Did Someone Order an Egg and Cheese on Toast?

Sunday morning, it comes around every week without fail. This Sunday morning was Mother's Day, so I needed to make something that was quick and easy to shuffle Ben off to spend the day with his Mother, and so I could get ready for our family festivities. I remember that my dad loved these egg sandwiches my mom always made and thought it would be easy enough to recreate. I knew Ben would love it, becasue he always does, no matter if it is actually good or not.


Egg & Cheese on Toast
Pam
2 Extra Large Eggs
2 0z 50% reduced fat cheese
2 Slices of toast*
Margarine or Butter to spread
Salt & Pepper to taste

*I used Pepperage Farm Whole Wheat White. I like white bread a lot better than Whole Wheat, this is a great compromise so that you are getting the benefits of Whole Wheat with the taste of White.


Pam a pan, and place on medium heat. Once the pan is hot, crack your two eggs directly into the pan. Let cook. I kept the yolks runny so I let the eggs cook until the whites were slightly browned. If you want not runny yolks, just flip the eggs for a minute until cooked through. Add salt and pepper to taste.

While the eggs are cooking toast your bread and spread margarine or butter on the bread. Add cheese to one slice of warm, toasted bread, if the cheese needs a little help to start melting, you can pop it in the microwave for like 10 seconds. (Reduced fat cheese needs more help melting than regular cheese.) Once eggs are cooked, place on to of cheesed bread, and top with other piece of bread.


I would have served something on the side, but I was out of time, and did not want to be late to Mother's Day.


This took about 10 minutes, and was very successful, really quick, easy, and so much better for you than stopping at Dunkin Donuts for one of their greasy breakfast sandwiches. So do it yourself, becasue its just way yummier.

Breakfast for Dinner?

So it's Passover, 8 days of no bread, or more specifically oats, wheat, barley, rice, corn, soy, legumes, and basically everything else that's good. I'm a bit on the strict side when it comes to keeping passover, and not eating any of those foods or anything derived from those foods, including peanut butter and corn syrup. Yeah it's a difficult 8 days.

So besides being overwhelmed with family and helping my mom host the Seders I am sick. Very sick all weekend long. After a lot of matzo ball soup today I am finally feeling better, slightly. So I wanted to make some dinner for Ben and I, something easy and nice to say thank for him taking care of me the last few days. I decided since we were unable to have a Sunday Breakfast this week, that we would do Breakfast for Dinner tonight.


Omelets and Hash Browns it is. Since my hash browns are always mushy I went to a fellow blogger for help. I need to make sure that the potatoes are as dry as possible before cooking them.


This was my experiment in finally hopefully making crispy harsh browns and therefore making Ben fall in love with me for ever and ever. Or something like that...

My Omelet
4 Egg whites
1/2 red pepper chopped
5 or 6 chopped mushrooms
1 oz 50% reduced fat Cheddar Cheese

Ben's Omelet
3 Whole Eggs
1/2 red pepper chopped
5 or 6 chopped Mushrooms
1 small yellow Onion
1.5-2 oz reduced fat Cheddar Cheese


In a pan coated with Pam, sautee down the pepper, mushrooms and onions, for about 3 to 4 minutes until they have reduced over medium heat. They should not be mushy, but nicely cooked, add in scrambled eggs and let cook. Make sure you have a nicely grease pan or else your omelet will get stuck, flip if you can. If not cook on medium low heat until the bottom is browned and the top is cooked add in cheese and fold over in classic omelet style.

Hash Browns
2 small cooking potatoes
salt
pepper
1 Tbs olive oil


Grate the potatoes and get off as much liquid as you can before placing in satuee pan. Add salt and pepper, place in a sautee pan over medium to high heat that is coated with olive oil, make sure that the potatoes are not too thick in any place. Once in pan do not move until browned on one side. Then flip, let cook until brown again, serve and eat.


I also served a bit of matzah with this meal, to replace the bread, but it did no justice. The meal was great, but I needed a peice of toast. We also had a little trouble flipping our omelets, since I don't have huge sautee pans the omelets were a little on the thick side and needed to be flipped so we didn't get one of those diseases from eat raw food. It ended up a bit messier that I had anticipated, but turned out to be great. We sat outside on the summer like night and enjoyed our breakfasts for dinner together.

Land Ahoy! One Eyed Sailor

I admit it, if I could I would watch food network all day every day, I would. So well as you can see I watch a lot of food network, and yesterday Paula Dean was making some breakfast/brunch dishes. She made one she called a one eyed sailor and I thought that would be the perfect Sunday morning breakfast for Ben, something new, fun and it looked so good when Paula made it. I made a few changes, because she made a cheese sauce to go with the one eyed sailors, and I thought that was just too much work for a Sunday morning. You can find her original recipe here.


So a one eyed sailor is a piece of bread with the center cut out, and an egg in the middle. Simple, but it looks extravagant and is soooo good.

One Eyed Sailor
2 eggs
2 pieces thick toast
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
pinch of chyanne pepper
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1/8 cup sharp cheddar cheese

You will also need medium sized cookie cutter, just big enough for an egg to sit in the middle of the bread. I used a frog, but I would recommend using a shape that doesn't have too many sharp edges. This will allow for the egg to sit better in the toast.


First cut out the centers of your bread. Then place butter in sautee pan and let melt, over medium heat add the spices to the butter and just stir to combine just so that the spices are even in the pan. Place bread with middle cut out in pan and crack egg into the middle, let sit, DO NOT MOVE, TOUCH, ANYTHING. Just let the egg and bread hang out until the egg is starting to cook and bread will be perfectly toasted, maybe 3 or 4 minutes on the first side. Then flip! The second side will take less time maybe 1 to 2 minutes, and then you have a one eye sailor. I then grated some sharp cheddar cheese on top before taking them out of the pan so it could melt into the top of the one eyed sailor.


Ben said "Tied for favorite with everything else." But he also said that if he had to only order one thing in a restaurant it would be this.

I also just grated up a Yukon gold potato and put it in a pan with a small yellow onion and let everything cook out until brown (a simple hash) to go with these one eyed sailors.

Potato Latkes the Wrong Way

You didn't think we could do it, did you. Potatoes, again. Oh but we were able to. I mean what's a Sunday without Sunday morning potatoes? As I've told you before, I generally wake up before Ben and lay in bed contemplating this weeks Sunday morning Potato experience. This week, I had just one red potato to use, well I mean I had more potatoes, but potato is just one part of Sunday morning breakfast (except last week when I was too lazy to stock up on groceries.) This week I tried to go above and beyond for Sunday morning. It included Red Potato Latkes, an Everything bagel, and good old scrambled eggs (plain and simple.)


Potato Latkes are a traditional Jewish food and I think each family has their own recipe. I know how to make MY mothers potato latkes, but this Sunday morning when I was only making one potato I had to tailor the recipe a little, because the quantity of potato was so small. Latkes are traditionally fried in vegetable oil and appear at a majority of the holidays but especially during Channukah where the celebration of oil burning for 8 nights is celebrated with fried foods. These are good as a side dish, main coarse (just add sour cream and sugar or applesauce) or as we found out this week as a Sunday morning addition.


The reason why these potatoes are titled the wrong way because the recipe is a little different, and I think made these latkes special, not necessarily better than traditional ones, but still good enough for Ben to gobble up and ask for more.

Potato Latkes the Wrong Way (small batch)
1 medium Red Potato
1 Egg Yolk
2-3 Tbsp All-Purpose Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1/8 tsp Garlic Salt
1/4 tsp dried Parsley

Grate entire potato on the thicker side of a hand grater. If you do it too small you'll end up with potato mush. You want it about the same side as if you were making hash browns. Add in yolk and flour and mix until you have a little bit of a bater with the potato, egg, flour mixture. Meanwhile in a sautee pan heat vegetable oil to medium high heat. Add seasonings to the potato mixture and stir to combine. Once oil has heated spoon potato into the pan and let cook until golden brown about 5 minutes or so. Flip and let the other side brown. Once finished on both size, about 10 minutes (depending on how big you make your latkes) let sit on a paper towel to drain any excess oil. You want the outside to be crunchy. Then eat!


Normally you would be making more than one potato and I would then recommend using the entire egg and additional flour (to make a smooth consistency.) I would also say that if you have a fry-a-lator or a deep set pan to fill with oil and really fry these potatoes instead of my quick-fix apartment style solution. You can add in a cut up sauteed onion to the mixture or any seasonings that you prefer. Its really a great recipe that you can tailor to the tastes you like. Red potatoes are not the traditional, either Yukon gold or Idaho potatoes are really what most people use. But use what you have and make it how you like.


So try it out. Its good the wrong way.

Sunday Morning Potatoes

Ben and I have a standing Sunday morning ritual. I make him breakfast, and I try to come up with new and original things every week. A couple of weeks ago I had some potatoes laying around and thought, how I can I make some easy breakfast potatoes (home -fries) without it taking an hour to cook the potatoes. I realized if I did the majority of the cooking of the potatoes in the microwave and then finished them in a pan so that the outsides could get crispy, it would cut the cooking time by a lot.



Home Fries
2 idaho potatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper

Wash and dry the potatoes, just to get off any dirt that may be on the skin, poke potatoes with a fork so that it doesn't explode while cooking. Wrap potatoes in paper towels and place in microwave for 4 to 5 minutes, this depends on the size of your potatoes, just keep an eye on them.

Once the potatoes are cooked, take out of the microwave and cube, you can make them any size you want. Spray Pam or coat a pan with a little oil or butter, depending on what you have on hand, toss in cubed potatoes and sprinkle seasoning over the potatoes. Cook on medium to high heat until the outsides are golden and crispy, will be about 10 minutes.


This is a really healthy, tasty and easy alternative to heavier fried home fries or any other diner like potatoes.