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Of Orcs and Eggs

March 1, 2020

As the late, great Anthony Bourdain once said:

“What nicer thing can you do for somebody
than make them breakfast?”

I couldn’t agree more, though as much as I enjoy cooking, I am not the primary breakfast maker in our household. This isn’t because I don’t like breakfast—or my family—I just find functioning in mornings incredibly challenging and always have. As a kid, I was known to come downstairs with a blanket over my head and not allow anyone to speak to me until it was removed. SO, I’d heard about this breakfast burrito hack from the Interwebs and been meaning to try it for a while, but the opportunity had simply not arisen. (I had simply not arisen.)

This weekend my older son and I were having a leisurely morning upstate. My husband and younger son had gone out snowboarding leaving just the two of us, which is rare. My ten-year old was up first and snuck a little Ipad time while I snuck a few extra Zzzzs. Symbiosis at its finest. Then, in typical kid fashion, as soon as I’d unpeeled my eyes and assumed a vertical position, he asked me to help him build some Lego—namely to help him find pieces which is pretty much my designated Lego role. In general, I prefer to freestyle, with both Lego and cooking. I’m hardly a rebel but not always great at following instructions either. His idea was to make our own version of a Lord of the Rings scene with Orcs.

I grabbed some coffee and started to dig in the big Lego bin, pulling any medieval-looking weapons, brown and black legs and capes, grumpy faces, helmets, shoulder shield thingies, flames, bones, etc. I offered up a few pieces of golden armor and weaponry, which were hastily dismissed as, “Too flashy.” The Orcs are a rugged, earthy crew. Nevertheless, like a band of meandering hobbits, we got there in the end, and were both pretty pleased with the result. Behold.

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ORC RAIDER CAMP

And who am I to deny you a few close ups?

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Please note the spit-roasted turkey and pot of fish. Orcs get hungry, and so did we. The next order of business was breakfast. Since we’d bought some tortillas the day before, it was time to try the breakfast burrito/tortilla hack. Here’s our basic ingredients (salt not pictured):

People had recommended the Zhoug sauce from my second home, Trader Joe’s. Try it!

People had recommended the Zhoug sauce from my second home, Trader Joe’s. Try it!

1) Mix up an egg (. . . or two or three depending on the size of your tortillas) with some salt and pepper. We had little tortillas so I used one egg.

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2) After adding some sort of fat to the pan (I like ghee, butter or avocado oil would work nicely too), pour egg in and allow to spread out flat like you are making an omelette. (Note: We had a big pan and a small tortilla. Similar sized pan + tortilla would be better.)

3) Let the egg set a bit. When it is still just a bit undercooked, slap a tortilla on top of it!

So easy a ten-year old can do it.

So easy a ten-year old can do it.

4) After a minute or so, flip to brown the tortilla a bit. You’ll have something that looks like this.

This is where a similar-sized pan/tortilla would help.

This is where a similar-sized pan/tortilla would help.

At this point, some people add cheese for more of a quesadilla effect, but my one child doesn’t eat dairy and this particular child eats cheese, but not melted. Cut to our next step . . .

5) Remove from pan and add toppings. For my child, some not-melted cheddar and Zhoug sauce. It’s a bit spicy, so we went easy.

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6) Fold.

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7) Cut and eat.

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For my version (Gluten- and dairy-free), I used corn tortillas and no cheese and dolloped some of this avocado-tomatillo salsa from Sam’s Club on top. It tasted like chilaquiles, which is a win in my book.

This salsa is really good and doesn’t have any junky ingredients. I am not paid by Sam’s Club or Trader Joe’s, but I’m open to it. #willworkforfood

This salsa is really good and doesn’t have any junky ingredients. I am not paid by Sam’s Club or Trader Joe’s, but I’m open to it. #willworkforfood

I love recipes that are really just techniques you can put your own spin on, and this is definitely a great one. My son loved it and it’s seriously so easy he could make it himself. Needless to say, we had a great morning, improvising with Orcs and eggs and spending a little one-on-one time together. With everything swirling around these days, it was a nice little reminder:

“Where there’s life there’s hope, and need of vittles. ”

—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

In The Big Green Pot
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THE BIG GREEN POT: Bendy Briar Label Bacon Soup

February 7, 2020

I love to cook and the Big Green Pot is my trusty enameled cast iron pot in which I experiment with soups, stews, sauces, you name it. It’s become sort of a physical metaphor for all of my cooking and experimenting. I should mention, I’m really bad at following recipes. To me recipes are more like jumping off points or reference, there to inspire or to be referred back to for a particular method, time, or temperature, but rarely if ever to be followed soup-to-nuts. Various members of our family also have different food intolerances (ie. dairy, onions, wheat) so I’m often avoiding and adapting to accommodate that when I cook.

In addition to reading cookbooks and food magazines for grown ups, I love to read children’s books with recipes in them. As a kid, I was enchanted by the CRANBERRY and OLD WITCH books by Wende and Harry Devlin. I remember being introduced to them one crisp fall afternoon, by my elementary school librarian, Mrs. Bright, who read us CRANBERRY HALLOWEEN. (Elementary school librarians rule!)

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Each book was a charming, superbly-illustrated little mystery with a recipe in the back. Which honestly, may have been my favorite part. For the CRANBERRY series the recipes all featured, you guessed it . . . cranberries. Cranberry bread, cranberry cobbler, cranberry upside down cake, and a gelatinous, ambiguously-named ‘cranberry dessert.’ As a mom, I read the series to my own kids, starting every fall with CRANBERRY HALLOWEEN. I plan to continue this tradition until my children refuse to listen any longer, or move out of the house, whichever comes first.

Of course, as my sons get older, their tastes in books (and food) change, it feels like daily. Needless to say, I was completely on board when my ten-year old recently asked me to make him a recipe from a new book he was reading: BENDY & THE INK MACHINE JOEY DREW STUDIOS EMPLOYEE MANUAL.

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To parents of little kids, Bendy might skew a little dark and kind of creepy. However, my big kid loves it (at least for the moment) and I’m all for things that keep him reading, drawing, and thinking outside the box, which BENDY & THE INK MACHINE does. It’s a pretty creative, if eerie, world the Joey Drew Studio folks have created, a sinister little animation factory fueled in part by cans of the fictitious Briar Label Bacon Soup—the recipe my son wanted to make. A real food, non-dessert recipe! Even better, soup, one of my favorites because I’m exciting like that.

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SO, we pulled out the Big Green Pot and made the Bendy soup as we called it (with our own tweaks). It turned out great! My son was so thrilled that he gobbled it up and said he would definitely eat it again—music to any cooking parent’s ears.

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As C.S. Lewis put it, “Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”

There’s a delicious magic that happens when you connect something you love to read with something you want to eat. I tasted that delicious magic as a kid and was thrilled to watch my son do the same.

Happy Reading! Happy Eating! Happy reading books about eating!


BRIAR LABEL BACON SOUP

Credit: BENDY & THE INK MACHINETM JOEY DREW STUDIOS (TM) EMPLOYEE MANUAL.

Ingredients

1 lb. premium Canadian bacon

3/4 cup chopped onion

3/4 cup peeled, diced carrots

3/4 cup diced celery

4 cups peeled, diced potatoes

4 Tbsps butter

3 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup flour

2 cups cheddar cheese

1 cup milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Instructions:

  • Using 1 Tbsp of butter, sauté onions, carrots, and celery in a large soup pot until tender. Add chopped bacon to the pot and cook until crispy.

  • Add broth and potatoes to your soup pot, bringing it to the boil. Reduce heat, keeping the soup on a simmer. Cook ten minutes, or until potatoes are tender.

  • Combine 3 Tbsps of butter with the flour in the skillet, cooking for roughly five minutes, or until bubbly. Add this to the soup pot, and bring it to a boil once again. Reduce heat, simmering soup for another 3-5 minutes.

  • Reduce heat to low. Stir heavy cream, milk, cheese salt, and pepper into the soup pot, cooking until cheese is melted.


For more about the CRANBERRY BOOKS visit:

http://harryandwendedevlin.com/


BENDY & THE INK MACHINETM JOEY DREW STUDIOSTM EMPLOYEE MANUALby Cala Spinner published by AFK/an imprint of Scholastic is copyright © 2019 Joey Drew Studios Inc. Bendy, Bendy and the Ink Machine, The Bendy characters, images, and logos are trademarks of the Joey Drew Studios Inc. All rights reserved.

The CRANBERRY books are copyright © Wende and Harry Devlin, published by Aladdin an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing.

In The Big Green Pot
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ABOUT ME

Welcome to my blog! I’m Jenny Fox, children’s book author, mom, and lover of books and libraries. Look around to learn more about me and my books. 

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