Green Eggs No Ham**

A Vegetarian Eggs Benedict with a Spinach-Hollandaise Sauce 

I have frequently shared kitchens with vegetarian roommates and friends.  While I do eat meat, I try to be sensitive to those who do not.  One happy merging of meat-eating and non-meat eating friends was a  weekly Sunday brunch of Eggs Benedict.  The meat eaters would layer ham or sausage--my preference--onto their English muffins.  The non-meat eaters would layer a slab of Monterey Jack cheese instead.  Everyone sat down to eat together.

I woke up the other morning with a hankering for Eggs Benedict, but wondering how it would be to add some of my CSA farm share spinach to the sauce Hollandaise.

I didn't have any sausage handy, having used it up on this pizza.  I also didn't have any Monterey Jack cheese.  However, I did have Icelandic School cheese. (I can hear you now, "Wait, what?  Icelandic School cheese?  Who keeps that in the fridge?"  To you I  ask--where else would you keep it?).  My kids have loved Icelandic School cheese for years, it's very mild, and my folks brought some back from a trip recently.  So I have Icelandic School cheese in my fridge, but you can use Monterey Jack if you aren't planning a trip to Iceland any time soon.

Savory Sauerkraut Sausage Stuffing Skillet Supper

I've been experimenting with adding day-old bread to all sorts of dishes lately.  I used to think all day-old bread, in the wintertime, would be destined just for bread crumbs.  In the summertime, day-old bread is destined for panzanella.

Not any more!  Now that I've found the winter comfort foods of panade and this dish, I look forward to transforming day-old bread into all sorts of savory dishes.  These bread dishes aren't exactly gorgeous, it's true, but they are warm and comforting.

While browsing the internet I stumbled across this recipe and got inspired to use the day-old brat & sausage rolls in the fridge for stuffing.  My family doesn't love stuffing like they love mashed potatoes, so I knew I needed to change it up a bit to make it into a meal.  Coincidentally, I had half a package of smoked sausage in the freezer, and coupons for sauerkraut.  And thus, the magic is born!

Or, at least, there's a plan for dinner.  Always good to have a plan. Or twelve.

This dish is cooked in one skillet (ok, and a baking sheet, and a bowl to toss the bread cubes in, but it was pretty easy to clean up anyway).  It's very savory, and was right up my alley for a Sunday supper on a winter night.

Broccoli and Cheese on a Boboli® (Pizza Night!) Plus Bonus: How to Grow Celery

UPDATE:  It's a pet peeve, but I don't like reading a blog post about how someone starts a new venture.  I want to hear how it turned out, as well.  So scroll down and see the rest of the celery story.

This is clearly not a pizza.  I felt kind of bad posting something so simple to make, like the pizza below, so since I've had some questions about it on my FB page, I've included a bonus How to Start Celery on your Kitchen Windowsill below the recipe. Though it's also incredibly simple to do. Pizza now:

There are times when my best intentions (of making dough Monday before heading out of town, knowing that we're rolling home Friday afternoon hours before Friday Night Pizza Night happens) are OBE. (Is this common knowledge or one of those military acronyms?)

OBE:  Overcome By Events.

This was one of those times.  No pizza dough in the house, though I had plenty of sauce, cheese, veggie, and meat topping choices in the pantry and freezer.  Had I hit Trader Joes, I would have picked up some of their bags of pizza dough.  But our beer/milk/eggs run took me to the rare grocery store that had no pizza dough. Not in the deli.  Not in the freezer section.  Ok, pre-baked crust it is.

I got a Boboli® instead.  I was surprised at the high cost of a Boboli® crust--a bag of uncooked dough is less than half  the cost of a Boboli and isn't that much harder to work with! [I bought the Boboli® myself and this post is completely unknown to the Boboli® corporation, but I feel I should clarify in case you were wondering.]

If you have a pathological fear of uncooked pizza dough and will only use a prebaked crust such as Boboli®, rock on.  You too can make amazing pizzas using ingredients from your CSA farm share.

Because we love pizza here on Friday nights, I bought 2 Boboli® and made 2 pizzas. (And will write 2 blog posts from 1 meal).  This one is the kiddie pizza--because during the grocery store run, while not finding dough, I found a marked down bag of precut broccoli florets.