Not wasting fresh Nachos

Not wasting fresh Nachos, a photo by chloe & ivan on Flickr.

I was served a huge order of Nachos at Uno instead of the bar menu portion. A lot of fresh and yummy ingredients. What to do?

4 eggs. Like Pumpkin pie.
Can of condensed milk. Like pumpkin pie.
Thought I had cheddar at home, it was Swiss.
Oh well.
Uno makes their nacho chips from fresh tortillas.
I was thinking like bread pudding, only savory.
Added chipotle seeds and cumino.
Uno is generous with the cilantro.
Oiled the pie plate with olive oil.

*This is important.
Ground some Himalayan salt over the whole thing when it came out of the oven.
Think of fresh salt on good fries.
Think of fresh salt on edemame.
Think of fresh salt on homemade quesadillas.

The nacho pie thing is tasty.
In the future, I would want some more body in the slice. That could be fresco queso, could be cream cheese. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, this is some breakfasts and lunches this week.

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

This turned out so good, even though I forgot to take some salsa to work to have with it at lunch.

Mother of All Cheescakes

Mother of All Cheescakes, a set on Flickr.

Made this for Katerina's birthday. She said she was happy when she heard the word cheesecake!
 I was happy for an excuse to use the Bourbon Pecan sauce.


Via Flickr:
The Bourbon Pecan Brown Sugar Maple and Butter topping Cheesecake.
I might not have another piece of cheesecake this year.

Spinach

The other day I had extraordinary pizza at work.
Round about 11:00am every day, people begin to discuss lunch.
That is because our factory is located deep in the heart of the most Italian part of Rhode Island.
Think Goodfellows. Think a trial is about to begin for yet another mob boss, and they are asking for an anonymous jury. Really Italian.

Anyway, this pizza has spinach, olives, and pepperoni, with fresh (really fresh) mozzarella.
From here http://theoriginalitalianbakery.com/bakery.html
So my sister on the West Coast writes when she sees the picture, and says that she never thought of spinach on pizza. 
I am floored by this. 
Living over here, we take for granted the abundance of fresh spinach and garlic in and on so many things, even as as side dish, just sauted spinach in olive oil with garlic.

Here is an Uno Chicago Style Pizza spinach pizza

 This has the spinach with Feta cheese and a little onion in a buttery deep dish crust. 
It does not begin to compare to the luxurious richness of the first pizza, but for $3.99 from a chain restaurant
it is a very tasty bite and a great value.
Here's the thing. 
Uno calls this Spanakopita.
http://www.unos.com/menus/smallPlates.php
It is very good, but it is not Spanakopita!
This is Spanakopita -

When I was young and beginning to bartend I worked with a Greek bartender named Gino in Hollywood.
To this day, with any question about the bar, I think "What would Gino do?"  He was a pro.
One day between shifts he took me to his Grandmother's house.  She served us Spanakopita.

I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.  It was so good.
Spinach and Feta, seasoned and wrapped in filo flag fold triangles.
I learned to make my own.  Here is the recipe.

Now, years later my family has come to expect them at any family gathering.

They are not fast and easy to make. 

 But they are so delicious that they are worth the time and effort to make them.

To me, Spanakopita is the supreme spinach experience.

Here is a link to a set on Flickr about making them.http://www.flickr.com/photos/chloe-and-ivan/sets/72157622823010111/with/4877573534/

I am not done about spinach.  That is enough for now!  Chloe.

Applesauce

Applesauce, a photo by chloe & ivan on Flickr.
I woke up this morning and it came over me to cook all my apples.
So I did.
This small bowl is 8 apples, with a few bites out.
Apples really cook down.
There is a lemon in there, and a bit of water.
And you see the cinnammon stick.

Better be serious for a moment, there are 3 kinds of apples in this.
That is what makes it good. Always combine apple varieties.

Rule.
That is like
Word.
Combine apple varieties.
With lemon.

Full moon cooking

Started with Morning Muffins.
Not such a hard thing to throw muffins together before work in the morning.
Plumped dried berries from Trader Joe's.
Oatmeal.
Cream cheese with an egg and sugar and vanilla between layers of muffin batter.
I love cheesecake for breakfast.
Cream cheese ran all over outside of the muffin papers and now I have to scrub my 8 muffins muffin pan.
Still pretty tasty.

Just saying it is possible to make muffins in the morning before you go to work.

Then I thought about macaroni and cheese all day.
While I was at work where I was supposed to be making new cool stuff
I was thinking about macaroni and cheese.
I did make a cool thing at work, almost finished,
but here is the macaroni and cheese.

Between almost finishing the cool thing at work and the macaroni and cheese

I saw the moon in a magenta tinged sky

It was an OK Tuesday.