Hannah is still working on what I like to call now “Biz’s Kitchen Intervention.”  She’s whittled all my spices, dishes, pots, pans, cooking appliances, silverware, knives down to such a small amount, when I went to look for a skillet to cook an egg yesterday, I couldn’t find a single one.  Oh, because she’s decided that my bigger pots/pans/skillets belong in the pantry.  Huh.

One thing she did find that she wanted me to get rid of was a set of four of these tart pans.  Her question was “when do you even use those?”  Well, I showed her!  I made these breakfast potato tarts. šŸ˜€

These are so rediculously easy to make, it’s not much of a recipe.  This is a 4 inch pie tart, which has a removable bottom.  Whenever I buy frozen shredded potatoes, I always keep them in the fridge – they will last for a week, and well, just quicker to cook during the week.

For this tart, I took 3/4 cup of shredded potatoes and squeezed all the liquid out.  A stirred in salt, pepper and a teaspoon of grape seed oil, and pressed that into the tart pan, and up the sides.  I baked at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, just until the edges started to brown.  I mixed 1 egg, a teaspoon of fat free half and half, a tablespoon of bacon bits and dried parsley and poured that into the potato tart, and baked for an additional 7 minutes.

The best part about this tart?  It tastes like a McDonald’s hash brown.  If I were at home, I would have reheated this in a cast iron skillet to get crispy, but even reheated in the microwave, it was delicious – and only 3 smart points!

Breakfast Potato Tart

It was clear early on that my sister and I would walk at Macy’s – even though it was up to 14 by the time lunch rolled around, it was just . . . cold.

Shelley, I can’t help but think of you when I am at Macy’s and how much fun you would have shopping here!  If and when you come to Chicago, you’ll have to let me know!

I cooked two giant chicken breasts over the weekend to have for lunches this week.  These were bbq chicken lettuce wraps with (you can’t see it, but its on the bottom) avocado, topped with provolone cheese a vegetarian bbq sauce – sounds weird, but it was part of a Blue Apron box that kept getting shipped to my sisters house mistakenly and they kept telling her to keep the stuff!  This came in at 6 smart points.

Over the weekend I made a beef bone broth.  You can find my recipe here – but I do believe baking the bones first makes all the difference in this broth.  It’s so rich in flavor!  I posted my soup on Instagram last night and I got about two dozen DM asking “where did you find the bones?”  Any regular grocery store has them, you just have to look for them, or ask the butcher.  

Sometimes labeled “beef bones for soup” or “beef knuckles” or “beef shanks” – any and all of those will work.  I have also found femur bones and asked my butcher to cut them in half because that’s where the flavorful marrow is.

It’s best to make this ahead of time and chill the broth, because all the fat rises to the top and solidifies.  I put a tiny bit in my soup last night – because well, that’s where all the flavor is.

While the noodles cooked, I heated up the broth to a simmer, added cooked zucchini from my fridge, added a teaspoon of sriracha, and lime zest for a kick of acidity.  Since the broth was hot, I just put the thinly sliced beef in the soup raw – it cooked in less than a minute.

Then added 1/2 a cup of the noodles, some chopped cilantro, and dinner was served.

This was perfect on a cold snowy night.  I literally sipped the broth right off the side of the bowl.  So good!

I’ve checked out weather for the next couple weeks, and it looks like we are going to be cold AF for a while – this dinner may be on repeat this week.  Oh wait, but first I need to make my daughter in laws buffalo cauliflower bites – you can check out her latest youtube video here.

 And her “fried” pickles look amazing too – but I may just have to deep fry them. šŸ˜€

Happy Tuesday friends – make it a great day!