Bread & Ink Cafe
3610 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland, OR 97214-5144
(503) 239-4756

Recently, my friend Patty came down from Camas to spend the morning shopping on Hawthorne. Whenever we do these excursions, we typically find someplace to have breakfast or lunch, depending on the time of day. On this occasion, I suggested Bread & Ink, a restaurant that jwa and I head out to quite frequently.

A Saturday morning, around 10:00-ish
When we arrived, they were busy, but we got seated right away as there were a couple of tables open. Coffee came quickly and we gave our orders. It’s funny, occasionally I will get a special they have on the board but my old standby seems to be the Smoked Trout Scramble. Eggs, cheese, smoked trout, pepper bacon and red onions with a generous dollop of horseradish sour cream — yum! Patty ended up getting the same thing and liked hers as well. Oh, and I can not say enough about the catsup that they have…I really love it on the breakfast potatoes!

Speaking of which, I am a big fan of the aforementioned herbed breakfast potatoes. And that being said, my favorite item, I think, is the bread. I love Bread & Ink bread — this applies to the baguettes and the bagels and well, whatever other kind I am forgetting about. For a while, you could get their Bread at Zupan’s, but I’m not sure this is still the case. I should go check that out soon.

The breakfast menu itself contains a lot of scramble dishes, black bean cakes, sometimes salmon cakes, pancakes, assorted egg dishes and Yiddish favorites like bagels with lox, onions and eggs. They offer mimosas and now that they have a full bar, I’m guessing bloody marys as well. I usually stick the scrambles and have always left quite happy with my choice and this last time was no exception.

To Recap:
Atmosphere:
Bright and open. Big flower arrangements on the front counter. Two mid-sized seating areas. White walls with interesting, changing art work. I think it’s comfy and inviting.

Food: Brunches are really good. The potatoes are well seasoned and usually, a bit crispy. Amazing catsup and very tasty bread products. One other thing that struck me about this last visit is that the food was very, very hot (heat-wise). Not that it’s usually not, but when it got to our table it had obviously not sat around for even a second. That was very nice. They also serve lunch and dinner, both of which we’ve had before and enjoyed. Oh, and incidentally, the lavender lemon drop I had there a while ago at a dinner was really, really good!

Service:
We had prompt and pleasant service. We even asked another passing server to ask our server to bring us our bread pre-meal and miraculously it arrived a couple of minutes later. No problems at all. I know service is sometimes an issue at Bread & Ink for some people, but honestly, we’ve never had bad service there over the last five years we’ve been going. Once, there was a mis-communication about an after dinner espresso, but that’s about it — nothing major. Perhaps we have just been lucky, but that’s been our experience.

Overall: I like Bread & Ink a lot. It’s comfortable. It’s in the neighborhood (for us). We walk there, have a nice meal and walk home. We’ve had a dinner there two Valentine’s Days in a row — both of which were good. We’ve taken visiting family and out of town guests there. All in all, it’s probably one of our favorite places to go for a casual meal out. So, give it a chance if you haven’t yet and maybe if you’ve had a so-so experience, give it another try.

Bread & Ink gets three baguettes out of four.

My favorite Fall salad is a combination of whatever lettuce I am in the mood for (mixed greens or baby spinach work great), sliced apples or pears, toasted walnuts, sweet onion slices and parmesan. I use a simple balsamic-dijon vinaigrette to top it all off. It’s especially good to have on the side with a tasty pasta meal or if you ate something, uh, less than ideal at lunch, you can make a huge version of this salad and make up for it with a healthy, lighter dinner!

It also makes a nice impression on Thanksgiving, as I learned last year, if you want to have a salad as part of your meal on that occasion.

Apple, Parmesan & Walnut Salad:
1 bag pre-washed mixed greens or baby spinach
1 apple or pear, sliced — squeeze a little fresh lemon juice on the fruit slices to keep them from browning
1/4 to 1/2 cup shaved parmesan cheese
1/4 to 1/2 sweet onion, sliced
1/4 cup walnut pieces (this also works well with candied walnuts — see below)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (I prefer a 2:1 rato between oil and vinegar, but feel free to adjust this to your tastes)
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
salt & pepper

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees. Arrange the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast about 5 minutes. Typically, when you can smell them, they’ve toasted enough. Set aside.

Wash and dry lettuce and arrange in a big bowl. Add the apple through the onion. Make the dressing by combining the vinegar & mustard, then whisk in the olive oil. Salt & pepper to taste. Toss with the salad and sprinkle on the toasted walnuts.

—
Here is a fairly easy way to make candied walnuts. Watch them very carefully in the oven — they go from golden and caramelized to burnt and unusable very, very quickly!

Sara Moulton’s Recipe for Easy Candied Walnuts:
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 ounces walnuts (about one heaping cup; don’t use pieces)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium sized bowl, mix together the sugar, cayenne and salt.

Bring a small saucepan of water to boil. Add the walnuts and blanch them for 3 minutes. Drain well and then immediately roll the walnuts in the sugar mixture until thoroughly coated. The sugar will melt slightly. Transfer the walnuts to a baking sheet or pan and bake, stirring occasionally, until they are a deep golden brown, about 10 minutes. Watch carefully because the sugar can burn easily. Let cool completely before serving.

My introduction to hummus came while I was in college at the University of Minnesota. There was a deli — The Mediterranean Deli, to be exact — conveniently located by my dorm and I came to love the hummus there. Creamy, garlicky and really different from any kind of dip I’d ever had before. My friend Terri and I would walk over to the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, go get some hummus, go to the liquor store and then hit the video store and we’d be all set for a movie night.

Since first discovering the yumminess of hummus in Minneapolis, I’ve added baba ghanouj, tabouli and other exotic snacks to my palate but hummus remains my favorite. It’s hard to match my memory of The Mediterranean Deli hummus, but I manage to make a fairly tasty version.

Aside from its all-around snackability, another reason I am a big hummus fan is because it can be made in all kinds of different varieties: black olive hummus, roasted red pepper hummus, feta hummus, spinach hummus — the list could go on and on. Below, is one such variation, lightened up a bit and with some crunchy green onions in the supporting role. It incorporates a trick from a hummus recipe in Mediterranean Light by Martha Rose Shulman — mainly cutting down on the olive oil and tahini and adding a little plain non-fat yogurt in addition. Sure, it’s not traditional but it works fairly well in lightening up the texture and lessening the fat content a bit. Give it a try — it’s really good!

Green Onion Hummus
1 can chick peas (garbanzo beans)
3 tbsp tahini
3 tbsp olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
2 large cloves of garlic
1/4 to 1/2 cup plain, nonfat yogurt
1/2 to 1 tsp salt to taste
3 - 4 green onions, roughly chopped
Garnish: Diced green onion & kalamata olives

Puree the drained chickpeas, tahini, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, lemon juice, green onions, half of the yogurt and garlic in a food processor. Add more yogurt if you want it creamier. Taste and season with the salt. Here is where I might add more lemon juice or garlic if I feel the need. When it’s perfect, transfer to a bowl. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the hummus and garnish with chopped green onions and sliced kalamata olives. Serve with warm pita bread triangles.

Behold — my entry for IMBB #19: I Can’t Believe I Ate Vegan!, hosted at Becks & Posh. So, I didn’t really set off to fool anyone — jwa knew he was getting a vegan dinner and quite honestly, yeah, we could believe it was vegan. ::laugh:: But that’s not a bad thing! We liked it and I can see making it again.

While trying to decide what recipe to use, I went back and forth between making a dessert and making a main dish. I finally opted for this soup because it did sound really good and I was hoping to find a new dish to make regularly this Fall & Winter. In my vegan research, I rediscovered this site, The Vegan Chef, a great resource for getting vegan recipe ideas. I’ve actually used this resource once before to get a recipe for dinner guests that were actually of the vegan persuasion.

But for this IMBB event, I reverted back to my old standby for vegetarian recipes, The Best 125 Meatless Main Dishes. The recipe I chose was flagged as vegan and here it is:

Spicy Greens & Red Lentil Soup with Cinnamon
1 tsp olive oil
1 cup dried, red lentils
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cumin
6 cups vegetable stock
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp dried chili flakes
1/8 tsp salt
1 medium carrot, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 1/2 pounds spicy greens (I used a mix of arugula and spinach — if you can find some mustard greens, those would work great too)
1 tsp low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 medium tomato, diced
lemon wedges

Sort the lentils — there may be tiny little non-lentils or pebbles in with the bunch. Place in a bowl and add cool water, stir with your fingers and pour out the starchy water. Repeat a few times.

Add the onions and carrots to a large stock pot with the olive oil. Sauté until soft and slightly golden in color.

Meanwhile, place drained lentils in another pan (I know — two pans — sorry!) and stir over medium heat until they are fairly dry. Sprinkle the cinnamon and cumin on the lentils and continue to roast for about five minutes. The lentils and spices will smell really good!

Carefully add water, garlic, chili flakes and salt to the carrots & onions, then add the roasted lentils and spices. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes.

Wash greens and tear leaves into bite-sized pieces.

After the 20 minutes of simmering is up, stir in soy sauce, wine and tomato. Pile washed greens on top of soup and cover with a lid, cooking five more minutes. After cooking time stir wilted greens into soup and serve very hot with the lemon wedges.

PS: Happy Belated Birthday, Christy!!

Tagged with: IMBB # 19 + Vegan

A Huge Grilled Chicken & Rosemary Pizza w/ a Garlicky White Sauce & Every Single Vegetable We Had in the House
Along with Slashfood, I’m a big fan of pizza. We try to make our own every so often and usually a couple times a month or so, we’ll get pizza from Trader Joe’s and doctor it up a bit with more cheese, veggies and what-not. My current choices for that treatment are: the cornmeal crust ones (not frozen) and the frozen Italian varieties — the goat cheese and the gorgonzola/pear being my two current favorites.

Delivery/take-out/dine-in is also good. We’re fortunate to live close to a number of different places: Oasis Cafe, Rovente, Vincente’s and Apizza Scholls.

But, alas, this post is mainly about the pizza we made Saturday night. A monster of a rustically-shaped pie with a rosemary-garlic white sauce, mozzarella, grilled chicken, kalamata olives, onion, yellow bell pepper, roasted garlic cloves, portobello mushrooms and tomato slices.

Garlic-Rosemary White Sauce:
The first thing I did was make the sauce — and I made way too much of it. I am thinking there will be a pasta bake dinner later in the week.
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tbsp chopped rosemary
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
pinch of red pepper flakes
salt & pepper
(Optional): 1 tbsp sundried tomato tapenade

Make a roux with the butter and flour. After the flour has had a chance to cook a bit with the butter (1 minute or so), whisk in the milk. Bring back to a boil and let it thicken. If it’s too thick, you can add a bit more milk. Next, add the rosemary, garlic, pepper flakes and cheese. Taste. Add salt, pepper and adjust any other seasonings. I added about a tablespoon of sundried tomato tapenade to the sauce because we had some in the fridge and I like rummaging around for last minute ingredients — it is my way. Set sauce aside.

Pizza dough — we cheated and bought dough at Trader Joe’s

Toppings:
mozzarella
parmesan
grilled chicken pieces
sliced onion
sautéed portobello mushroom slices (I added a splash of wine towards the end of cooking and some fresh thyme)
tomato
roasted garlic cloves
kalamata olives
bell pepper
artichoke hearts, quartered

Prepare the crust. We pre-baked ours for about 10 minutes as we knew we were going to be making an ingredient-laden, top-heavy pizza. Speaking of which, I know there is a pizza school of thought that thinks 1-2 toppings is all a pizza needs and I totally respect that. Sometimes that approach yields great results and is really good — and sometimes, you just want to construct a pizza that’ll hit the roof of the oven.

This was one of those times.

To start, jwa spread some garlic olive oil down on the pan and we baked the crust on that — rendering a nice crunchy, crispy bottom. After it came out of the oven from its pre-bake, we started with a thin layer of the white sauce and didn’t look back. The mozzarella followed, then the chicken, bell peppers, portobellas, onion, olives, artichoke hearts, tomato slices, roasted garlic cloves, a sprinkling of parmesean and finally, a bit more chopped rosemary. Whew!

Into the oven it went at 450 degrees, until it was all bubbly and the cheese had started to get golden on top. While it baked, two super cold Blue Heron Ales were uncapped and waiting, Broadcast News went into the dvd player and an excellent pizza dinner was had by all.

After this delicious but somewhat huge and heavy pizza, it’s nice that tomorrow’s post is I can’t believe I ate vegan for IMBB#19! For that, I made very sensible & healthy red lentil soup with cinnamon and spicy greens.