Richard's Travels Cooking Blog

I just decided to start this blog to share some of the things I’m cooking and get ideas to improve them.

Since I don’t have much else to say, I’ll start off with a simple meal I made yesterday. I baked some fresh herb bread in our bread machine to finish off a bowl of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but it gave me some other ideas and I ended up forgetting about that. This took about 25 minutes to make (not counting the bread) but if I knew what I was doing before starting and if I had made a frittata before it would be faster. This recipe makes two servings.

Green onion and herb bread

• 1 cup warm water
• 2 1/4 cups white flour
• 1/3 cup chopped green onion
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp instant yeast
• 3/4 tbsp salt

1. Combine all ingredients in bread machine and bake (using dark crust setting if available).

Any kind of fresh green onion bread is very popular here; other herbs can be added to improve the taste (this is just what we had at the time). Allow two hours to cool before using so it’s a bit harder.

Frittata

• 4 eggs
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 red pepper
• 1 red onion
• 2 mushrooms
• 2 pieces ham
• salt
• pepper
• cayenne pepper
• oregano
• olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated mozzarella

1. Preheat oven for broiling (if you have an oven-safe pan)
2. Put 1 tbsp of olive oil in a small pan (4-6″) and heat
3. Cut 1/2 red pepper, 1/4 cup red onion, 2 mushrooms and sautee in pan
4. Add 2 tbsp oregano (I used dried flakes to save time) and 1 tsp cayenne pepper (more to taste)
5. Whisk together 4 eggs, 3 tbsp milk, 1/4 cup mozza; add salt and pepper to taste
6. Add 2 pieces of ham chopped into small cubes and 2 tbsp of sliced canned olives, cook for 1-2 minutes
7. Add egg mixture to pan and cook on medium for 3-4 minutes, stirring
8. Top with remaining mozza and broil in oven for 3 minutes (if you don’t have an oven-safe pan try covering and cooking for another 4-5 minutes)
9. Let cool for 5 minutes

This is a combination of various recipes I found online; since all our pans have plastic handles I couldn’t try broiling it. Instead I tried to let it harden a bit and lift it up to bake the cheese onto the bottom (it might help not to keep stirring it after it starts to harden). It was a mess but still delicious!

Spinach pesto

• 2 handfuls of rinsed spinach leaves (about 1 cup chopped)
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
• 1-2 cloves of garlic peeled
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
• 1 oz parmesan cheese
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• salt to taste

1. Mix all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth.
2. Add olive oil if necessary so it’s slightly thick but doesn’t stick together.

I ended up putting in about 1 cup of olive oil and it could use a bit less, but I don’t mind. The ingredients don’t really need to be chopped (removing some of the harder thyme stems might help) but you’ll have to increase the measures to compensate. I also didn’t use pine nuts (turns out the bag expired 2 years ago!) or parmesan (since we only had the canned kind), but substituted 1/4 cup of grated mozza and it turned out well.

Assembly

1. Cut off a piece of fresh bread
2. Cut a square out of the frittata (leaves enough scraps to make one more sandwich) and place on top of bread
3. Top with a drizzle of spinach pesto (I like having a lot but I put in too much garlic this time)
4. You can top it with another piece of bread but it was already too tall for me!

I hope you enjoy this simple meal. Now I’m off to use up that oil and vinegar, I think…

This recipe is brought to you by Richard’s Travels Cooking Blog.