Cheap, Fast, Good for You and Pretty? (aka the “Upside Down Fruit-on-the-Bottom Yogurt” Post)

If you ask, I’ll tell you that I don’t like breakfast. That given the opportunity, I will choose lunch over breakfast eight times out of 10.

But what I actually mean is: I mostly just don’t like breakfast’s attributes, like the bad (early) timing of the meal*, the general shovel-rush involved and breakfast’s propensity for empty, sugar-laden calories that are quick to spike — and quick to plummet.

I need protein, I need dairy, I need fiber that doesn’t come in a nasty, powdered mix or meal supplement like Muscle Milk. It’s early and I’m cranky and yes, the food has also gotta look good.

Thankfully, there exists the fool-proof combination of fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt plus granola:

When you turn the yogurt upside down into a bowl, the fruit-on-the-bottom becomes the fruit on the top, a pink, strawberry-flecked glaze. Add to that a couple of shakes of granola, dotted with nuts and dried fruit, and, instant success.

Beautiful, and, more importantly, good for you: A Liberté Méditerranée strawberry yogurt and a serving of Bear Naked‘s fruit and nut granola collectively pack 2g fiber, 9g protein and 20% calcium  into just 490 calories. Now that’s breakfast.

*The timing of brunch was invented for people like me.

KP: So Yeah, I Know How To Make Really Good Quiche (Here’s How)

Quiche and I, we just get each other. It’s a natural evolution from one of my earliest cooking comfort zones, eggs, which are one of my Dad’s specialties — and so they’re one of mine, too.

But it goes deeper than that: Quiche is not just about eggs. This dish as I’ve interpreted it (and probably bastardized it) lies at the nexus of eggs, the utilitarian meal (could be breakfast/lunch/dinner or all of the above) (I have a tough time with the strictly breakfast-for-breakfast-only foods), and the kitchen sink dish — really, so long as your mix-ins are not rotten and play nicely together, and you chop them up small enough, you can probably stick them in a quiche and it’ll turn out just fine.

In this case, I had a ton of meat from a lovely rotisserie chicken that needed a home. I had plenty of orphaned eggs, left over from different six-count or 12-count packages. I had a fat zucchini that was asking to be utilized, and a pair of red bell peppers that were about to give their death gasp. (I ended up using about half of one. The remainder was too far gone.)

Quiche doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s why:

Fail -Safe Kitchen Sink Quiche

4 eggs
1. c. milk (of your choice)
1c 1/2 meat of your choice, diced small (if you use something really salty, like bacon or smoked salmon, adjust significantly)
1c 1/2 shredded cheese (your choice)
1c minimum, preferably 1c 1/2 fresh vegetables, diced or thinly sliced. Can be anything: baby broccoli florets, zucchini, bell peppers, onion, … get creative, but keep it basic.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Key no. 1: Prep all vegetables and protein first. This is the longest bit. Mix eggs and milk in a bowl, set aside. Layer dry quiche ingredients into the frozen (slightly thawed is better) pie crust. Pour egg mixture evenly over ingredients.

Key no. 2: Gently, ever so gently, stir/mix ingredients and egg mixture within pie crust so you get a little bit of everything spread out — if you chose a good combination, it might start to look festive, little dots of color, like sprinkled confetti.

Manage to slide liquidy quiche into the oven — whew. You’re almost there. Now all it has to do is bake for 45-60 minutes.

Key no. 3: Do not, absolutely resist, taking the quiche out just because it’s puffed up in the center, it looks like it’s baked, it’s been in the oven for more than 45 minutes and it smells damn good. You’re so wrong.

Let it be … The quiche will continue to puff and continue to brown a deep, golden color around the edges and the whole apartment will continue to smell tantalizing — deal with it.

The point at which the quiche should be taken out and left to rest/cool for at least 10-15 minutes before cutting into it is when it starts to look so golden brown you’re on the verge of worrying it’s going to burn/be overdone. (And, the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.)

Sprinkle with salt and pepper to your liking, and that’s Fail-Safe Kitchen Sink Quiche.

Friday: Milk, Banana, Peanut Butter Smoothie (The “Make This at Home!” Post)

What do I remember about my first peanut butter in a smoothie?

Scene: UCLA food court, Arthur Ashe building, central campus. Small, non-Jamba Juice smoothie franchise. Have no idea what it was called, but ”rise and shine” or “breakfast boost” (or something like that) was in there somewhere. As was frozen yogurt, fruit, granola, honey and peanut butter, and who knows what else.

All I know is sucking that thing down, from its giant, styrofoam cup with with dancing fruit pieces on it, on my way to my Friday morning class … it was bliss.

…Fast-forward to where I rediscover my love of peanut butter in smoothies, while standing in my tiny kitchen in the Upper East Side and trying to make the most of a ripe banana. Staring into my tiny fridge for inspiration, I remembered the peanut butter-enhanced smoothie of college years.

Here’s my go at my own, simpler version:

6-10 ice cubes (depending on size and desired iciness)
1 banana, broken into chunks
2 Tlbs. (hearty scoop) of crunchy peanut butter, Whole Foods’ 365 brand
3/4 c. (just more than a hearty splash) of milk (I found this organic, grass-fed, nonfat milk at a nearby natural foods store for just $3.99 / half-gallon!)

Into blender … and blend. So icy-cool, so frothy, so sweetly banana-y, with that underlying peanut butter reassurance that this smoothie also packs some serious sustenance.

TIP: Jamba Juice’s Peanut Butter Moo’d smoothie, which is more milkshake than smoothie, in both ingredients and calories, is a poser. If you go for it, go in eyes wide open.

Breakfast: Double-Cupping at the Deli (Sshhh…)

I wonder how much overhead at the large, bustling delis of Midtown go towards hot and cold cups, plasticware, those little shitty tri-fold napkins, salt and pepper packets, coffee and tea accouterments and other condiment packets? And what sort of hit do the delis take because of people like me who are constantly pocketing a little extra to stash away in office desk drawers?

One of my moves is to double-cup my hot tea. I have to sneak it past the ladies who would rather I just have a single cup and put the cup of hot liquid in a small paper bag — a ridiculous idea  to begin with. Plus, in turn, I use those two cups to make about a week’s worth of tea in the office. (I don’t add milk, that would be gross.) It’s $1.50 well spent.

At the end of the day I don’t feel so bad … I’ll be back soon enough to pay $1 for a 12 oz. soda, $1 for what is ordinarily a $0.50-cent bag of Wise chips, and then some.

Breakfast: $2 Gordita Discovery Post (aka “the Las Poblanitas for Breakfast!” Post)

I never realized that there was an the original thing that Taco Bell was mimicking when it introduced the gordita to its menu however many years ago (speculation: greater than three years, less than 10).

In fact, I never knew that the gordita wasn’t entirely a Taco Bell invention until, famished at 11 a.m. and needing a break from the usual neighborhood suspects, a tiny thought popped into my head: I wonder if Las Poblanitas does breakfast?

Hmmm …

The answer: Yes, yes they do. And, like the majority of the lunch options I’ve tried here, it’s damn cheap and good.

However tempted I was by the $1 breakfast burrito ($1!!), I had to have a gordita, just to put this whole Taco Bell inventing-the-gordita fallacy to rest. (For the record, Taco Bell’s gordita is basically a taco, wrapped in a second, thicker, soft pita-taco shell.)

So, what does a $2 gordita consist of? As Las Poblanitas does it, a gordita begins with a lightly-fried pita pocket made out of corn masa — think, the softness of the masa part of a tamale, but pita-thin, with browned exterior, plus warm tortilla chip smell. The shell is then stuffed with chicken or pork, warmed, and further stuffed with some cojita cheese, lettuce, the diced onion, cilantro and tomato mix.

All in all, a really satisfying savory snack. Toward the bottom, as the fillings taper off, I topped off the rest of it with a good shake from my desk-size Cholula hot sauce (yes, really).

Breakfast: Living Vicariously Through Granola (aka “The Expedition Granola Mix” Post)

Diving deeper into the many wonderous food offerings at Agata & Valentina: The latest discovery, Expedition Granola Mix ($5.99, 10 oz.).

Exploratory metaphors aside,  this is some serious granola. It begins with clusters of rolled oats, bound together by a sweet cinnamon-y coating — the exact kind of clusters that are coveted (and sparse) in boxed, supermarket cereals like Honey Bunches of Oats. Whole walnuts and almonds get the same treatment, which results in a candied crunch to the nuts, which is a real treat.

… which doesn’t mean that this granola shouldn’t be taken seriously as a breakfast option — or as a snack option, either. All the ingredients are natural, no additives, and essentially you’re getting whole oats, nuts (an excellent source of protein) and dried fruit (dried tart cherries, crasins and rasins, and coconut flakes).

Might have something to do with the name, but this granola immediately inspired visions of walking along trails in the woods, taking the road less traveled sort of thing, and I’ve been itching to get out of the city since. Sigh …

Breakfast: What a Difference $0.40 Makes (aka the “Used To Be Cheap Oatmeal” Post)

Unlimited topping oatmeal bar for $2.50? That’s a deal, especially when the toppings include fresh fruit of almost every color of the rainbow — chopped mango, pineapple, banana and strawberry bits, and blueberries — plus several kinds of nuts, plus the usual brown sugar, raisins, craisins, even.

Why buy fruit from the $7.50/lb. buffet at Village 38 (which is always a little questionable) when you can fit a serving’s worth of fruit into your oatmeal?

And that’s exactly what I did: If you could cut away a side view of the container, you’d see: The oatmeal fills the container a little more than halfway. Then, there’s a layer of sunflower seeds and brown sugar (I really want to make a geology/sediment/rock layer joke here, but I don’t know the terminology).

The remainder of the container is filled almost to the top with fruit, another sprinkle of brown sugar, the whole thing topped off with a good pour (probably about 1/4 c.) of whole milk.

Brilliant! This plan was working so well … until I got to the register. For my $5, I was given $2.10 change. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you gave me the wrong change, I said to the petite older woman who gives me change several days of the week. (I didn’t actually say, “not to put too fine a point on it.”)

She tried to tell me that oatmeal was $2.90. I pointed to the sign, “It says $2.50.” We went around and around a few times, waiting to see who’d get dizziest first and fall off (concede) when a guy behind the counter stepped in and told her to give me the $0.50.

Smart man. They were probably loosing money (or maybe just not intaking as fast) due to the holdup of the line.

Breakfast: Tim Horton’s, Back for More (aka the “Apple Cheese Danish” Post)

I generally have a sense of obligation to try the thing a place is known for on my first visit, something to do with establishing a baseline.

So on my first visit to Tim Horton’s, I ordered a half-order of Tim Horton’s doughnut holes, called Timbits (cute, right?), and an iced latte. (For the record, Timbits are the way to to go to taste all of Tim Horton’s doughnut options for about the same number of calories as one whole doughnut.)

But even then, my first time ever staring into the case of Canada’s no. 1 doughnut purveyor, the apple cheese danish caught my eye. I went back for it today, and I’m so glad I did. Light, fluffy pastry dough, pretty lattice-work crossing over the a lightly-sweet cinnamon-apple filling and a tangy cream cheese baked inside. Beautifully complimentary flavors; but then again, it was gone so fast I never had a chance to second-guess.

Breakfast: A Tamale for Breakfast? Brilliant.

Impulse tamale purchase. Yesterday afternoon I noticed the small, yellow sign in the lower corner of the coffee-pastry truck stationed on the northeast corner of W. 39th Street and 8th Avenue for tamales and arroz con leche. Yes!

There was no way I was passing this by. I took home a cheese tamale for later (ordinarily she carries cheese and chicken, but the chicken had run out for the day), ended up forgetting about it, only to rediscover it this morning. Bingo, breakfast!

A tamale for breakfast is such a brilliant idea. Heartier than cereal, the faintly-sweet masa, cheese and — surprise inside — hot peppers trigger an entirely different set of tastebuds than the fruit, the eggs, the yogurts that make up the standard rotation.

At $1.50 each, the price point’s right, too.

Breakfast: Knock, Knock. Who’s There? Tim Horton’s. Tim Horton’s Who? (aka the “Tim Horton’s Discovery” Post)

So I’m the butt of this knock-knock joke, because until yesterday, when I was deep in discussion about this Canadian doughnut chain’s “NYC invasion” — which consisted of transforming a dozen Dunkin Doughnuts locations from DD to T-whatchamacallit between Friday afternoon and Monday morning — well, I’m pretty sure I got Tim Horton’s name wrong, and had no idea that the chain was named after a pro hockey player, let alone a hockey-player-company-founder. (Watch this video, it’ll get you up to speed.)

Anyway, I made up for it with a doughnut exploratory adventure this morning. Apparently, NYC is digging on Tim Horton’s, because when I got to the TH shop (can we call it that?) in the LIRR wing of Penn Station at about 11 a.m., the doughnut case was looking pretty bare.

In essence of the tasting, I bought a bunch of “Timbits” — aka doughnut holes, aka DD munchkins — one of each respective flavor. Here are my translated-from-a-yellow-stickie impressions:

1. Original. I knew you were original. Nice and airy. Light glaze. Sure, I can see how you, as a whole, might give other doughnuts a run for their glazed money.

2. Blueberry Cake. Really? Blueberry doughnuts? Excuse me, Timbit, but you sort of taste like a bad blueberry muffin. But that’s probably why people like you.

3. Honey Dipped. Whoa there. If I wanted cinnamon anywhere in my mouth, I’d be all over you. Because way more than honey, you taste like cinnamon (I get the honey part, too).

4. Chocolate. Smack, smack, so thick and cake-y! But I guess if chocolate for breakfast is your thing, then, hot damn, go for it.

5. Is it sour cream or old-fashioned? Either way, this lumpy, cantankerous Timbit reminded me of nothing so much as a super-sugary finger-dip into a crock of store-bought frosting.

Overall: Some are better than others, but then, I’d never eat all these flavors of doughnuts in one sitting, anyway. As a non-regular doughnut eater, I say: Bring it on!