Hard to believe that we’ve reached the 16th Episode of Is My Blog Burning. An event that started over a year ago, on the Internet… still going strong? Unheard of in this day of fickle bloggers!

But it appears that food bloggers have a bit more perseverence than their blogging counterparts. This is a good thing!

Is My Blog Burning #16 is devoted to eggs. It’s a great idea to build an IMBB event around, and kudos go to Viv at Seattle Bon Vivant for creating the theme. Eggs are such a simple thing, yet are vital in so many different ways and different dishes.

Beyond that, I had a lot of leftovers in my refrigerator this morning, along with various bits of produce from my CSA box, so I had the perfect plan! I’d make a Potpourri Fritatta.

Ok, I just made that name up. But that is exactly what this is. Just go to your refrigerator, open the door, pull out the eggs, and then pull out anything else that you need to get rid of, because chances are you can thow it into your frittata. That’s the beauty of eggs. They stand up to anything, they don’t detract from the ingredients, and they act like a glue that holds everything together while subtly enhancing it all.

So this morning I opened up my refrigerator and found the following:

• Leftover Bruschetta
• Chard
• Red Onion
• Bacon
• A smattering of Goat Cheese
• Grated Parmesan Cheese
• *Garlic Scapes

And, of course:

• Eggs

Yes, that would work.

Chop up the bacon and sautee it in an oven-proof, high-sided skillet sprayed with cooking spray. Chop the various veggies (except the tomato bruschetta!) and add them to the skillet to sautee. As these sautee and soften, crack and mix 6 eggs, adding salt, and pepper to taste. Add a splash of water to the scrambled eggs and mix again.

Once the veggies have softened, add the eggs. Keep the pan at medium-high heat. Don’t stir the eggs, just let the bottom start to set. Add the bruschetta around the pan, then crumble the goat cheese around as well. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Once the bottom has solidly set, place the pan under the broiler. Let the eggs cook until the they are cooked through and the top has slightly browned. Remove from the broiler. Allow to sit a few minutes before slicing and serving!

Note: What are garlic scapes you ask? They are the stem and bud of a newly mature garlic plant. I use them as I would green onion and garlic. They are fabulous!

PS: The pupster ate her fair share of the frittata and fell into an egg coma.

Weisse Bohnen Eintopfen

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I’ve been away from the Is My Blog Burning events since October, but it’s time to jump back in! IMBB #11: Beans, beans the musical fruit…, hosted by Cathy from My Little Kitchen. This was the perfect theme for the middle of a snowy, cold winter. We tend to make comfort-style food on Sundays in the winter, and many of the bean recipes that we enjoy certainly fit that profile!

A winter tradition in our kitchen is a German dish called Weisse Bohnen Eintopfen. This is translated to mean “White Bean One Pot Casserole”… or something like that, anyway. This translation describes this dish to a tee. A hearty one pot casserole, the main ingredients are white beans and smoked polish sausage, supported by carrots, tomatoes, celery and onion.

	Soak 1 cup of dried white beans in water overnight. Drain beans. Add 2 1/2 cups chicken stock to heavy pan containing drained beans. Bring to boil. Reduce to simmer. Cover and cook until beans are soft, yet remain intact when stirred. Remove half the beans and a little liquid, and blend into a heavy sauce-like consistency. Add the blended mixture back into the pot of beans.
	This is the sort of dish that can be prepped all at once, in advance. Rustically chop one medium onion, 3 celery stalks, and 1/2 cup of parsley. Add it to one bowl. Chop 3 carrots and 1 large, seeded tomato and add to another bowl.
	Line the bottom of a heavy casserole dish with olive oil. Add the onion, celery and parsley to the pan. Lightly sautee, then cover the dish and sweat the vegetables on low heat for 10 minutes.
	Add beans to the casserole containing the onion mixture. Bring to boil. Add carrot and tomato mixture. Add 2 teaspoons garlic, a pinch of crushed caraway seed, and salt and pepper to taste. Reduce heat. Simmer one hour.
	Chop 3 smoked polish sausage links into bite-sized slices. Add to bean mixture, cover, and continue to cook for 15 minutes.
Serve in deep bowls, with rye bread and cheese on the side.

The latest “Is My Blog Burning?” will prove to be quite a challenge for me. Hosted by Derrick over at Obsession With Food, he’s chosen to make the IMBB #9 theme “Terrines”.

I’ve never made a terrine before. I’ve never even thought about making a terrine before!

This ought to be interesting!

The latest edition of Is My Blog Burning has been announced! It’s IMBB 8: Lift your Spirits High, hosted by There’s A Chef In My Kitchen. Entries will be posted on September 19th.

The only rule for this edition: Use wine or spirits as a central component of your recipe.

I can do that!

When I learned that Jarrett, the brains behind Food Porn Watch, was hosting the latest IMBB #7, “You’re Just The Cutest Little Dumpling” only one question sprang to mind. Is Spaetzle a dumpling? So I googled it and found that there was some debate. Some people feel that Spaetzle is a pasta, some feel that it’s a dumpling. Me, I’ve always described it as a little German dumpling, so that’s good enough for me!

I wish I could say that this is an old family recipe, but it’s not. Though my grandmother is full-blooded German, she was truly a modern 1950’s housewife. This meant that in the 60’s, when I was growing up and spending Saturday evenings at her house, the only food she made came out of a box or a jar. One of the traditional meals that she made for her grandchildren: jarred spaghetti sauce spread on an english muffin, with sliced Hormel pepperoni and finished off with a slice of American cheese, then broiled to “perfection”. Voila - homemade pizza!

No, I didn’t get my cooking tendancies from my grandmother. Maybe I got them because of my grandmother! Though I have to admit, she made the best homemade sauerkraut, from scratch, that I’ve ever had. The crockpots in the basement didn’t smell so great, but if you could get beyond that, you were in for a treat.

I could look a generation back, to my great-grandmother who was directly from Pommern. But I have to admit, she was a farm wife who seemed to be famous for her Duck Blood Soup and for using every part of the animal for food - so it’s probably best that I didn’t get many recipes handed down from that direction either.

So most of the German recipes that I make today are my own. And I chose to make a Zigeuner Schnitzel with Spaetzle for the IMBB: The Dumpling Edition!

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IMBB #7 has been announced: “You’re Just the Cutest Little Dumpling!“. August 22 is the date.

Hmmmmm. Well, that will be a challenge.

When this month’s Is My Blog Burning? #6 was announced, I was a little bit disappointed that it was “Griller’s Delight”. Don’t get me wrong, we love to grill in the summer, but we don’t get terribly inventive, for 2 reasons:

Reason #1: One of the members in this household stubbornly clings to a 15 year old very small Smokey Joe grill. It’s hard to get creative and inventive when you are working with direct heat on a very small surface. However, that doesn’t bother me for the most part because of reason #2:

Reason #2: We tend to mainly grill Hunks of Meat, and more specifically, Hunks of Cow.
Of course, this could be because of reason #1 (see above). Perhaps it’s just a vicious circle!

But as the week of the event approached, I also was presented with my CSA Challenge. So this became a dual endeavor - coming up with something worthy of the IMBB #6, and using as much of the produce from my CSA box as I could.

And so I settled on Tenderloin Chimichurri with Grilled Vegetables for the IMBB #6: Grillers Delight.

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This month’s Is My Blog Burning is being hosted by Too Many Chefs. It should be an interesting one - it is centered around grilling and barbecuing, with entries to be posted on July 18th.

It sounds more like a IMBB for my partner in crime than for me, so we’ll see what happens! Maybe we’ll both participate this time!

I’ve been waiting for the latest “Is My Blog Burning” event, as I have not participated in one as of yet. This one is hosted by chez pim.

I already know exactly what I want to make, though I may need to compromise. The concept I have in mind involves shrimp, and my significant other does not believe in eating crustaceans.

Of course, that would just mean that there would be more of the dish I make for me. This isn’t a bad thing.