Eggzactly

Breakfast for two:

Farm fresh eggs (courtesy of Dean0)
Fried potato (microwaved and browned)
Bacon (food of the gods)

Pumpkin bread pain perdu

Pain perdu is French for French Toast.  It means "lost bread", stale bread that would otherwise not be eaten.

 Pumpkins?  We had a lot of pumpkins this summer.  Many are still stored in the garage.  I cooked up a couple for pies and bread.  Here are some of my effort so far.




I cut slits in the side of two whole small pumpkins and put them on a baking sheet.  It takes about an hour and a half at 350 for the pumpkins to get soft.  After they cool, the seeds can be removed and the pulp scraped out.  A food mill or a food processor will make it smooth, but it can be mashed with a potato masher.




For the bread I started with my basic recipe:

15 oz flour
9  oz water
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon yeast
mix, knead (I use a stand mixer), rise, punch, shape, rise, bake.

I like to use weights as it makes the recipe more precise.

For the pumpkin bread, measurements are not so certain. The water content of the pumpkin mash is too variable for precise amounts.

Pumpkin Bread

15 oz flour (3+ cups)
1 cup of fresh pumpkin mash
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 Tablespoon yeast
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 egg
3 oz butter
mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients, mix together, add flour or water as necessary to get a soft dough, knead, rise, punch, shape, rise, bake.

The bread is good served warm with butter.  It also makes very good French Toast. 

A couple of eggs beaten into a little cream or milk is all you need.

Breakfast - French toast with butter and maple syrup.  Add a few slices of ham and breakfast is complete

Big Bang Breakfast

If you watch The Big Bang Theory (and you should), you will have heard Howard Wolowitz asking his wife Bernadette for a breakfast of salami and eggs.

I had some hard Italian salami in the fridge and being a food adventurist I looked for some recipes.  Turns out it's not hard salami at all.  I should have known a good Jewish boy like Howard would be talking about something else.

I found this: Ed’s Salami and Eggs on the NYT Diner's Journal

Ed and I both grew up eating salami and eggs. You cut thick slices of salami (Ed’s right: kielbasa is better, but we didn’t know that back then), into chunks and brown them a little bit. In Ed’s household you would use that as the base of an omelette; in mine, you would scramble the eggs, keeping them soft, and top with mustard. (I don’t usually disagree with Ed, but when he’s wrong, I have to say so.) These were the delicacies that defined New York a half-century ago. –MB

Real salami, the Italian or French kind, is raw and rank and often quite hard. The salami I grew up with, the New York kosher kind, is cooked and garlicky and generally quite soft. Not a salami at all, really. More a non-pork variation on a typical Eastern European garlic sausage — think kielbasa. This is no surprise when you consider where most of New York’s Jews came from. More Pinsk than Padua.

Ah ha. I had some kielbasa, too. Add some red onion.












And, four of those farm fresh Fruita eggs and a real breakfast is shaping up. It's an explosion of flavor happening in the pan.

The comment section of the Diner's Journal has a little back and forth as to the correct topping/condiment.  Some people think ketchup is the only acceptable choice.  Others swear by mustard.  I've used mustard on scrambled eggs before this and I like it.

Pepper eggs

This is a variation taken from Laura Calder's Basque Eggs My Way.  She has a cooking show, so she give exact amounts and times. In the real kitchen that is not so important.  Use what you have on hand.  Here are the ingredients I used for two servings.  Please note that proportions are flexible as are the types of peppers and tomatoes.  Try some hot peppers or a red pepper.

Recipe #46 Pepper Eggs

1 onion 1 small bell pepper
½ Anaheim pepper
2 or 3 Roma tomatoes
2 eggs
salt and black pepper
ham or bacon

Cut the onion in half and make thin slices.  Heat a small amount olive oil and butter in a pan. Cook the onion until it starts to soften and turn translucent.  Sprinkle the onion with a bit of salt to draw out the moisture.  Slice the peppers into thin sticks and add to pan. Stir well, cover and cook until the peppers start to soften.   Cut the tomatoes in half through the long axis and then cut across the halves to make tomato sticks about the same size as the peppers.  Cover and continue to cook about ten minutes.  Everything should be soft and stew-like.  Time is not critical - low and slow is good.


Make a depression cup in the mixture. Crack an egg into the depression.  Cover the pan.  The eggs will poach/steam in the pan.  Cook the eggs until the white is set and the yolk is still soft. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.



Scoop out a serving and place it on a piece of ham or bacon.

Omelet

My friend dean0 gave me some farm fresh eggs from his little red hen. We immediately thought of omelets. We added a piece of grilled pork steak and some toast with homemade jelly.

We started with good ingredients:

fresh eggs
cream
butter
cheese
basil and parsley
tomatoes and onions

First collect all the ingredients. Next warm a pat of butter in a non-stick pan

In a second pan, cook tomatoes and onion until soft.

Beat a couple of tablespoons of cream into two eggs. Swirl into the non-stick pan. Add herbs, cheese, tomatoes and onions.

When the eggs are set and the cheese has melted, fold in half and slide to a plate.

Ham and eggs

I like deviled eggs, but seems I only think of them once a year. Every Easter someone in the family makes a big batch. A couple of dozen eggs, lots of peeling, mixing, and stuffing goes on. And once it's done we forget about deviled eggs until next year.


It's a shame because they are really easy to make. A couple of days ago I hard boiled some eggs for use in a chef's salad. A big chef salad is an easy and cool dinner for these hot evenings.

This morning I peeled the last two eggs and mixed them with a dash of mustard and enough mayo to make a moist paste. You don't need a recipe, you know how you like them. A little paprika makes the look fancy, but is not all that important.

In fact you don't even need the mayo. Try a little ranch dressing. Add a slice of deli ham and you have an easy and cool summer breakfast.

Hash

Not long ago I was talking with a friend about hash. He didn’t like it. No wonder, his experience was limited to the stuff in a can. You know the stuff; it has an unpleasant resemblance to dog food.

Home made hash is something else altogether. It is a perfect use for leftover meat and potatoes and it makes a great breakfast.

The basic ingredients are simple. A little cooked meat. It could be a bit of corned beef. It could be a bit of beefsteak, or even prime rib. Add some onion, some leftover baked, boiled, or roasted potatoes and you have hash. It’s good to throw in a few cooked carrots or other veggies if they are left over from a pot roast. Top it with an egg or two. Toast some homemade bread and you have the makings of a good breakfast.

Recipe # 29 Hash

Leftover cooked beef
Leftover cooked potato
Chopped onion
vegetable oil and/or butter
Salt & pepper
**extras
eggs sunny side up or over easy
toast

Start by chopping as much onion as you like. While you are cutting the onion, heat a skillet and add a tablespoon or two of oil. Put the onions in the hot pan to start then cooking. Cut the beef into small pieces. I do not like the minced consistency found in cans. I like a bit of size to the pieces. Next, cut up the leftover potatoes. I like the size to be similar to the beef.

Mix meat and potatoes together. Add them to the cooking onions. Stir occasionally until everything is heated through and the potatoes are browned.

Remove the cooked hash to a warm plate and cook an egg or two in the hot pan. Sunny side up or over easy goes well with the hash. Pop a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster and last night’s leftovers are this morning’s special breakfast.

It’s fast and easy and when you think that you have used up leftovers, it’s cheap too.

Notice that a modest amount of ingredients produced two nice breakfast plates. Chopping or cutting food increases the volume - sort of a loaves and fishes effect.