What's For Breakfast: Valentine's Eggy-in-a-(Heart-Shaped)-Basket

While there are plenty of fancier things you could make for a Valentine's Day breakfast, sometimes going the simple route can be just as tasty. (And will leave you with a much cleaner kitchen!) Case in point, this eggy-in-a-(heart-shaped)-basket. All you need is a heart-shaped cookie cutter, some bread, butter, and an egg to whip up this simple-but-delicous breakfast.

If you want to set a more romantic scene, grab a bottle of champagne and some orange juice and serve mimosas on the side. Or, if you're in a down-home kind of mood, cook up some homefries or hashbrowns to serve alongside this savory egg-n-toast combination.

Eggy-in-a-(Heart-Shaped)-Basket 
makes one serving

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 slice of bread
1 egg
fine sea salt and freshly-cracked black pepper

1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.
2. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut a heart shape out of the center of the slice of bread. Place the slice of bread into the skillet and slide it around a little bit to coat it in the butter.
3. Crack an egg into the hole in the bread slice. After the egg has set, flip the slice of bread over and cook it on the other side, about 1-2 minutes more. (Cook it shorter or longer depending on how runny you like your egg.)
4. While the egg is cooking, add the heart-cutout into the skillet and toast on both sides.
5. Remove from the heat and set on a plate to serve. Season the egg to taste with salt and pepper.

What's For Breakfast: Baked Eggs in Individual Ramekins

We have the tendency to go a little overboard every time we make hash browns from scratch 'round these parts. Following a breakfast-for-dinner the other night, we had quite a bit of sweet potato hash browns left over. Rather than let them fester in the back of the refrigerator (a terrible thought, indeed), I put them to use over the weekend in a baked egg breakfast dish for D and myself.

In addition to our leftover hash browns, this egg dish also features sauteed mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and spinach. (A vegetable hash is a great way to use up odds and ends in the refrigerator and/or on the countertop!) Herbs (I used a bit of thyme) add fresh flavor to the dish -- feel free to use your favorite herb combinations.

Baked Eggs in Individual Ramekins (printer-friendly version)
makes two servings

butter for the ramekins
1-2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 - 1 cup cooked hash browns, reheated
1 cup roughly chopped mushrooms
1/2 cup halved cherry tomatoes, seeds removed
1/4 cup (handful) fresh spinach
2 eggs
coarse sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon fresh thyme, plus additional leaves for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Lightly butter the bottom and sides of two 3" ramekins and set aside.
2. Add the olive oil to a skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and cherry tomatoes and saute until softened, 3-5 minutes. Add in the spinach and saute until wilted, 45-60 seconds. Stir in the fresh thyme leaves and remove the skillet from the heat.
3. Add the reheated hash browns to the bottom of each ramekin, slightly pushing it up around the edges. Add in a layer of mushrooms, tomatoes, and spinach to each ramekin, making a small divot in the center.
4. Crack an egg into each ramekin.
5. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until the whites have set. Season with salt and pepper and garnish each baked egg with a few fresh thyme leaves.

What's For Lunch: Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich

I was in the mood for a simple sandwich the other day and got a hankering for an egg salad sandwich. Quite awhile back, Ashley at never homemaker posted a recipe for an avocado egg salad wrap sandwich, and I made a note to myself at the time that I should try it out. Fast forward nearly a year later, and what with it being hardboiled egg season (aka post-Easter), I finally got around to giving the recipe a whirl. Although Ashley includes curry powder in her recipe, I decided I just wanted some simple flavors, so I only seasoned my salad with a little salt and pepper, and in lieu of mayo, I subbed in the plain Greek yogurt I had on hand.

Though it might not be the most amazing sandwich ever made, it is still quite tasty and definitely filling. The addition of avocado bumps up a plain old egg salad to something with a little more panache, and amps up the nutritional content as well. What's not to love about that?

Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich (printer-friendly version)
makes 2 sandwiches

2 hardboiled eggs
1/2 avocado, peeled and diced into small cubes
2 tablespoons nonfat plain Greek yogurt
pinch sea salt

pinch freshly ground black pepper

baby spinach leaves [optional]
2 ciabatta rolls, sliced in half

1. In a small bowl, use a fork to roughly chop the hardboiled eggs. Stir in the cubed avocado and Greek yogurt. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
2. Add a scoop of the avocado egg salad to one half of a ciabatta roll (add some spinach leaves if desired). Serve immediately. [Note: If you have leftovers, the avocado will likely turn brown; you can try to preserve the green color by adding in a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, but I'd recommend using the avocado egg salad all at once if possible.]

(adapted from this never homemaker recipe)

What's For Breakfast: Spinach Feta Egg Wrap

Back when we lived in Philly, my Wednesday morning routine involved getting up early for a hot yoga class at the yoga studio around the corner. Following the 6:30a class, after showering back at home, I would head back out on a Starbucks run to pick up my Wednesday-morning treat: a grande nonfat chai latte and a spinach feta breakfast wrap. Perhaps undoing all the good work from the early-morning yoga class, but in my mind, oh-so worth the splurge. 

Now that we live 45 minutes from the nearest Starbucks (le sigh), my chances to enjoy a spinach feta wrap for breakfast are few and far between. However, while perusing one of the food boards I follow (and contribute to) on Pinterest, I spied a recipe for a scrambled egg wrap with spinach, tomato, and feta cheese originally posted on Cookin' Canuck. Immediately, I knew I would have to give the recipe a try.

The recipe does not disappoint, and I think if I took out the extra ingredients (tomatoes, and in my case, some mushrooms, too), I think it would likely taste exactly like my favorite Starbucks breakfast wrap. And let's face it, making it isn't exactly rocket science; it's kind of embarrassing that I haven't tried to make one at home before. Ah well, better late than never. This breakfast wrap is definitely going in my morning meal rotation.

Spinach Feta Egg Wrap (printer-friendly version)

makes 2 servings

2 eggs

2 egg whites

3 tablespoons organic skim milk

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 cup chopped mushrooms

1/2 cup grape tomatoes, quartered

2 cups (packed) fresh spinach leaves, thinly sliced

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon crumbled organic feta cheese

2 whole wheat tortillas 

1. Whisk together the eggs, egg whites, and skim milk. Set aside.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chopped mushrooms and saute until tender. Add in the tomatoes and cook until they begin to soften, 1-2 minutes. Stir in the spinach and cooked until wilted, about 1-2 minutes more.

3. Pour in the eggs, season with salt and pepper,  and cook until they begin to set, then stir to scramble.

4. Warm the tortillas (if necessary), then place on two separate plates.

5. Spoon the egg mixture down the middle of each tortilla, leaving space at the top and bottom. Top the egg mixture with crumbled feta cheese. Fold in the ends of the tortillas and then roll to form a wrap. Cut each wrap down the middle with a knife. Serve immediately.

(adapted from this Cookin' Canuck recipe)

What's To Eat: Eggs

On our first weekend in town, we checked out a couple of farmers markets in the area. One was in nearby Fitler Square and the other was in West Philly, just beyond Penn's campus. As we expected, there were a lot of winter vegetables, particularly a great variety of squashes and winter greens such as kale. Since at that point our movers hadn't yet arrived, it didn't make much sense to buy fresh produce since we had no cooking tools on hand. However, on our return trip to our neighborhood, we stopped off at the Fitler Square market and bought a carton of farm fresh eggs. Now these are my kind of eggs -- all different shades of brown, some with speckles, some without. These eggs came from Sunny Side Farm in Elysburg, PA (which is actually about a 2.5 hour drive northwest of Philly.) In addition to chickens, the farm also has 60 goats, and the other products for sale included goat milk and goat cheese.

Eggs are a good source of protein; a large egg has just over 6 grams of this key nutrient. At 70 calories, an egg is a low-cal choice. A large egg has just under 5 grams of fat, but only about 1.5 grams of this is saturated fat. Other nutrients found in eggs include choline, lutein, phosphorus, and potassium. They are also an excellent source of Vitamin A.

In a perfect world, our eggs would come from our own hens in a backyard coop -- unfortunately, that will likely not be the case for awhile. A better-case (and more likely) scenario would be to purchase them from a local farmer or purveyor who can vouch for how the chickens are raised/what they eat/etc. When purchasing eggs in the grocery store, I typically opt for the carton that says "vegetarian fed" and "cage-free," though "free-roaming" would be even better. (Although, admittedly, these labels don't mean all that much for large-scale egg production, and "cage-free" may just mean that there's a door that the hens could go through to a dirt lot if they wanted to, but likely won't.) Hence, why I strongly advocate for finding a local egg-source that you can be assured allows the chickens to be themselves and behave naturally.

This is what I had for breakfast on Sunday -- one egg over medium alongside a slice of toast with organic strawberry conserve. I sprinkled a little bit of flax seed over my egg by accident -- I neglected to remember we had put the flax seed in our pepper shaker, but no worries, just means I added a few extra nutrients to my meal! I later seasoned the egg with a dash of salt and pepper. It doesn't get much more simple than that!

What's For Breakfast: Eggs Florentine

This morning, I opted to make a recipe I saw in the latest issue of Women's Health; I mainly was interested in trying the recipe since I had never baked an egg in the oven before, and thought it would be an interesting technique to try out. The cooking time took a bit longer than the recipe indicated (I think due to our elevation), but the final product worked out quite well. I think next time I would cook it a smidge less, if only to have a little-bit-leaky egg yolk; just the way I like 'em.

Eggs Florentine

makes three servings

organic canola oil spray

3 eggs

2 teaspoons unsalted butter

9 oz spinach

shredded mozzarella

fine sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

Dijon mustard [optional]

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Prep three medium-sized ramekins by spraying each with cooking spray.

3. Add 1 T of water to each ramekin.

4. Crack an egg into each ramekin.

5. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet and put in the oven.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the whites are opaque and the cooked egg is just beginning to come away from the side of the ramekin.

7. Meanwhile, melt 2 t of unsalted butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the spinach leaves, and cook until wilted, stirring constantly. Once the leaves are wilted, remove from the heat.

8. Toast the English muffins. Once toasted, add shredded mozzarella to one half and allow to melt. Add some wilted spinach atop the melted cheese.

9. Remove the eggs from the oven. Use a spatula to gently unstick each egg from the sides and bottom of its ramekin. Flip the egg out of each ramekin onto the prepped toasted English muffin half.

10. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

11. Eat atop just one half of the English muffin, or serve as a sandwich; top with Dijon mustard to add a little kick if you so desire.

(adapted from this recipe in Women's Health magazine)

What's For Breakfast: Eggy in a Basket

I woke up this morning with a sudden desire to make eggy in a basket -- basically an egg cooked in a slice of bread. Since we had a loaf of sourdough bread leftover from dinner, I decided to use that as my source of bread. Unfortunately, I had a bit of an issue cutting out a flat slice, as you'll see in the image below . . .

Eventually, however, I managed to cut out two fairly-even slices. I used the open-end of a wine glass to cut a hole in the middle of the bread. (Obviously, a round cookie cutter would do the job, too -- I just don't happen to have one!) To make the eggy in a basket, first I melted about 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter in a large skillet over medium heat. After the butter had completely melted, I added the slice of bread and moved it around a little bit to coat it in the butter. Next, I cracked an egg into the hole in the bread slice. Since my bread was not exactly even on the bottom, a little bit of the egg white leaked out, however, I tried to smoosh down the leaky side a little bit so that the egg white would cook up, thus stopping the leak.

I seasoned the egg with fine sea salt and freshly ground pepper. After the egg set, I flipped it over and cooked the other side. If you like you could add a bit more butter to the skillet prior to flipping the egg; I opted not to do this for my serving. Cook the for another 1-2 minutes, and then remove from the heat and serve! Toast and egg all-in-one -- couldn't be better.