Spicy Polenta Roasted Vegetable Pesto Terrine

Ingredients:
(makes 2 servings)

• 1/2 cup organic polenta
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• pinch of sea salt
• 1/2 cup Parmesan, grated
• Sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
• Fresh thyme and oregano, minced
  
• Roasted vegetable pesto
• 1/2 cup goat cheese, grated

1. Grease baking dish. Preheat broiler at 180C.
   
2. Bring water, milk and sea salt to boil. Stir in polenta to cook. Remove from heat wheng liquid is fully absorbed.
   
3. Add Parmesan, sun-dried tomatoes and herbs. Stir to combine well.
4. Pour half the cooked polenta to the prepared baking dish. Smooth out to a even layer. Let cool slightly. (if you are going to make bake egg, bake the cooked polenta now.)
   
5. Top the bottom layer with pesto and grated goat cheese. Cover with the other half of cooked polenta. (or eggs) Smooth out and let cool.
   
6. Lightly brush the surface with olive oil. Broil for 10 minutes or until the top turns golden brown. (Broil until the eggs are cooked to desired consistency.)
   
7. Cut into individual serving sizes to serve.
   

Cream Cheese dip with Tomato and Basil

Apart from challenging Adrian's aversion of certain foods (beet root, eggplant, scones), I enjoy finding ways to getting rid of ingredients (such as zucchini) before they turn bad. That's also one of the factors running a kitchen in a household of two. As a result, I often find myself searching for recipes based on what I no longer want to see in the refrigerator. One of my favorites is turning ingredients into preserves or jam (strawberry, raspberry). Sometimes freezing foods prepared ahead helps too.

This time, I foresee no dinner at home for the next 5 days. What have I got? Let's see: wilting basil, browning parsley and ripe tomatoes. I was going to make tomato jam (which takes 1 1/2 hour of constant stirring) and, again, basil-parsley pesto. Then I came across a dip that would use all of the above, plus cream cheese. A tempting combination that save time.

You may substitute cream cheese with cottage cheese. What to do with it? I intend to serve it over toasted sourdough muffin with mashed hard-boiled egg for breakfast sandwich (did I tell you Adrian's lack of faith for egg sandwich?) or as dip/ spread on bruchetta for appetizer.

On toasted sourdough muffin with sun dried tomatoes and sunny-side-up.

As omelet filling.

Scrambled egg

Ingredients:

(Makes about 1 1/4 cups)

• 125gram cream cheese, softened at room temperature
• 2 ripe Roma tomatoes, finely chopped
• 2 TB real mayonnaise
• salt and pepper to taste
• lots of basil and parsley, chopped
• 2 TB fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 2 TB Parmesan cheese, grated

1. Stir and blend all the ingredients with a fork.
2. Taste, season and adjust with salt, pepper and lemon juice.
3. Chill lightly and serve as a dip, spread or with bruschetta.
   

Baked Eggs with Duchess Potatoes

I often wonder how much interesting can breakfast eggs be? And just when I was about to settle for another omelet, I found a basic Duchess Potato recipe with baked egg. I secretly enjoyed the amusement on Adrian's face when he saw my breakfast egg "when you say eggs". It's as if I have made it a mission to make breakfast eggs as interesting as possible. The recipe as it is seems rather bland for our liking. Hence I added some vegetables and herbs liberally. They turned out great! It felt like the right food for the stomach. Non-vegetarian can substitute the vegetables with minced meat.

Ingredients:
makes 4 servings
Basic Duchess Potato

• 2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks (I kept the skin for its fiber)
  
• 1 whole egg, beaten slightly with the egg yolks
• 2 egg yolks
  
• 2 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Baked Eggs

• 4 eggs for center
• 4 tablespoons cream (optional)
• Scallion, green part, chopped for garnish (I used leek)
  

1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until they are very tender (about 20 minutes). Turn off the burner, drain the potatoes and melt the butter in the pan. Add the potatoes back in the pan, mash thoroughly with butter, then add the beaten eggs, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Combine quickly and completely. (I halved the recipe and used the extra one egg yolk from the Apricot Agave Nectar Souffle. I also added some minced parsley+basil to the mashed potatoes)
2. Either place the potatoes in a pastry bag fitted with a large tip, or a ziploc bag with a small piece of a bottom corner snipped off. Pipe the potatoes along the edge of a buttered baking dish - if it is a deep ramekin, you can pipe a bottom layer of potato, then pipe decoratively along the edge. Add a tablespoon of cream to the bottom after piping the potatoes and before adding the egg. (I used a shallow pan that was basically meaningless to do piping. I added chopped sun-dried tomatoes and asparagus after the cream)
3. Crack an egg into the center and bake in a 180C oven until the egg whites are set and opaque, but the yolk is still runny. The potatoes will just be browning.
4. (When the eggs were done, I sprinkled them with some tarragon and pepper before serving)