Food, Glorious Food

Went tearing home last night, late and in the teeth of a gale. It rained so hard that when I raced into Fresh Market on the way (playing Beat The Clock against their closing time), the raindrops hurt, and that was with the hood of my sweatshirt over my head.

I was grabbing goodies for breakfast. Ended up this morning with this:While setting a land speed record(Produce Department subcategory), this thing caught my eye. Looks a bit scary, doesn't it? It's a Watermelon Radish, with a mild-horseradishy bite. How we get from the second photo to the first one goes like this:First, a closer look at The Radish. Whoa! It's big for a radish, too, about the same size as a medium potato. Think of it as a turnip with a real bad attitude. Diced and added to mushrooms and potatoes, with a nice Anaheim pepper chopped up and tossed in for crunch and flavor. D'ya think Tam (presently elsewhere) would try it if we told her the radish was raw beef?Scramble a couple of eggs in it....Add the bacon I started the skillet with back in, plus three thin, warmed slices of salami all smashed up and some diced red bell pepper for a touch of sweetness and crunch. Warm all the added ingredients, decant onto a plate and...Taa-daa! I snipped some chives over it and grated a little more of the watermelon radish, too, mostly for color.

Fried the bacon with fresh-ground pepper, tossed a little all-purpose Cajun Seasoning on the 'taters before cooking them and between that and the marvelous flavor of the purple-red radish (this one was really nice, not wasabi-sharp but assertive enough to stand out without dominating the other flavors), it needed not a thing extra.

Yum! I suppose Breakfast Hash using whatever I stumble over at the grocer's is my signature dish and a lazy one at that, but I wouldn't trade it for all the tea in China -- or all the cordon bleu in France, either.