Soft Boiled Eggs to Run With

I've never made a soft boiled egg. This is a true story. I've always been slightly intimidated by the task, preferring to hard boil the bujeezes out of my eggs just to make sure they are cooked.

This, I've decided, is silly. Because I love a runny yolk. I love how it merges with toast to create that bread-eggy goo that when sprinkled with salt and a little fresh pepper is breakfast magic.

So this morning (yes, I am writing to you same day!), I went for a run. This is not unusual. But today it was. Since my biking accidents, I've been having some trouble running. There's something going on in my right leg that's just not quite right.

But today, I decided I was going to conquer two obstacles together: the lack of soft boiled eggs in my life AND this running business.

So I went for a run. I ran SLOWLY. So slowly, that stationary objects were passing me. And I had to remind myself with every step to keep it slow. I have this problem: I like to jack up the pace like a maniac, thinking faster is better. More is more and so must be better. But much like the eggs, less is sometimes more. Less cooking time, less speed, less less less...

I returned home with a 40 minute easy run behind me, groceries and these flowers in hand and set to the task of making breakfast. I looked up "soft boiled eggs" on the Internet. What a resource, this Internet. What did we do before this? Ask people? I found this article on soft boiling eggs and followed the instructions exactly.

I was not disappointed. I made two soft-boiled-to-perfection eggs, with a little whole wheat bun slathered in coconut butter. Coconut butter is my new favorite kind of butter.

So, go slowly. Make some soft boiled eggs. And stop to smell the flowers.

Fall Down and Get Back Up Again. And Again...

I've had a few biking "incidents" lately. These things happen. And luckily, they haven't been too serious. However, they don't really make you feel excited, or happy, or all, "woooo TIGER BLOOD, I'm WINNING!!"

No. They sorta make you feel slow. And slightly stupid. And owchy. And couldn't Johnson & Johnson make the size bandaid that you need (tarp sized, please), instead of 1,298 sizes that won't work??

Just a suggestion.

And here's another suggestion: taxed muscles, whether from training or from a fall need some recovery and repair. Nutritionally speaking, a good way to get that is through protein. This month, I was featured in Triathlete Magazine's June issue with two sneaky protein-rich recipes.

Sneaky? Yes, they're sneaky because they don't contain meat or fancy protein powders. They contain farro. Farro is a grain that is very high in protein (about 6 grams per 1/2 cup of cooked farro). And you can use it to make any number of things, like the Coconut Farro Oatmeal or Fig Cookies with farro crust.

The recipe for the Coconut Farro Oatmeal is below. For the fig cookies, go check out Triathlete Magazine!

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

1 cup farro

2 cups coconut milk (not the condensed stuff, the other kind) plus additional for serving

pinch of salt

1 tablespoon maple syrup

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

2 rounded tablespoons of ground flax seeds

¼ cup dried cranberries

½ cup fresh blueberries

¼ cup slivered almonds

¼ cup shredded coconut (unsweetened preferred, but you can use either)

Instructions:

Measure out the farro, ground flax seeds and coconut milk and pour them into a medium pot. Heat on medium-low on your stovetop adding in the seasonings and sweetener: maple syrup, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg.

Simmer until tender and liquid is absorbed - about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat your oven (or toaster oven) to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment and spread the shredded coconut and almond slivers onto the baking sheet. Toast for about 5-8 minutes, keeping a constant watch on the progress as the nuts will toast quite quickly. Feel free to toss halfway through the baking process to ensure an even browning.

Remove from oven and set aside.

Scoop the cooked farro into serving bowls. Top with a little extra coconut milk, fresh blueberries and dried cranberries. Sprinkle with the toasted almond and coconut mixture.

A special note of thanks to all my Full Throttle teammates who have been so nice and supportive as I continually fell off my bicycle in the past week. Thanks for delivering medical supplies, making me dinner, checking in, checking in again, enduring chatter about my sprained groin...the list goes on. You guys are the best.

May Slice of the Month - Artichoke Mini Pizzas

 Here we are in May! May means artichokes, did you know? Now you do.

Artichokes are an art. That's why there's an "art" in them. They take some care and attention, but they are oh-so-worth it. In this recipe, I'll show you how to prune down those 'chokes and poach 'em up all proper and simple for Poached Artichoke and Ricotta Mini Pizzas. Mini pizzas are fantastic for parties and occassions like Memorial Day (which is fast approaching).

If you'd like to download a super-fancy version of this pizza recipe as a pdf, you can head on over to Colavita's Facebook page, like them, and violá! you will have it. It's that simple...just like the 'chokes. Now let's get started.

What You Need:

What To Do:

Heat the oven to 500 degrees. If using a pizza stone, allow the stone to heat up along with the oven for a half hour before baking on it. 

Prepare the artichokes according to the recipe below.

Stretch out your dough on a cornmeal-dusted peel into mini pizza sizes: about  4-5” in diameter, and brush the tops with olive oil.

Spread the ricotta cheese over the top of the dough in a thin, even layer.

Place two of the artichoke quarters on top of the cheese, per mini pizza.

Drizzle some Colavita Extra Virgin olive oil over the top, and sprinkle with a little sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and an extra squeeze of lemon juice.

Slide your mini pizzas onto the stone in the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and garnish with more freshly chopped mint and parsley. 

Instructions for the Artichokes:

Trim the artichokes. Using a sharp knife, cut off the tough outer leaves, removing about two inches of leaves from the artichoke. Also trim one inch from the tops of all the artichokes. Cut the trimmed artichokes into quarters, scraping out the fuzzy heart and stem area.

Rub the artichoke quarters with lemon, and add the all the trimmed artichokes to a bowl filled with cold water and the juice from 1 lemon.

Heat 2-3 tablespoons of Colavita Extra Virgin olive oil in saucepan on your stove top over medium-low heat. Add the crushed garlic, red pepper flakes, mint, parsley and lemon slices and allow to simmer softly for about 3 minutes.

Pour 3/4 cup each of wine and 1/2 cup water to the pan. Drain the artichokes from the bowl of water, and season them with a sprinkle of salt and some freshly ground pepper.  Add them to the saucepan and increase the heat to medium.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then simmer, covered for about 20-25 minutes. The artichokes should be tender. Remove them from the heat and reserve for the pizza.

 

April - The Month in Review

A lot happened in April. A LOT. Let's recap, because there's some good stuff you may have missed. There's some good stuff I may have missed...

We began the month with a get-into-Spring pizza recipe: Asparagus and Leek with a squirt of Lemon. As usual, you can get monthly Slices of the Month from Colavita's Facebook page. May happens to be up there right now...hint, hint!

Shortly after I made and devoured this pizza, I was prepping for my first triathlon of the season in South Beach. I was having some trouble....getting the pedals off my bike for transport. Consider this text exchange with my teammate Joe:

The experience reminded me of my favorite Polite Card:

So I gave it up as a bad job and had someone else do it for me. The good news is that the bike made is safely to South Beach, and I had a successful race. I placed 4th out of the Elite women, even though the swim was a bit rough had me feeling like this:

The chronology of the event went something like this:

1. Butter mixed with Peccorino cheese (DO THIS!!) from Sardinia Restaurant in South Beach:

2. Race time:

3. Cheeseburgers:

Good times.

When I returned, it was time for John's birthday. So we heaved ourselves over to Sammy's Cider Mill for some of John's (and my) favorite Pasta with Vodka Sauce:

Saucy! With all these carbs flying around, I felt it was time to wax philosophical on the subject in a Post About Toast. Do you have opinions on toast? I would like to hear them.

Moving from the familiar (toast) to the new and uncharted, I took a Gastronomic tour of Brooklyn with a couple of chefs and found some stellar new eateries. Read all about that adventure here.

In other news, I'm working on a fun new project. A sneak peek can be found in the header image of this post. I can't tell you what it is yet. But it was be colorful, fun, and full of foooooood! Good for you food, in fact. A topic I've been studying up on in a completely non-official sort of way. It's been inspiring me to make healthier meals, and to create more portable biking snacks, like these powerful muffins:

And speaking of biking...I took a spill off my bike. Now, I've talked about this before, but previous spills all involved me moving nowhere fast and just kind of tumbling over like an idiot. This was was a bit more intense.

I have to give a shout out to my friend and teammate Caitlin and her family who took very good care of me after my incident. This is us before (note the fancy pink uniforms!):

And I won't post an after photo, only to say that the above jersey has a few holes in it. As do these fancy leg warners that go with it:

And yes, I *may* have designed these. And then, subsequently, wrecked them.

It could all have been much, much worse. But please, PLEASE WEAR YOUR HELMETS. I'm begging you. The whole incident had me feeling much like this:

Again.

Anyway, I'm offering you a Speedy Recovery Recipe that is very simple. So simple, that if you're laid-up and can't handle a lot of activity, this should just do the trick. Or a pint of ice cream. Or both.

This recipe is for Baked Eggs with Spinach and Tomato Sauce.

What You Need:

2 eggs

small bunch of spinach (you decide how much)

1/4 cup tomato sauce (or even better VODKA sauce if you have it. See my recipe for that here.)

salt and freshly ground black pepper.

One of those tiny dutch ovens or a ramekin covered with tin foil

What To Do:

Crack 2 eggs into the dutch oven or ramekin.

Throw in the spinach and the tomato sauce.

Bake, covered, in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Have some crusty bread on hand for dipping!

Are you exhausted yet? If not, you may want to sign up for John's next tour of Atlantic City, complete with sub shops, poker, and copious amounts of Kettle One. Let's just assume he looked like this the morning after:

Italian Subs. Golf. Gambling. Atlantic City.

A couple of weeks ago, myself and a couple of good buddies decided to go to Altantic City for a night of late night partying, gambling, and golf.  We did this on the Saturday of Masters weekend, so golf fever was at an all time high. As such, before going out for the night, we locked ourselves in our room at the Water Club section of the Borgata (which was awesome by the way), watched the 3rd round of the "tradition unlike any other" on our big screen, made our own cocktails, and ate subs. 

Yes, we chilled in our room and ate subs.  I know the thought of 3 dudes eating subs in their hotel room isn't necessarily consistent with the theme of "living it up" for the night, but I had promised myself that during my next visit to AC, I'd sample WhiteHouse's famous Italian Sub.  Plus, with the room, tee time (at Atlantic City Country Club) and gambling being expensive enough, a heady bachelor needs to limit the amount of in-casino ATM transactions and cut costs somewhere.  So before arriving at the hotel to meet the guys, I picked up subs for me and the boys at White House, Home of Submarines at 2301 Arctic Avenue, in AC, NJ.

Not that we were cheating ourselves by going the sub route.  The Italian Sub from Whitehouse is a goddarn beast.  The one I'm holding is a "half," and the unwrapped one seen directly above is a "whole."  The whole was about the size of my leg.  I used a "prop" for scale for those who don't believe me.  The sandwiches are as impressive in taste as they are in size; moist, meaty, salty, and scrumptious.  It is well packed with Italian cold cut goodness and the bread, while dense, is fresh and a touch forgiving. All of the boys, myself included, are tremendously pleased with our "meal;" particularly with the spare cash to do whatever it is guys do in Casinos:

Like gamble:

And hang out at cheesy but ultimately fun dance clubs:

And, um...

Yeeeah, so.  It was a fun night.  Too fun, perhaps, because the 8 a.m. wakeup call to ready the group for our 9:40 tee time was coupled with snoozing, swearing and lots of variants of the "what the $%^& happened last night?" type comments which typically follow nights at a Casino and 2 hours of sleep. Needless to say, we arrived on time to tee off at Atlantic City Country Club, a sweet layout of a course with beautiful views...

 An old school men's locker room:

Challenging approaches:

And stray foxes:

All in all, a fabulous night in America's Favorite Playground.  Should you be looking to sample some authenitc AC cuisine, make it a point to stop by White House for one of their delicious subs.  It's the best investment you'll make down there.  I can promise you that.