Wheat Berry, Avocado and Pickled Onion Salad

Freezing drizzle in Indy has meant a day at home.  A very rare occurrence in our world.  The weather forecast warned us yesterday so I stuffed my briefcase with a bunch of things to do when we left the office yesterday.  I've been working on office tasks and working on a project at home.  We've lived here two and a half years so it was time to tackle straightening and cleaning out the pantry.  I started with the pasta, rice and grains.  We've been eating more grains so I've bought more types.  And, they tend to come either in bags or oddly shaped plastic containers.  That meant an interesting assortment of stuff on those shelves.  So, I went to the container store and bought a dozen plastic containers like ones I already had.  Now, it'll be neat and tidy!  And, I'll know what I have so I can use it up.  Turns out I had two bags of wheat berries, one and a half of quinoa and an extra of bulgur.  On the pasta side, the only duplication was cavatappi.  And, there were two containers of brown rice.  Not bad at all. 

Here's a progress photo:

In the fridge, I had extra eggs, apples and avocados that needed to be used up.  Among other things!  Since we were actually going to be home, I didn't have to cook and schlep everything to the office.  What a concept!

One of the recipes I saved on my ipad while reading Texture was for a cheddar/apple omelet.  Now, I have NO clue what magazine it was from because they didn't show the magazine name on each page and all I have is a snapshot of the one page...  So, wherever it was from, I'm glad I found it.  The omelet was pretty basic.  I browned bacon and drained it on paper towels.  Then I drained all but about a teaspoon of the bacon fat out of the skillet.  Into that went half a Gaia apple, (chopped) along with a smidge of crushed rosemary.  I whisked four eggs with salt and pepper and a bit of cream.  And, grated about an ounce of extra sharp cheddar cheese.  Once the apples were softened, I put them aside in a bowl and poured the eggs into the skillet.  As they cooked, I lifted the sides to allow the uncooked eggs to flow under the cooked.  Just before the omelets were done, I sprinkled the cheese on top and topped that with the bacon and apples.  Unfortunately, I wasn't alert enough to think about a photo!

Lunch was a different story.  By that time my phone was out!  Since I have my list of partial bags of grains to use up, we'll be having plenty of those in the next couple of weeks.  Today I started with wheat berries.  I put wheat berries into eatyourbooks and got over 6,000 options.  Then, I clicked on the button to show me only recipes from my cookbooks and got over 2,000.  Ok, then, time to narrow it further!  How about just salads?  Ah, yes, wheat berry salad with avocados and pickled red onions from Whole Grains for a New Generation by Lianna Krissoff.  I confess I didn't go hunt down the cookbook.  I've put most of my cookbooks onto eatyourbooks.com but have yet to list where they are in the house.  And, since I'm at easily 1400 cookbooks, hunting is not fun unless it's a cookbook I know has been filed where it's supposed to be.  The recipe sounded pretty straightforward.  I figured if I did anything different it wasn't a big deal

How did we like it?  It was fabulous.  It came together easily and tasted great.  And, we got some good healthy grains and fats!

Wheat Berry Salad with Avocado and Pickled Onion

Ingredients:

1/2 c wheat berries
1/2 c cider vinegar
3 allspice berries
1 bay leaf
1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced
1 avocado, peeled and chopped
1 T pecan oil (any good extra virgin olive oil will work)
1 tangerine, peeled and chopped

Directions

Cook the wheat berries in 1.75 c of water.  Bring them to a rolling boil then reduce the heat, cover the saucepan and allow to simmer for an hour.  Drain them and pour them into a mixing bowl.  While the wheat berries are cooking, pickle the onion.  In a small saucepan, bring the vinegar, allspice berries and bay leaf to a simmer.  Pour that over the onions and let them pickle.  Add the onions and about a tablespoon of the vinegar to the wheat berries along with the avocado, tangerine and pecan oil.  Stir, adjust the seasoning (you may want more vinegar) and serve. 

Heartland Scramble

As is usual on Sunday, we try and have a nice breakfast before heading to the office.  Even though it's race day here in Indianapolis, I'm at the office plowing through the work.  But, my tummy is VERY happy because I made a great breakfast this morning :-)

If all of the recipes in Heartland are as good as this one, this cookbook will claim a spot in the bookcase where I keep my favorites.  That is, if I can ever find the bookcase again...  Yes, I'm wishing the painting was done!  The task this evening is to move the rest of the stuff out of the living room and move the furniture to the center of the room.  Then, we'll take all of the nails and screws out of the walls and cover the furniture with a big tarp.  Then, the fun part.  I get to paint the ceiling.  Swiss Miss is the name of the paint.  I'm going with a darker ceiling and lighter walls and white trim.  Can't wait to see what it looks like.  Right now, it's painted a realtor beige.  It's fine in the daylight but at night it turns yellow.  A rather putrid shade of yellow.  I've lived with it for five years.  That's long enough!

So, chatting about the paint color reminds me of my brother Ken.  He was here for my niece's wedding.  He and older brother John P. and Connie and I piled in my car and headed downtown for lunch at Workingman's Friend.  It's a dive but does it ever have fantastic burgers.  Guy Fieri would go nuts!  After lunch we took a tour of downtown.  On the way downtown we drove through some, umm, interesting neighborhoods.  There were lots of houses painted colors that I'd probably not choose.  Was that polite enough?  Ok.  Whatever.  So, we started asking Ken (who works for Porter Paints) what he'd call the various colors.  Our favorite was frog butt green.  Now, that's our stock answer to what any color is.  Frog butt green. 

You're probably wondering what we thought of the heartland scramble.  It was wonderful.  The recipe says you can use smoked trout, pancetta or prosciutto.  I chose smoked trout.  And, instead of following the recipe, I added the whole tin.  Should've kept to the 1/4 cup as it was a bit "trouty."  And, instead of scrambling the whole mess, I let it turn into kind of an omelet.  That part worked out perfectly.  This was super easy to make.  We'll absolutely make this a regular on our breakfast list.

Heartland Scramble

Ingredients:

1 T olive oil
1/4 c scallions or garlic scapes, chopped
1/4 c smoked trout, pancetta or prosciutto, chopped
1/4 c grated cheese (I used smoked gouda)
4 eggs

Directions:

Coat the bottom of a non-stick skillet with the olive oil.  Add the scallions or garlic scapes and saute until they're softened

Add the trout,

then the grated cheese. 

When the cheese just starts to melt,

pour in the eggs. 

Either scramble or let it turn into an omelet. 

adapted from Heartland by Judith Fertig