Sunday, February 5, 2012

Climbing The Egg Veggie Mountain

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As you all know, I enjoy eating beginning with First Breakfast, continuing on over the course of the day eating pretty much like a Hobbit. A nice quick starter First Breakfast before heading off to work, then about midway through the morning a lovely Second Breakfast, Elevenses (a tiny snack before the lunch walk), and so on.

On the weekends, First Breakfast is substantial enough that I rarely ever give a thought to Second Breakfast... unless it's a small piece of fruit. Yet somehow, the nutrition facts were under the calories of both my work Breakfasts - even with the addition of a whole wheat English muffin with jam. That was so interesting to discover. Usually I put all this into an egg scramble, but one day I felt a little more effort was required. So I made over easy eggs on a mountain of sauteed spinach and turmeric with browned onions. That's a bit much for a recipe title, so let's call it:

The Egg Veggie Mountain

You need two really great eggs.

I know they are expensive, but what good does it do your body to put less than stellar stuff into it? We don't eat as much beef anymore, but when we do, I get the best I can. You can do the same with eggs. When it matters - and it does in this dish - get the best. I love Country Hen Eggs because I can get them at the local HEB. Central Market free range eggs are another good choice and a little less expensive. If I had a farm nearby, I'd use their eggs instead. If instead of living in a great huge metroplex of nearly 4.5 million people I had a little home in the country, I'd have hens.

Break one of the free range naturally fed eggs into a bowl next to one of your regular eggs. You can see the difference in the color and size of the nutritious yolk. Oh, breaking the eggs into a bowl is always the best way to start the prep for this dish anyway. All you have to do then is just turn them out onto the pan to cook when it's their turn and you'll never break a yolk.

2 t habanero olive oil... ok, you may not all have habanero oil. If you don't use your fave sauteing oil. You can always jazz up the taste with some crushed red pepper flakes or cayenne or Srirachi Sauce or whatever you love the most.

1/2 - 1 cup of onions all nicely sliced (how much depends on if you are an onion lover or not).

I use about 1/4 - 1/2 t of turmeric. Some of you will find that too much, but it's what I like. You may want to start with more like 1/8 t until you find out if you even like the stuff (it has a rather peppery flavor). If you have arthritis though like I do, you will find that the turmeric eases your inflammation and rocks the painful hands.

Then you need about 2 cups or more of fresh torn spinach. Prep this before cooking too like you did the eggs.

That's it. Five things. Oh, and a nice pan just the right size to cook Breakfast for one... and strips of red, green, yellow, or orange peppers are always good to add with the onions. Ok, I guess that makes it seven things. Yes, the spatula and spoon make it nine. Picky picky picky.

What to do once you have assembled and prepared all the ingredients:

First, heat the olive oil in your pan over medium or just over medium heat and saute those onions til they start to brown and caramelize. Let them sit a bit instead of constantly stirring otherwise they won't brown. They need contact with the pan to do that. To truly caramelize them you will need about 20-30 minutes of slow cookery. The goal is to accent the natural sweetness of the onion. If you don't have time, just cook them til they brown a bit. In the pic below, they are not caramelized, just browned a bit.

When they are browning nicely, add the turmeric and stir for a minute inhaling the most awesome aroma. Then add the spinach stirring until the spinach is nice and wilted. Plate this. Return the pan to the stove (you may want to add a little more oil).

Now, if your pan needs more oil, add a smear. Gotta have some to cook those eggs. Gently tip them into the pan and allow to cook until the whites are mostly but not completely set. Loosen the edges if you need to and gently slip the spatula under the part with the yolks and flip fast but as gently as you can. Flipping is one of those things that some people are good at. I am not particularly, so sometimes one of my eggs will leak a bit. They still taste good. It should only take a minute or two to finish the eggs depending on how "done" you love them. Then plate them over your veggie mountain and enjoy mindfully.

Marvel at all the spinach and flex your Popeye muscles.

4 comments:

  1. to lower the fat how about using egg substitute and fat free non stick spray?

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  2. yes the non-stick spray should work well enough, or you could poach whole eggs if you are a super low fat person.

    I'm a fan of adding egg whites to an actual egg to add more filling protein, but am not a fan of eating just egg whites because you miss out on most of the nutrition in the egg that way. However, I know a lot of people prefer to eat in that way, so if you do, then enjoy your egg whites!

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  3. I made this using olive oil and I loved it. I know the program makes it a c, due to the eggs, but the fat in a egg yolk is healthy. I loved this dish.

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  4. glad you enjoyed it! It's my fave breakfast. Too many people are still in 1970's thinking when it comes to eggs... no matter how thoroughly that was shown to be in error. Oh well, enjoy your eggs!

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