the morning after

Migas is apparently one hell of a hang over food. It's quite handy too that it's made from a bunch of leftovers.

It apparently originated in Austin, Texas, but has spread to the surrounding area. And it's so fabulous a meal that I've decided to spread it even further. And while it is a handy morning after breakfast, it's also good to have for dinner before the drinks begin.

Migas typically starts with day-old tortillas, chopped and fried in oil, but if you don't have fresh tortillas, or if you're really not in the mood to deal with the extra step, tortilla chips (particularly the broken up ones in the bottom of the bag) will work just fine. Just as leftover pico de gallo will work in place of spending time chopping onions and jalapenos first thing in the morning.

Holy hell, I am lazy.

Sometimes I even surprise myself.

Migas

What You Need

• 2-3 fresh corn tortillas
• 2 tbsp peanut oil (or some other oil with a high smoke point)

OR

• 1/2 c broken pieces of tortilla chips

-

• 1/2 jalapeno
• 1/4 onion
• 1/2 tomato
• cilantro

OR

• about 1/2 c of pico de gallo

-

• 4 eggs
• 1/4 c milk or cream
• bacon, ham or sausage
• 1/2 c cheddar or monteray jack cheese
• more cilantro if you have it

What you Gotta Do

If you're feeling up to the extra step, and have fresh tortillas handy, chop them into pieces. Shape isn't that big a deal, but they should be relatively small. Bite sized. 

In a shallow pan over medium high, heat the oil until is starts to shimmer, then sprinkle in the tortillas. Fry them until they're golden then fish them out of the oil and set them on some paper towels while you do more stuff.

If you're using fresh veggies, now's the time to chop them. Diced fairly small. If you've got pico de gallo (or salsa, in a pinch) leftover from last night's festiviites, you can hold onto it for now.

Drain most of the oil from the pan. Or, drain it all and replace it with bacon fat.

If you're using fresh veggies, you're going to want to sautee them in the fat for a bit. Just enough to take the crunch off.

While those are cooking crack the eggs into a bowl and add the milk or cream.

Beat them together until they're starting to get a little foamy. Or, until you decide you're too tired to keep beating them, which ever comes first. Depends on how hungover lazy you are.

Pour the eggs into the pan with the veggies. If you don't already have veggies in the pan, add them now.

The reason you don't have to pre cook the pico: pico de gallo uses a combination of lime juice (acid) and salt to break down the cell walls of the veggies. This is a similar process to what cooking does. Same thing happens in ceviche, which I do not recommend for breakfast while hung over.

Add the meat now too. I had ham, but whatever your fave breakfast meat is will work.

Stir this all around until the egg is mostly set.

Sprinkle on the tortillas.

And then the cheese.

Turn the heat off and cover the pan so the cheese will melt.

While the cheese is melting, warm up the rest of the tortillas (I layer mine with damp paper towels and nuke em for a few seconds), and mash the leftover beans. This step is of course optional, but a pretty typical way to serve migas.

Yes, I had tortillas, and yes I still used the chips. I did say "if you're really not in the mood to deal with the extra step." I wasn't in the mood. Well...

Serve your migas with warmed tortiallas and beans, and some seriously strong coffee.

What's your favourite morning after food?

Get Stuffed

They really are easy. There is absolutely nothing difficult about making stuffed shells.

For some reason, stuffed things are considered impressive. People find it amazing that you can put one thing inside another. This is a basic skill we learn as toddlers, people. You mastered this when you were 2. And so with this post I set out to prove to people that they really can put one thing inside another. There is absolutely nothing fancy about this dish. The ingredients are basic, as few as I could get away with, and the assembly takes little more skill than most kids have. Just don't burn yourself on the stove.

Stuffed Shells

What you need:

(as usual, I made as little as possible, but this is easily doubled)

• 1/2 box of large shell pasta
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/4 c fresh basil
• 1 large bunch (or bag if your grocery is out of bunches) of spinach
• 1 c ricotta cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1 large tin of tomato sauce (this is the unseasoned kind, really just finely crushed tomatos, so yes, you could use a tin of crushed instead)
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1-1/2 c mozzarella cheese

What you gotta do:

Start a big pot of water boiling.

Dice the onion and mince the garlic.

Lay a bunch of basil leaves on top of each other, roll them up, and slice the roll. This is called "chiffonade" ing the basil.

I've done it before with spinach, and Taneasha showed you basil in her salad post. You should be a pro at this by now.

Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large pan. Sautee half of the onion and half of the garlic and half of the basil in the oil until the onion is starting to look soft.

Dump in your spinach.

Cover it for a bit to get the bottom layer wilted, then do your best to flip the not-wilty leaves down to the bottom.

Eventually, it will all be wilty and you can put it into a bowl.

Your water should be boiling by now. Add shells to it; 18 or 20 should do. Stir them every couple minutes so they don't get stuck to the bottom, or to each other.

Heat the other tbsp of olive oil in the pan you just dumped the spinach out of. Add the other half of the onion and garlic, and sautee them for a few minutes before pouring in your tomato stuff (sauce or crushed).

Oh yeah, salt and pepper. I always seem to forget to mention them in the ingredients and the steps. Add a bit of salt and pepper.

Add the balsamic vinegar,

and then the other half of the basil.

Give that a good stir and turn the heat down as low as you can while still letting it simmer gently.

Now, back to the spinach.

Add the ricotta and the eggs to the bowl that has the spinach in it and mix it well.

Are your shells done? Good. Stir the sauce one more time, then drain the pasta. You're going to need to rinse the shells with cold water a few times so you can handle them.

Now, I'm making dinner for tonight and for next week, so I'm using 2 pans, but if you're planning on feeding more than 1 or 2 people at once, you might want to opt for one large pan. Cover the bottom with a bit of oil, then spoon in a bit of sauce.

Now for the easy part. Yes, I know, it's been horribly gruelling up to this point. Confusing, hard to follow, advanced techniques, and bizarre ingredients we've never seen before in our lives.

Okay, so back to being toddlers. Hold a shell in one hand, and with your other, spoon some of the spinach-ricotta mixture into the shell. Okay, wait, you might have missed that: one hand has a shell, the other hand has a spoon. Spoon stuff into the shell. Concentrate. You can do it. I know you can.

Yay!

Okay, one down, 19 to go....

It's not the tidiest process, no, but the finished product hides a lot of the mess.

Once you've got a pan full of stuffed shells, cover them with more sauce, then layer on your cheese.

You can grate yours if you'd like, but I find it easier to locate indivudual shells if they've each got a nice little strip of mozza on top of them.

Bake them at 350 (totally preheated your oven, I know you did) for about 20 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the cheese is nice and melty.

If you split yours into two pans, cover the other one with foil and freeze it. Take it out of the freezer in the morning and let it thaw in the fridge while you go about your day. That one will need more like 30 minutes to get hot and bubbly since it's starting at fridge temp.

Now, these things look lovely in the pan, but plating them...

Not the prettiest presentation ever, but they taste damn good, they require a minimal number of easily acquired ingredients, and you can make the filling and the sauce in the time it takes to boil pasta.

And they come off as very impressive merely because you managed to fit one thing inside of another.

Add a bit of nice bread, a tumbler of wine, and someone wonderful to share it with, and you've got a fancy schmancy dinner.

What do you like to stuff?