What’s migas? Well, to a Spaniard, it means “crumbs,” but to a Austinite, it means “a heaping pile of eggy, Tex-Mex deliciousness.” Migas are everywhere in Austin – good for breakfast, but great throughout the day as well.

Everybody makes migas a little differently, but the essential idea is to use up the leftovers from last night’s fiesta in an egg dish the next day. I’ve written out a basic recipe, but feel free to improvise based on whatever you’ve got on hand. So grab the half-empty can of black beans, the leftover salsa, and those last bits of broken tortilla chips, and hit the kitchen!

MIGAS
serves 2

6 eggs
2 corn tortillas, shredded into strips
tortilla chips
¼ cup chopped tomatoes (or salsa)
½ large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, diced
½ jalapeno, de-seeded, de-veined, and finely chopped
about ½ can black beans
salsa and shredded cheese

1. Beat the eggs together in a small bowl. Add the tortillas strips and let soak.
2. Heat a large frying pan coated in oil. Lightly fry the chips on medium heat.
3. Add the onions. One minute later, add the garlic and jalapeno.
4. Once the onion and garlic are clear, add the tomatoes and fry 10-15 seconds. Then add the egg and tortilla mixture and cook thoroughly. You really want the eggs to cook around the tortillas (not separate), so mix the eggs with the onion and garlic and then let it set for a few seconds until mostly cooked. Then lightly scramble the migas until cooked to taste.
5. When the eggs are done, add any beans you may have and cook until the beans are heated.
6. Serve on a plate with salsa, cheese (queso if you’ve got it!), and warm corn tortillas.

I really love my compost pile. Sure, I love that, instead of going to the landfill, my grapefruit peels and moldy bread are turning into nutrient-rich compost in my backyard. Sure, I love that that compost will provide organic, nutrient-rich food for my garden. But what I really love are volunteers...

“Volunteer” is the word farmers and gardeners use for plants that weren’t intentionally planted but came up anyway. (One farm I visited was covered in tomato plant volunteers, courtesy of some undigested seeds in their pigs’ manure.) With all the seeds I throw out from cooking, I have had a lot of volunteers recently. Thus far, 2 tomato plants, 4 potato plants, 4 onions, 1 corn stalk, and about 45 pumpkin plants have volunteered for duty.

Their are only 2 problems with volunteers. One is that they usually don’t know what season it is. So if you eat tomatoes in December, and your volunteers come up in January, they’re not going to make it past the first freeze… which is exactly what happened to my two tomato plants.

The second problem is that, since you don’t intentionally plant them, there’s no 100% sure way to tell exactly what’s growing. I thought my corn plant was an onion for at least the first month. The picture above shows some of the many pumpkin plants growing in my compost pile, with some member of the brassica family growing on the left. However, I have no idea exactly what it is. In fact, I’m only making an educated guess on the pumpkins, from looking at lots of photos online (and the fact that I ate a LOT of pumpkin this fall). I’ll let you know if a melon pops out instead!

Here are the very first two carrots from my garden! I planted these puppies way back before Thanksgiving, and today I saw one peeking out of the ground and decided it was time for it to be on my plate!

I was a little worried that carrots, like potatoes, might become toxic when exposed to sunlight. The top did appear a little green, so I looked it up, and it turns out they’re fine. However, while not toxic, these “sunburned” green tops aren’t tasty, so I was sure to cut them off.

The bottom carrot is a bit knobby, probably due to the extremely dense clay soil I was growing them in. Hopefully I’ll have some more compost in there next time so that won’t be a problem.

So what about that big split down the top carrot? That’s fine. Turns out that split comes from too much growth too fast. Like little carrot stretch marks. Unsightly, perhaps, but who am I to discriminate?

I love me some Thai food.  When I lived in Seattle, I got spoiled.  I got used to seeing two thai joints on every corner and grocers who know the word “kaffir” – but now that I’m back in the Southeast-Asian-food-desert that is the South, I found the need to improvise.

Okay, so the rest of you living in apartments above places with names like Thai One On or Thai Thai Again may be asking why you should bother making Thai at home when you can just hop downstairs for a $7 pad thai.  The answer?  Three words: light coconut milk.  Cooking Thai food yourself means you can cut 200 calories simply by using light coconut milk instead of the regular, heavy stuff.  Not to mention that you can go light on the greasy oils that usually soak through those little white to-go boxes.

Also, red curry is surprisingly easy. The hardest part of this recipe is finding the ingredients – many groceries carry red curry paste and coconut milk these days, but you’ll probably have to trek to your nearest Asian grocery for the bamboo shoots, kaffir lime leaves, and oyster sauce.

Traditionally, this dish is served with either fried tofu or meat. I love using pre-baked tofu, which, while a little untraditional, cuts down on calories. And oil burns.

I adapted this recipe from a video that called for Thai eggplant and fish. If you want to use fish instead of tofu, check out the video for adjusted cooking times.

THAI RED CURRY (serves 3-4)
adapted from Cooking With Kai

2 small carrots, sliced thin
1/2 can bamboo shoots, sliced thin
1 can light coconut milk
2 T red curry paste* (I use Mae Ploy)
~12 oz pre-baked tofu
4 kaffir lime leaves
2 T brown sugar
2 T mushroom sauce

1. Par-steam (that’s a word, right?) your veggies.
2. Heat the wok to medium-high heat.
3. Add 1/2 can of coconut milk and the red curry. Stir and wait for the oil to separate (about 30 seconds).
4. Add the kaffir lime leaves. Wait 3 to 5 minutes or until the meat is done.
5. Add the veggies, brown sugar, fish sauce, and the rest of the can of coconut milk. Wait 5 to 7 minutes.
6. Serve over jasmine rice.

*I’d rate this recipe at about 2-3 stars on the hotness scale – just adjust the amount of red curry to up or down the ante.