a typical breakfast

Breakfast, originally uploaded by riptideredsf.

Never mind the dirty counter top okay?!? here's what's up...for the past few weeks, I've been lamenting the loss of my kitchen mojo. Upon reflection, it's been more like a pause in my kitchen ADD, that constant desire to find the next best recipe. I flip through my cookbooks with less enthusiasm and without my colored post its...soooo unlike me! I spend a little less time perusing my favorite foodie blogs but I also spend less time trashing my kitchen. Correction: the kitchen usually remains trashed from the two or three days of depositing dirty dishes all over the counter top and leaving them alone.  Yeah...I do that. A lot.
This morning started along a similar path. I got out of bed much later than usual, I do that a lot too, seemingly totally un-motivated by coffee, fresh and ready, down the street at my local cafe. I eventually made it down there, but it left me prescious little time to get back home and ready for work. I could have had a nicely loaded bagel with my coffee and contemplated it several times but here's what I did instead, after heading back home:
I heated up the last of a pre-cooked batch of buttery, cheesy polenta (I cook up a big pot that lasts a few days, I then heated up the last bit of charred corn and made my tacodillas (corn, caramelized onions, roasted peppers and whatever cheese I have, usually goat cheese). I had a breakfast that was better than anything I could have had at any restaurant and it didn't require much effort.
There are so many little things I've learned in my year of cooking. I love love love polenta. Comfort food that rivals the best mac 'n cheese. Then there's the beauty of caramelization. Onions that can just be left alone over a low flame for an hour or so. Roasted  peppers... just a few minutes in the broiler result in what has become one of my refrigerator staples. Slow roasted tomatoes. Crazy good. Very little prep time and slow cooking tranforms simple and inexpensive vegetables into bliss.
There's a new supermarket in the neighborhood called Fresh and Easy. I've grown to love it. They have a clearance area where things are at their sell by date. Yesterday I hit the motherlode purchasing several two-packs of a red and yellow pepper for .50 cents (which I immediately roasted), a fennel bulb for .30 cents and 3-pack of heirloom tomatoes for .30 cents.
Shaved Fennel Salad for lunch today;-)