cjsmith | Thai Spoons omelet

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Thai Spoons omelet

This morning's breakfast: scrambled eggs with some black pepper, some pinched-off bits of green bell pepper, and the teeniest amount of onion I could get in there.

Last time I had too much onion. This time was better. (I was also too lazy for the bacon this time.) I'm starting to work this toward emulating a veggie omelet offered at Thai Spoons, a steam table Thai place near my house. They include, I believe, onion, tomato, and pepper. I will probably always be too lazy to do the tomato. Tomatoes do not grow in a size that fits in a single person's omelet. (Bell peppers and onions don't either, but they freeze better. The peppers I had in strips already. All I had to do this morning was pull a couple out of the bag, pop the bag back in the freezer, and pinch off little bits into the egg.)

Now, though, the bell pepper is crispier and has a stronger flavor than I was expecting. It also doesn't stick to the egg very well. Does the restaurant saute it a bit first? Mayyyybe.

It's still cheaper (taking waste into account), easier, and tastier to go buy a serving. However, I'm now fast enough that I'll beat the trip to a steam table restaurant on time.

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Red bell peppers don't last a day here. We eat them raw and crunchy.

If they're out, I eat 'em. If they're in the fridge or freezer, they can last months before I remember they're there. Fridge ones, therefore, mostly end their lives as a pile of brown slime. :-(

Thousands of mothers tell their children to clean their plates "because there are children starving in Africa". The echoes of those illogical scoldings poke at me today to tell me I have a moral imperative to avoid buying food. I feel guilty when I buy perishables.

You're learning to cook! I'm so happy you're trying it... and even better, that you're having some success!

Thanks! *grin*

In one sense, I already know how to cook. I "throw things together" just fine. I can feed five and I can feed thirty. Nothing fancy, though; just food. In another sense, the sense I mention most on LJ, I know better than to call what I do "cooking". I do plain stuff, not snobbery. I will never feed a foodie anything I make except my fondue. So mostly I claim I don't -- can't -- cook at all. That's my way of opting out of keeping up with the foodier-than-thou crowd.

The thing I truly struggle with is cooking for one. It's wasteful and pricey unless I do it a LOT (or eat the same thing all week). It would be cool if I could get a handle on that. I don't want to commit to cooking all the time. I want options, but without wasting more food than I eat! Little tricks like freezing bell pepper strips are a godsend to me. When you feed thirty you don't ever have to do that. For feeding one, and rarely at that, it's useful.

What about making and freezing individual portions? That has worked for me in the past.

I can make some things that I feel proud of bringing to a gathering, but I'd hesitate to call that snobbery -- more like immersing myself in something I enjoy. I think it's a shame that not everyone knows how to cook, but when I say this (and talk about how easy it actually is) I'm speaking of the type of cooking you like to do, not the nitpicky detailsy stuff.

Also: Enchanted Broccoli Forest has a chapter on cooking for one, and mentions a whole bunch of dips one can make. I enjoy that approach... make several dishes at once, then mix and match as the mood strikes me for the next few days. I graze rather than eating large meals, so this may not work for everyone.

Do you mean making a recipe to feed six, and freezing five-sixths of it in individual chunks? That I can do. I get limited by freezer space. I'll eat rosemary chicken once and be happy not to have it again for six months.

I don't perceive you as foodier-than-thou -- figured I'd better make sure I wasn't being rude! Now that I think of it, there are things I'd be okay with bringing to most gatherings, too. The great thing about bringing stuff to a group is you can go ahead and cook for five. Someone might even take home any extra. There are recipes I don't ever do for myself. Lasagne, f'rex, and I lurve my lasagne. It's just that it feeds five twice.

I feel so guilty when I waste food.

I like the mix and match idea. May have to get myself a copy of E.B.F. finally.

Definitely check it out a little first, either a friend's copy or online... I love it, as do many people, but some people's favorite cookbooks just don't work well for me, for whatever reason.

Good idea. I'm guessing (tongue in cheek here) that since I live in the Bay Area, I don't know anyone who doesn't have a copy.

Hee!

If you're putting bell pepper in an omelet, I recommend sweating it a bit first--it will help with the stickiness and doneness. You don't want to cook it completely, but get it part-way done.

Thanks! That was my guess too. I don't MIND it raw-ish; I like raw bell pepper better than cooked, mostly. But in the omelet, it stood out.

I might be able to increase the onion a little if I'm willing to precook that a bit as well.

If I'm doing peppers and onions, I always cook 'em a bit first. Plus, the flavors blend so nicely then, too.

Yeah, I bet that's exactly what I need to do. (Then the restaurant probably wins on time, too. Bummer!)

Plus, if you are cooking for one, you can cook up enough of the veg to put in the fridge for doing later.

Ah, that might get the time budget back down again. Sadly, as infrequently as I cook it had better freeze well. I haven't tried freezing cooked veg.

It'll freeze fine. In fact, what you might want to do is put little globs of the cooked veg into an ice cube tray. After they've frozen up, toss them all in a ziploc freezer bag and you can take out just what you need.

Thanks!

I buy tomatoes that grow in a size that is suitable for popping into my mouth like a grape; those would surely fit in an omelet. I also buy ones that are about twice that size that grow on a vine (Roma?). There are also ones about three times -- basically, tomatoes grow in a lot of sizes smaller than the big beefsteak ones one normally sees at Safeway (which I think taste like cardboard anyway). Try one of those? Good luck (from Kennita who doesn't cook).

Yeah, I'd forgotten about little tomatoes. (I adore the big ones when they're homegrown. Ohhh, I was so spoiled when we had tomato vines.)

I wonder what the grocery store clerk would think if I bought one cherry tomato at a time. :-) :-)

Oh wish I could grow tomatoes!

That was at our previous apartment. It came with a hydroponic setup about ten feet long and two, two and a half feet wide. We got tomatoes, corn, and cantaloupe out of that. (I know: hydroponic cantaloupe? We trained the vines up the fence. At the end of the season we were stunned to see what was on the NEIGHBORS' side.)

You could always slip up to Whole Foods, buy a small container of sun dried tomatoes, and when you want to make an omelet, crumble or chop a single slice (or two) of dried tomato into some water to rehydrate, then use that in the omelet.

I'm just sayin' ...

If I slipped up to Whole Wallet I'd at least buy something I didn't need to assemble. ;-)

Seriously, what do sun-dried-and-then-reconstituted tomatoes taste like? That's got to be pretty weird.

Or you could buy a tube of tomato paste, which means you just squeeze in enough to taste just like your steam table place.

I'll have to set aside a couple of slices of sun-dried tomato for you to try.

Wow: tomato paste doesn't taste at all like fresh tomato to me! Interesting.

I've had sun-dried, but it never occurred to me to try reconstituting them!

It's a more intense taste, but a little sun-dried tomato can still provide a fairly good taste splash of tomato, if the fresh version isn't readily available.

Ooh, the ones that come in olive oil are *marvelous*. Just chop one into little tiny pieces and put in an omelet, a salad, to dress up guacamole. I eat them straight from the jar.

Plum tomatoes are small enough for one person's omelet, and they have better flavor than those pale, hothouse things that are passed off as tomatoes.

Want to go to Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market with me some Saturday? Talk about people who love to answer questions about food! It's a bit crowded, and can be tiring, but I love it, and I'd love to show it to you.

Mmm, sounds scrumptious. How 'bout after I get a scooter of some kind? :)

Sun-dried tomatoes that come dry are also marvelous, in different applications, like add-ons to crock-pot recipes where the oil would not be welcome.

Oh, and I meant to say that i usually saute onion, bell pepper, mushrooms or garlic before I add it to an omelet. Spinach is good in omelets, too.

and the teeniest amount of onion I could get in there.

Calculus says that the limit of onion as onion approaches zero is zero. ;-)

In the lab, the limit seems to be ONE CHOPPED-UP TEENY LITTLE PIECE! ;-)

Ah. Experimental error. ;-)

blend and freeze the rest of the tomato. you can always toss a few tomato cubes into something later :)

I shamefully admit I do not have... no, it's worse: I think I have but do not know where to find or how to use... a blender. :) (Plus, wow, cleanup.)

I bet I will skip the tomato most of the time and add it when I want it to be JUST LIKE the dish I adore.

I have a secret method for getting exactly the right amount of onion into every recipe.
This method also assures that you buy exactly the right amount of onion everytime you shop.

Calculus says that the limit of onion as onion approaches zero... is zero. ;-)

Oh dear, you've discovered my secret.

*laughter* I love it! :-)

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Thai Spoons omelet

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