Grilled Onions: French onion soup without the soup.

Onions have always been a staple in my house and at my parents' house.  There is a joke that anything my dad eats could use some or more onions, and that if we just served onions, he would still think more onions were needed.

Honestly, I don't understand people who have an aversion to them.  I have a cousin who will pick out minced onions from the dressing at Thanksgiving and who I've seen eat onion rings by pulling the onion out and just eating the batter.  Yes, raw onions can be harsh, but cooked onions are sweet and mellow.  Onions are also good for you and inexpensive, so I think it makes sense to have more onion side dishes.

I think my husband has onion amnesia, especially when it comes to these grilled onions.   He always claims he's not interested in them, but after taking a few bites, he keeps going back for more.  I think these could win over most of the onion haters among us, and I think it tastes kind of like french onion soup without the soup.

Some notes:

• I'm including step-by-step directions below for a grill, but you can also bake these for an hour between 350 and 400 F.  Put on a cookie sheet or oven safe dish while baking, so juice doesn't run all over your oven.
• I can eat one of these by myself, and I really like it over a baked potato.
• I usually use a sweet onion like a Candy or Vidalia, but I've used yellow or white onions too.

Grilled Onions

After getting your grill ready, peel and wash your onions.  Place each onion on a sheet of foil big enough to wrap the onion in.  Cut off the root at the end, and then use a paring knife to hollow out about an inch and a half hole in the top of your onions.  I just leave the onion insides that I've taken out in the foil.

Fill the hole with a bouillon cube or paste (about 1 teaspoon).  I use either beef or vegetable, but chicken would work too.

Top with a pat of butter (about 1/2 tablespoon).  Wrap the onion in foil and place on the grill for an hour.  (potatoes take about this long too)  My grill was at medium heat, but these will work at low or high heat, you'll just need to adjust the time.  I've never had a problem with overcooking these.

When the onion is soft, it's done.  Put it in a container before unwrapping, so you don't get juice everywhere.

Peaches, Pesto, Mozzarella: What I've learned

I learned a few things while making the salad you see above.  First, pesto makes an excellent salad dressing.  Two, I'm getting so skilled at using my $30 thrift store Le Crueset grill pan.  I mean really, look at those grill marks!  And finally, peaches, pesto, and mozzarella cheese go perfectly together on a salad.

The pesto recipe I used called for pine nuts, but I didn't want to take out a loan just to buy nuts, so I subbed in pepitas (roasted pumpkin seeds) instead.  I've been using them in place of pine nuts a lot lately, and they haven't let me down yet, so give them a try.  I also can't get arugula where I live or that would have went on this salad instead of spinach.  

This salad was served with barramundi, which is a fish that I had not tried until last December.  It's a flaky white fish, but does not have the typical white fish flavor. From what I've read, it can be farmed in a sustainable manner, so it's not a bad choice of fish, and it's my new favorite.  We stock up on it the few times a year when we can get to a Trader Joes.   If you can get the skin crispy, do it.  I think I could eat a bag of crispy barramundi skins.  I previously mentioned arugula, which I also had not tried until this year.

The only thing that makes me upset about any of this is that I've lived 32 years of my life when I could have been eating barramundi, arugula, and grilled peaches and pesto.  I need to make up for lost time.

Chorizo Stuffed Twice Baked Potatoes

In my opinion, there aren't too many things better than a twice baked potato.  They are cheesy, salty, and if cooked just right, the potato skins get crispy.  I don't think they should always be relegated to a side dish, especially when you can just stuff your entire meal in one.

The key to making twice baked potatoes is to bake your potatoes ahead of time and let them cool before trying to scoop them out.  Not only do you risk burning yourself with scorching hot potato flesh (trust me, I've done this), but the potatoes will also break apart easily leaving you without the shell you need if you don't let them cool properly.  If you're using the oven anyway, go ahead and put a few potatoes in, and then you can have twice baked potatoes the next night for supper.  You can also bake potatoes in a crock-pot.  Just put them in the crock pot at night, and when you get up in the morning, you can put them in the refrigerator, so they will be cool and ready to scoop out for supper.

The other trick I've learned to making twice baked potatoes is instead of scooping out the flesh with a spoon, use a knife and cut around the inside.  Then you can go in and dig out the potatoes with a spoon.  This leads to a lot less breakage of your potato skin.

I didn't measure this exactly, and you can pick and choose your ingredients.  You can use sausage, ground beef, or chicken instead of chorizo, or leave out the meat entirely.  Change up the cheese to whatever you have on hand.  I serve these with sour cream.  They freeze and reheat well, so I always make extra.

Chorizo Stuffed Twice Baked Potatoes

4 russet potatoes
6 to 8 oz chorizo, cooked
1 cup co-jack cheese, shredded
3 scallions, chopped

1. Bake potatoes until tender.  Set aside and cool to at least room temperature, but cooking them the day before and refrigerating them works great too.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 F.  Cut each potato in half and carve out the inside.  You will now have 8 potato shells and the potato insides. Put reserved potato insides into a medium bowl.

3. Mix chorizo, cheese, and scallions with potato insides.  Taste for seasoning.  Because chorizo is salty and spicy, I don't add any extra seasoning, but if you're using a different protein, you may want salt, pepper, or other spices.

4. Spoon the potato mixture into the potato shells, and place on a baking sheet.

5. Bake potatoes for 20 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and the skins are crisp.

Why I Love Breakfast and a Burrito

I love breakfast more than any other meal, and it's purely for emotional reasons.  I grew-up in a home where my mother ate and still eats something chocolate every morning.  I really didn't know that Hostess chocolate cupcakes were not a breakfast food until I was in my mid-twenties.  Chocolate cake and Swiss Rolls were the norm, but I always liked a savory breakfast.  I would go to my grandparent's house before school where my grandpa would make me cheese omelets or heat up leftover mashed potatoes and fried chicken.  The only time my mom cooked a breakfast is when my family would go camping.  I remember the little Coleman camp stove with eggs just taken out of the red plastic carrying case and sausage links.  These breakfasts were special.  Now, my dad often takes me out for our morning meal when I'm home visiting, and it's these kinds of emotional memories that make me love this meal so much.

I have a breakfast burrito almost every morning.  I previously posted about making them ahead for the freezer, which works great, but most of the time I just make my burrito as I get ready for work.  Those of you who know me know that I will sleep every last second before I have to get out of bed, and I've been known to hit the snooze button for at least an hour.  In fact, my husband knows that he's not allowed to talk to me in the morning because all questions are considered stupid until I'm properly awake.  Yet, I do love breakfast, and I've got a routine down that lets me throw together a burrito every morning.  It goes like this: stumble to the kitchen, heat the pan with oil, go brush teeth, chop mushrooms and throw in the pan, do hair, throw eggs in the pan, get dressed, and so on.

The filling for my burritos constantly change.  I'm on a mushroom, kale, egg, cheese, and jalapeno kick right now, but sometimes I'll have potatoes, sausage, peppers, egg, and onion.  Really, whatever produce I can pull together quickly and wrap in a tortilla is good for me.  I always have a gallon jar of pickled jalapenos in the fridge.

When breakfast burritos were requested for supper a few nights ago, I knew I wanted to do something a little different than my everyday fare.  These were filled with egg, pepper, onion, chorizo, and cheese and then topped with some leftover Rotel dip and cilantro.  The filling and cheese sauce from yesterday's nacho post would also make an excellent addition.

Vegan Breakfast Nachos and Chorizo

I took this recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen, which if you don't follow, you should.  I don't care if you're a vegan or a meat and potatoes person, Isa's recipes have never let me down.  First, who doesn't like breakfast or nachos?  It makes so much sense to combine the two together that I'm jealous I didn't think of it first.

You can find the recipe here.  Basically, it's roasted potatoes, scrambled tofu, black beans, avocado salsa, and a "cheese" sauce that I think would fool you if you didn't know it wasn't really cheese.  I mean I bet it's closer to cheese than a certain bright yellow cheese food that is a staple of Midwestern casseroles, and that I love but am convinced it's only one step away from plastic.

Really, look at that cheesy sauce!

I will be making this again, but if Jason is around, I'll skip the scrambled tofu because I found out he hates turmeric, which is what makes this look like scrambled eggs.  I think I'll substitute vegan chorizo instead, which is another Isa recipe that I forgot to mention yesterday when I did my Meatless May wrap-up.

The chorizo has an almost eerily realistic sausage feel when you eat it.  It's easy to make, and I put it over Huevos Rancheros, but I'd like to try it in other dishes.   I mean look, it even looks like sausage!