have too many of them on my hands now:

I did make a resolution for the New Year, which I am planning on writing more about later today or tomorrow. I generally make specific, goal-oriented resolutions like "go the the gym everyday" or "start writing fiction again," but this year I've decided to do something different. My resolution for the new year is embodied in the word "Give." I want to give more. I'm not sure how yet and I don't plan on settling on one specific way to give more. I'd rather just focus the idea of giving and see where it takes me. I already have one idea of something I would like to do with this, but that's for another post.

Banana Bread and Easy Egg Florentine

I make darn good Banana Bread.


And here's how I do it:

(Recipe from Jeannine Meyers and posted on allrecipes.com)

1 1/2 C white sugar
1/2 C butter softened
3 Bananas mashed (ed: I like to use bananas that are so brown/black they are almost fermenting)
2 eggs
2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 C sour milk (ed: I just use regular milk)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). (ed: If your oven has a setting where both the top and bottom coils can be turned on, set it to this.) Lightly grease a loaf pan.
Combine all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl; beat well. Pour into greased loaf pan.
Bake for 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (ed: I bake with the top and bottom coil turned on for the first 30 min and then just the bottom coil turned on for the last 30 minutes, to make sure the bread does not over-bake on the top.).


For dinner last night I made "Easy Eggs Florentine" from The Everything College Cookbook. As the name suggests, they are extremely easy to make. It's also a filling and tasty meal.

2 C fresh-packed spinach leaves
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp olive oil
2 slices crusty rye bread (ed: I just use whole wheat or whole grain bread)
2 TBS ricotta cheese
1/4 tsp (or to taste) cayenne pepper

Toast two pieces of bread and spread the ricotta cheese on them.
Break each egg into a separate bowl. Bowl about 3 in of water in a medium sauce pan, turn down to a simmer. Slid one egg into the simmering water and cook for 3 to 5 min. (ed: I do the full 5 min to get a "firmer" egg.) Remove from the water with a slotted spoon to drain off excess water. Repeat with the second egg.
When the egg has about 2 minutes to go, heat oil in a frying pan and then toss the spinach leaves on (ed: I use a lot of spinach leaves, probably more than the 2 C; I just eye-ball it). The spinach leaves take about a minute to cook.
Add the spinach on top of the bread with the ricotta cheese. Add the egg on top of that. Sprinkle cayenne pepper on top.
This recipe takes about 5 to 10 minutes.