Dinner tonight: Eggs Poached in Curried Tomato Sauce

Oh you guys. Yuuuuum. Last night (and the night before) I had eggs poached in curried tomato sauce. It was so fantastically delicious, and so different from the usual dinner. Shown here made with a Polyface egg and kale chips, both from my Farm to Family CSA (more on that in the next post)!


I used veg oil instead of peanut, prepared minced ginger instead of fresh, and threw in some sriracha instead of jalapeno...the one I bought at the store never made it home, somehow. I'm just hoping it's not in some corner of my trunk rotting. I also prepared sans English muffins, since I had already eaten way too many carbs both days.

This is not a beginner recipe. It requires a fair amount of active cooking, and it's tough to cook the eggs just right. The second time I made the egg (made all the tomato sauce at once, but cooked the eggs each night) I was waiting for the yolk to cloud over and kind of cooked the white a bit too much (see picture above). But still, it was delicious...the runny yolky goodness mixing with the coconut milk and tomato was unexpectedly fantastic.

I do, however, think the recipe could be even better. The sauce is so bold that it really overpowers the egg. I think this would be better a) with salmon, or b) with lentils and over basmati rice. Let me know if you try either variation. I may at some point too...I'm already craving more curried tomato sauce!

Dinner tonight: Black bean and chicken chilaquiles

I have been craving Mexican for like 2 weeks now, so Sunday night I decided to try to satiate the yen with some home-cooked black bean and chicken chilaquiles. Probably much healthier and way fewer calories than going out, plus there was no endless bowl of chips and salsa to feel guilty about the next day. (Sadly, there were also no margaritas!)

As usual, I made some substitutions, some intentional, some not. I didn't put in chicken at all, because I had no desire to shred two cups of chicken breast, and it felt like a flexitarian sort of day. I couldn't find salsa de chile fresco, so I bought "salsa ranchero," which came in the same size can and looked sufficient. The cheese is a longer story (feel free to skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't care. :) ). The HT by me, to my knowledge, does not carry queso blanco. At the store, I did a quick search on my phone to see what it was and what I could sub. Wikipedia said it's a soft, creamy, mild white cheese, so I thought at first that the Mexican-flavored Laughing Cow I had at home would suffice. Upon further research at home, though, I learned that it wouldn't...the appropriate substitute for queso blanco is Monterrey Jack, which I didn't have at home. I didn't feel like going back to the store, so on the way home from a movie before dinner P and I swung by Whole Foods. They had the jack, but they *also* had queso blanco! I was torn. In the end, I went the lazy cheapskate route and bought the pre-shredded MJ. It was made by cows who have been treated humanely, of course.

Yummy, yum, yum. P made a good point that this is essentially "Mexican lasagna." Comforting, easy to assemble, and totally fulfilled my Mexican craving. The flavors were nice and dark and smoky, and it was super-carby with the tortilla and beans. The one thing I would change is maybe put ~1/4 cup more broth in it...it was a teensy bit dry for me.

Sorry. No picture. Camera was AWOL. Nice pic on the CL site though!