The Crabby Cook - by Jessica Harper

You know those evenings when you come home from work and the husband is out for dinner so its jut you and the dogs and you want to just chill and watch “Vinyl” but you have to eat and you’re certainly not about to make meat loaf but you don’t want to just eat Cheerios either?

That’s where the grain bowl comes in. Kind of perfect—grains, vegetables, protein—and it can be as simple or as complex as you have the energy for. (I’m a lazy ass so I go with simple.)

Here’s what I made the other night and here are more grain bowl recipes than anyone actually needs.

Jessica’s Grain Bowl

3 teaspoon olive oil, divided

2 scallions, sliced (the white and the green)

½ tsp. fresh thyme leaves

1 cup cooked brown rice

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1 cup roughly chopped baby spinach

1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

¼ avocado, sliced

1 egg

Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in a small saucepan over medium low heat.

Add the scallions and cook, stirring, until softened, about two minutes.

Add the thyme leaves, then the brown rice. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and stir to combine ingredients. Cook for a minute or two till the rice is hot, then stir in the spinach. Cover the pan and let the hot rice steam the spinach until it’s wilted, about 3-4 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small non-stick frying pan, heat the remaining oil over medium heat and fry the egg until it is as firm as you desire, over easy or sunny side up, whatever works for you. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

Add the lemon juice to the rice mixture, stir it and place it in a bowl. Place the avocado slices on top, then the fried egg on top of that.

Eat!

Note: There are infinite variations. Use black rice or quinoa or faro. You can add leftover cooked butternut squash or any other vegetable, chicken, shrimp or beef, cheese—whatever.

I was wishing I had one of these at four o’clock Friday when I almost bought those black Repetto shoes to wear to a memorial service but instead left the store empty-handed due to shopper shutdown. Read More

If you should find yourself visiting a much-more-hip-than-you relative in the much-more-hip-than-where-you-live section of L.A. called Silver Lake, stop in at a wee restaurant called Sqirl. It’s worth the humiliation of being the least hip person in the neighborhood on a Friday afternoon.

Sqirl is famous for their jams (like Santa Rosa Plum and Flowering Thyme, or Shady Lady Tomato) but the menu rocks with lots of other treats, some vegan, some decidedly not, like the Famed Ricotta Toast, which was my pick. (I loaded it with Snow Queen Nectarine jam.)

I told my daughter I could eat it every day for breakfast. She pointed out that if I did so I would end up the size of a house.

So, no, I won’t be having this every day for breakfast. But I will have it again next time I cross the hipness border into Silver Lake.

P.S. You can also by Sqirl jams at The Cheese Store in Beverly Hills.

P.S.S. If you are more ambitious than I you can make this at home. After you have made your own brioche and made your own ricotta, toast a massive slice of the brioche, schemer it with your lovely homemade cheese and then with jam. Invite me over to share it with you or you will end up the size of a you-know-what.

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 So far I have kept my New Year’s resolution to eat healthy. (Okay, so maybe except for the wine and a little chocolate.) This commitment includes a granola breakfast. (Later in the day, the menu gets very green.) Read More

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A few years ago, I still felt that Oliver’s acts of domestic destruction were charming. He was a fourteen-dog-year-old boy, after all. Bad behavior comes in that package. At least he wasn’t out riding motorcycles, his pockets full of weed. But now that he’s older, I’m ready to move on. Read More

Don’t you hate it when you hard boil an egg, and then you peel it and half the egg comes off with the shell and the yolk is green around the edges and it’s a big fat mess and you get even crabbier than you already were before you undertook this annoying task? This video shows you how to hard boil a perfect egg, so you can avoid egg-related irritation…

How to make scrambled eggs that are a little bit more tasty than the usual…
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