Cheesy Tostadas with Green Pepper Stir Fry

Happy late Valentine's Day!  It hasn't been a big deal for me since I was a young girl with crushes on classmates (now I'm just a slightly older girl with crushes on other mates ;)  But it is a good excuse for hearts.

Cheesy tortillas + __________ is often a staple for any meal I make, either for myself or for Will and I.  He can choose if he wants to make a burrito or keep it separate, which, depending on the yummy factor of the cheese I use is sometimes the better option :)

I like this option because it can be super  simple, like pizza.  A few ingredients can go a long way.  I turn the oven on to 250 and grate cheese onto tortillas, tossing them on a baking sheet, and cooking ‘til they reach my preferred crispness.

This stir fry was mostly brown rice with green peppers and onions.  I usually mix rice with oil or butter, and a small amount of soy sauce and garlic.  Sometimes I have other random things lying around....leftover sauces from restaurants or whatnot.  I like to toss in ground flaxseed too, for a rustic look and heartier taste.  

Cheesy Tostadas with Green Pepper Stir Fry

Approximate price: $4

Pesto, Sunny Side Up

I love the things that are so easy to make it almost seems like a magic trick what comes out the other side of a few minutes and a few dollars.

We have eggs.  Have I mentioned that yet??  :)  And for me, working from home, an egg + _______ = the perfect lunch (even if the _______ is sometimes just a crackling of sea salt).

I still had a bit of chard pesto that I had thawed out from the freezer (easiest way to make something fancy as far as I’m concerned!  :)  Due to a confused moment of decision I ended up cooking some crumbled tofu (organic firm) in the small frying pan, with a little bit of Mama’s Miracle Dressing.  Towards the end of the cooking time (ten or fifteen minutes) I added in a spoonful of the pesto to get the gorgeous color without cooking any more freshness out of it, and set it aside to cook my sunny side up egg.

We had a few tomato slices left over from burgers with the folks the night before, which I put in the pan for a few minutes to soften them up and make them look more....deliberate than just setting them on the plate ;)  

When my egg was done (however soft you prefer your yolks to be) I nestled it into a bed of scrambled tofu and added a layer of pesto, a crackling of salt and a sprinkling of flaxseed, and snuggled the tomato slices on the side.

Yum, yum YUM!  :)

Pesto, Sunny Side Up

Approximate Price: $2

Garlic Egg Pizza

It was another “I want to make pizza, but don’t have anything to put on it” night, and it was the closest I’ve come to giving up!  But I didn’t!  Not with fresh backyard eggs in glorious abundance in our kitchen :)  

I got the oven preheated and cracked four eggs (and four gorgeous yolks) into a bowl with two cloves of garlic and mixed it lightly with a fork.  The only other thing I added was a spoonful or two of Mama’s Miracle Dressing to give it a little zingy goodness.

I put a little olive oil on the crust (which probably wasn’t necessary, but it didn’t feel right to leave it dry) and began pouring and spreading the eggs around it.  Four was too many, but I emptied the bowl anyway and clumsily watched it reach the edge of the crust and begin siphoning itself out onto the pan.  There was nothing to do but hurry up and get it in the 400 degree oven so hopefully it would harden up before the crust was entirely abandoned!  

Well, that didn’t work, due partially to the fact that the oven has a slightly raised center so it aided the egg slide rather than hindering it :)  I pulled it out after a few minutes and did my best to get at least some of the egg back where it belonged, also adding some green onion and shredded cheese.  I had sauteed up some onions and then successfully forgot to add them.  (They went with the carrots instead :)

By the time the pizza was cooked it was all I could do to scrape (some of it) off of the pan.  I swear egg is like a super glue adhesive....I haven’t even tried to clean the pan yet!  It can soak for another 24 hours...

So most of the crust didn’t come up, but what did come up was super yummy!  (I gave my sweetie the pieces that most resembled pizza, rather than a flat frittata ;)

Garlic Egg Pizza

Approximate price: $3