After testing more than a few recipes from “Jamie’s Italy” a detailed book review is up next, along with a recipe for homemade pizza topped with potatoes, mozzarella, rosemary, thyme and tomatoes. But first, I wanted to share a brief post about one of my absolute favorite breakfast dishes: Huevos Rancheros with Salsa Fresca. A flavorful Mexican dish that literally means “eggs ranch-style” with “fresh salsa,” it was traditionally served on rural farms as part of generous mid-morning meal. Farm workers ate small breakfasts at dawn before beginning the day’s chores and it was almuerzo, lunch, when heartier dishes like this one were enjoyed. The combination of refried beans, eggs, tortillas, avocados, cheese and fresh salsa - among other things - is sure to become a family favorite. In this post I’ve included my personal recipe for making a great pot of beans, then combined it with the huevos rancheros and salsa fresca recipes from one of our most used breakfast books: “Breakfasts and Brunches.” (I should note, by the way, that my husband made the huevos rancheros pictured. Yes, he’s a great cook! Am I lucky or what?)

Huevos Rancheros with Salsa Fresca
(View a larger picture here.)

This dish is very easy to make, though a bit time consuming if you do it all in one go. The best way is to make the beans ahead of time, then freeze or store them, and to make the salsa the night before. :yum:

How to make a great pot of beans
Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, sliced
• 2 - 3 cups of dried pinto beans, depending on how large your pot is
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Sort through your beans for any bits of rock. Rinse and drain twice.

Fill a large (but not huge) pot with water, leaving about 2 inches of room at the top. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the sliced onion and the rinsed beans. Bring to a boil and cook over medium high heat for 2 hours, checking periodically and adding water as needed so that the water level remains about the same. Stir occasionally.

Remove a small spoonful of beans and gently blow on them. If the skin on the beans peels back, they are done. (If the skin doesn’t peel back cook for another 15 minutes and test again.) Add 1 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook for 15 more minutes.

Serve immediately or store and refrigerate in airtight containers for up to 1 week. You can also freeze them in freezer safe containers for up to 1 month.

Huevos Rancheros
Ingredients: Makes 2 servings

• 2 good quality corn tortillas
• 1 cup refried beans
• 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
• 4 large eggs
• salt and ground pepper
• 1/4 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
• 1 avocado
• 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
• 1/4 cup sour cream (optional)
• Salsa fresca (recipe below)

Preheat the broiler.

Add about 1 1/2 cups of beans to a small pan, lightly mash, then cook over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has evaporated and the beans have thickened. These are your refried beans.

Heat the tortillas by toasting them one at a time in dry cast-iron skillet. Place on a baking sheet; spread each tortilla with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of refried beans, according to taste, and lightly cover with aluminum foil to keep warm.

Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat until it very hot but not smoking and the foaming has subsided. Crack the eggs directly into the hot butter and reduce the heat to medium-low. Fry the eggs, shaking the pan occasionally to keep the eggs from sticking. Season with salt and pepper. Fry about 2 minutes for “sunny side up,” 3 minutes for medium yolks, and 3 1/2 to 4 minutes for hard yolks.

Top each prepared tortilla with 2 fried eggs and 2 tablespoons of the grated cheese. Slide the tortillas under the broiler just long enough to melt the cheese.

Dice the avocado and toss with the lime juice to prevent the avocado from browning. Divide the avocado among the tortillas. Top each serving with 2 tablespoons (or more!) of salsa fresca (recipe below) and 2 tablespoons sour cream, if desired. Serve and enjoy!

Salsa Fresca
Ingredients: Makes enough for more than one serving of huevos rancheros

• 1 cup seeded and diced tomatoes
• 1/4 cup minced white onion
• 1 small jalapeno, seeds removed and minced
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 teaspoons chopped cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon chopped oregano
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Combine all the ingredients, mix well, and let rest in a covered container in the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before serving. Salsa can be stored this way for up to 2 days.

Note: You can try other chilies as well, including chipotles with a little for their accompanying adobo sauce. Other additions include red peppers, green peppers or cucumbers.

Recipes for huevos rancheros and salsa fresca from Breakfasts and Brunches by The Culinary Institute of America..

After a three-week school trip in Israel I’m finally back in the states! I hope that everything has been fantastic with you - I’ve missed reading your blogs and finding out what’s going on in your world. I’ve also greatly missed writing here and am beside myself with glee at having easy access to a computer again. Woohoo! The blog addicts among you understand yes?

I have much to share but this is going to be a relatively brief post because I have yet one more conference to attend and there’s a lot to get done before I head back to the airport. This time it’s only a four day trip, however, and within the United States at that. Most importantly I’ll be in the same time zone as my husband, which is far easier to manage than the seven hour time difference we juggled while I was in Israel. I’m leaving Sunday morning, but before I go I wanted to share some of my trip to Israel with you. Hence, this post is about two things: the Makhne Yehuda market I fell in love with in Jerusalem, and za’atar (זעתר), a delicious spice mixture.

There were many things I loved in Israel, but one of my favorites was the market on Makhne Yehuda street in Jerusalem. If you have never been to a middle eastern market before it is quite an experience, with crowds of people bustling, an amazing array of colorful items for sale, and fearless vendors shouting in Hebrew or Arabic. You can find pretty much anything your food-loving heart desires here: from exotic spice mixtures and enormously lush grapes to freshly caught fish and breads or pastries that have just been taken out of the oven. I loved visiting the spice stalls with all their vibrant colors and heady aromas, and was especially taken with the nut mixtures that Israelis add to their rice. (You can see an example of these nut mixes in the photos above.) Shoppers can also find clothes, kippot, and huge candy stalls covered from top to bottom in neon colored confections. (The colors are so bright you could say the shops glow.) My favorite item to buy here were chocolate bars that have ‘pop rocks’ added to them. These bars are so much fun to eat because not only is the chocolate scrumptious, but the crackling sound that engulfs your mouth can’t but bring a smile to your face. The bar is made by the Elite Candy Company, whose other chocolate bar varieties include: hazelnut, strawberry and the bubbly, aerated chocolate featured here. Needless to say, I brought back several bars of the pop-rock variety to share with my 5th grade students.

One of the many things you can find in the Makhne Yehuda market is za’atar, which is the green mixture you see in the first photo above. A combination of sumac, toasted sesame seeds and other spices such as thyme, it’s popular in Israel and throughout the Middle East. Technically za’atar is the name of a specific plant, which was the ‘original’ spice used in food. But over-exploitation nearly eradicated the herb so picking it is now against the law and herb mixtures are used instead. The Lebanese believe that za’atar makes the mind alert and the body strong, so children are often given a za’atar sandwich for breakfast before taking an exam at school.

I hadn’t realized this before returning to the States and researching za’atar online, but there is actually debate about what the “right” mix of ingredients is to achieve the “correct” za’atar. For instance, one site wrote:

In Arabic “zaatar” is used to describe not one plant but a family. It includes hyssop varieties, thyme varieties, etc. For example thyme is “zaatar romi” (roman zaatar), and oregano is “zaatar ach’dar” (green zaatar) and so forth. Zaatar can also be the name of hyssop or a varied mixture of herbs….The ingredient which gives the mixture it’s saltiness is “zaatar parsi” … a rare plant similar to wild thyme with purple flowers.

After much reading and comparing of recipes, I’ve concluded that the za’atar recipe listed here is the closest ‘from scratch’ approximation to what I brought back from Makhne Yehuda. Serving wise, za’atar is frequently served with olive oil as a spread or is used to flavor meat and vegetables. My favorite way to eat it, however, is spread over small rounds of pizza-like bread. Nearly everywhere you go in Israel you can find a baker who has mixed za’atar with olive oil, spread it over dough, then baked it to a golden brown color. The result is a light bread that’s delicious on it’s own or dipped in labne, a tangy yogurt made from goat or sheep’s milk. Indeed, I enjoyed this bread/spice combo so much that as soon as I got home I began trying different ways to recreate it. The first two attempts with different kinds of dough weren’t so spectacular, but then - success! Aside from the fact that I shaped my bread into a rectangle instead of small rounds, the recipe below is near exact replication of the baked goodness I enjoyed while wandering around the streets of Jerusalem. You can, of course, divide the dough into four smaller portions and create rounds before baking too.

Za’atar on freshly baked bread

Alright, I’m off to repack my suitcase. I suppose this entry wasn’t so brief after all eh?

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