Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Summer Hash and Fall/Winter Hash

Since the beginning of the year I've been trying to eat more vegetables, and less sugary baked goods. One of the ways I've been getting more veggies into my diet has been to eat veggie hash, topped with 2 poached eggs, or sometimes with scrambled eggs on the side, which has become a go-to meal for breakfast/lunch (often when I first get up I'm just not hungry, so I don't eat breakfast till I am hungry, which is often between 10 and noon).

Here's my recipe for summer hash. I've been growing all these veggies in my garden this year. It has been wonderful to just go out there and pick.

Summer Hash

1 small to medium zucchini
1 medium onion
1 carrot (two if they're small)
a couple of celery stalks
1 green or yellow or red pepper
Salt and pepper
Herbs

Dice the zucchini, onion, celery and pepper, and grate the carrot (I use the food processor for the carrot). Chop everything up once a week, combine it all and store it in the fridge. Throw about a cup of the mixture in a hot frying pan with some ghee (what's ghee?) or olive oil. Saute it till it turns golden, sprinkle with some salt (and pepper if you like pepper, I'm not crazy about it), also some herbs, whichever ones you like. (I like dried oregano and basil, although I've also stirred in a cube of frozen pesto, which is so yummy!)

Serve topped with two poached eggs, cooked with the yolks still a bit runny, which runs all over the veggies like sauce when you cut into them. If I feel like I need a little more fat so the meal will stick with me longer, I add some avocado or bacon, in which case I cook the bacon first, and then the veggies in the bacon fat.

Chopping zucchini, green pepper awaiting the knife

Celery growing in the garden





Chopped!

Walla Walla onion in the garden, whenever I need one I just pull it out of the soil

Carrot grated small in the food processor

The carrot adds some color to all that green, if you use red or yellow pepper, it looks like confetti


Now that fall and winter squash is ripening out there in my garden, I've been alternating those summer veggies with a different hash that uses winter squash and apples. It's got a bit higher sugar content, but it's still veggies, and still really nutritious.

Fall/Winter Hash

1 butternut squash
1 onion
1 Granny Smith apple
Salt and pepper
Herbs

Peel and dice the squash, then toss it with some salt and melted ghee or olive oil and spread it out in a single layer on a foil-covered sheet pan. Roast it in the oven at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, then take the pan out and toss the cubes around a bit so they'll cook evenly. Roast them for another 15 minutes, till the edges have some caramelization on them. Peel and dice the apple and the onion.

Saute 1/4 cup of the onion and all of the apple in a hot pan with some ghee or olive oil, sprinkle with salt (pepper if you like it), and saute till it's cooked and gets some color on it, then add about 1/2 cup of the pre-cooked squash to the pan for just long enough that it heats up. Add your favorite herbs. (Store the rest of the squash and onion in the fridge so you can have this meal again the next day, and the next...)

Serve with a couple of poached eggs, again cooked just long enough so that the white is fully set but the yolk is still runny.

Peeling butternut squash is such a pain.

Half-inch cubes of squash

Butternut squash cubes tossed with melted ghee and salt

Roasted butternut squash

This recipe is also good with Delicata squash, which isn't quite as sweet as butternut, but has the advantage of edible peel. Roast it just like the butternut.

Dig in while it's hot!


Oh, it's good!

Are you trying to get more veggies into your diet? I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I've been eating for breakfast/lunch. If you try these recipes let me know!