Brunch and Lunner: Of Capsicum, Eggs Benedict, Red Cabbage & Cranberries

Brunch

Lunner

When I awoke today, it was a bit too late for breakfast. So for want of a better word to describe my morning meal, I had “Brunch”. Looked around in the fridge and found a leftover from my Capsicum Icecream recipe – half of a red capsicum. Hmm… not exactly breakfast food, is it? But then, this is not breakfast, it’s errr… “brunch”.

I’m not sure why that word tickles me so, perhaps it conjures up in my mind the hoity-toity ladies of leisure who have a penchant for dining out with their friends during the day for “Brunch” or "High Tea". Sad really, because for a minute there I might have been describing MYSELF! That is, if I could afford to dine out all the time like other, real Divas of leisure.

Anyway, for my own leisurely brunch, I settled for something that vaguely resembled eggs benedict, with a twist. I stuffed the bottom of the half-capsicum with small chunks of wholemeal bread and then broke a raw egg over it (inside the capsicum). Sprinkled some grated Parmesan cheese, sliced some black olives, poured a teaspoon of virgin olive oil over it and placed the whole thing under a hot grill for about 10 minutes. For the side-kicks, I toasted some more slices of the homemade wholemeal multigrain bread (phew, a mouthful!) and sliced some green apples. The whole combo was oh-so-thumbs up!

The uncooked egg buried underneath all the Parmesan and black olives.

Then I skipped lunch to do some errands, and when I returned it was a bit too late for lunch but too early for the so-called High Tea. So I don’t know what to call the meal one eats at about 2.30pm but that’s when I had it. My meal was a simple, quick throw-everything-together affair but still fairly healthy – I think. What I had, I shall call it “Red Cabbage Vermicelli with Dried Cranberries”. The colours rocked! See for yourself.

The ingredients I used

Boiled the vermicelli (this looks like just a thinner version of spaghetti) for about 6 minutes and drained the water. Then I chopped some garlic and a shallot, fried those in about 2 tablespoons of virgin olive oil. Tossed in the red cabbage, which had been sliced thinly beforehand, added a tablespoon of dried cranberries, a teaspoon of ready-made pesto and cooked all that for about 2-3 minutes. I seasoned mine with river salt flakes (hey, since I have it, why not?) and ground pepper, then it was ready to plate. All in all, it took less than 10 minutes to prepare and the colours and taste were simply mind-boggling! If I had fresh basil, I would’ve used that instead of the pesto, but I didn’t so this was the improvisation.

I'm fascinated by the mysterious cabbage folds...

Sliced cabbage, stir-fried with garlic, shallots, pesto and dried cranberries

Aren't the colours just fabulous together?

To wash down the meal, I made a drink out of frozen raspberries blended with skimmed milk plus a teaspoon of brown sugar - just because. Then to round everything off, I had about 2 (ok, it was more like 3) scoops of the ginger-orange-chocolate icecream I made the other day, and Mamma Mia, that was some “Lunner” (what I've decided to call the meal between lunch and dinner). Tomorrow I'm going for a 10K run with my friend, LAZsie so this will all be worked off. No guilt in advance!

Ginger-orange-chocolate icecream drizzled with homemade caramel sauce. Yummsy!

Eggs Benedict

When I woke up this morning, I had every intention to go for a run, but (yes, it's that hard, there's always a 'but') I woke up hungry and it's a rather bad state to be if you are me. Once I'm down in the kitchen and everyone else living here is either at school or at work.... I get my camera out and start photo-cuisining, or whatever it's called! It's cheaper than therapy, or having coffee with friends.

So, exercise thoughts abandoned, I proceeded to indulge in my craving for eggs benedict for breakfast. A hearty and evil meal which in all fairness, I only eat probably once or twice in a moon. Hey, why am I explaining myself here?? I have every right to eat evil eggs benedict whenever I want to, thank you conscience and Mr. Cardiologist Dr, Sir.

I decided to omit the meat part of it because I didn't fancy that (besides, there were no sliced meat or halal "ham" in the house, anyway). I substituted that with hashed potatoes though, delicately made with these beautiful, unmanicured hands.

Grated potatoes

Squeezed potatoes in between two tea strainers to make a little nest, before plunging the whole thing in hot, boiling oil. This keeps the potatoes intact instead of floating around and making you look stupid helpless.

My eggs were poached in water, hence the bubbles at the sides

Next up, homemade mini-pancakes instead of boring, old toast.

Yeah, why not go ALL the way?

Finally, improvised "Hollandaise sauce" using creme fraiche, freshly squeezed orange juice, milk and some dried italian herbs. Yum-hah!

My final assembled dish.

My saving grace today were the luscious yellow kiwi fruit and the red cherry tomatoes (which I dipped quickly in the hot oil until the skin just splits). Btw, talking about kiwis, when I went to New Zealand for the first time over 10 years ago, I went to the supermarket looking for the perfect kiwi. NZ is after all, the largest producer and exporter of these hairy fruits in the world. Well, all I saw on display were these really imperfect kiwis - full of lumps and bumps on the outside and they were not even oval! Every shape but, I think.

I asked my Kiwi friend and the explanation for this was that the country exports all the perfect, beautiful, Diva-like kiwis to the rest of the world while the NZlanders have to be content with the ugly ones (unless they travel overseas and buy some, of course). That said, the fugly kiwis tasted the same inside and may I say in all sincerity, they tasted fresher and juicier because they had probably just been picked from the farm too.

Anyways, my first cut into the egg benedict made the dish O-O-Z-E like so....

"Quod me nutrit me destruit"

(what nourishes me, destroys me)