So here’s the gods honest truth: I used to boil the ever-loving crap out of eggs. To be fair, Easter was about the only time we ever boiled them growing up. After we’d dyed them, peeled them to reveal the tie-dyed ellipses beneath, and mixed the yolks with a generous amount of mustard and Miracle Whip (an ingredient I’ll defend to the death when making Deviled Eggs), the gray-green, sulfury halo around the yolks didn’t really seem to matter much.
On the rare occasions that I ate straight-up, un-deviled hard boiled eggs, I only ate the whites. And small wonder! I was, however, flummoxed: how come the yolks in some store-bought eggs looked so, well, appetizing? I decided to actually look up a recipe, and what do you know: other people have already figured this out. But since I was TWENTY-NINE before I actually learned to do this right, I thought you guys might want some tips too. The big secret? Hard boiled eggs don’t actually need to boil for more than a moment.
It’s funny how things change from when you’re little. As a child, I had a very uncomfortable relationship with eggs. With breakfast in general, actually. At the risk of sounding gross, on school days, I frankly couldn’t eat eggs for breakfast without the risk of them coming back up. Perhaps it was the 30 minute car drive on windy mountain roads. Perhaps it was the vestige of the tendency for nausea that I experienced as an infant. Either way, it took YEARS before I started eating eggs for breakfast on a regular basis.
Now, of course, it’s almost laughable how much I love eggs. For breakfast, as a mid-morning snack, as a burst of protein at lunch, baked or custard-y in desserts. But I especially like them in frittatas.
Finally, the corn has arrived! More than burgers, more than blackberries, more than plump red tomatoes and endless mounds of zucchini, fresh-shucked corn tastes like pure, delicious summer. Though I still love it straight off the cob, plain and warm, it’s also now one of my favorite ingredients to add to other dishes.
And it’s not just for dinner! I’ve now become quite obsessed with using corn in breakfast. In this particular one, it joints a few other mid-summer veggies (also bacon) as a really, really good hash.
When I moved to Columbus last January, Brad and I encountered a major first: we began working on the same schedule. With my former life in theatre and Brad’s many years of graduate and then law school, we always operated on schedules that left us with very few hours that we were both at home. But now, both working very regularly-scheduled jobs close enough that we actually carpool, we suddenly found ourselves facing a dilemma: who has to get up first?
For lots of reasons, I was the lucky winner to set my clock earlier and use the shower first. I like to pack my lunch in the morning, I blow-dry my hair, I could daudle around a bit. And one day, for a treat, I made us a hot, freshly-cooked breakfast. It wasn’t a major affair: there were no biscuits, no gravy, no French toast or quiches. But it was hot, it was savory, and it was DELICIOUS.
It was this breakfast burrito. Don’t be afraid! These take about 10 minutes to make, start to finish, and they take fairly basic ingredients. Sure, you can gussy up a breakfast burrito with sausage, bacon, peppers and onions, all kinds of things: but the basics are utterly delightful and allow for quick, weekday breakfasting.
There are so many magical things you can do with an egg. Having grown up with them almost exclusively scrambled, hard-boiled, or whipped into cake batter, I’ve recently worked on expanding my egg repertoire at breakfast. Sometimes I’ll roll them up in breakfast burritos, other mornings I’ll toss them on an English muffin, and some mornings I’ll make one of these beauties.
But on super-special mornings, I’ll buy a precious avocado and smear it across toast to a beautiful, green canvas for a gently fried egg.
I’ve loved avocados for a long time, but I was previously skeptical of their ability to translate to breakfast. Lord, I was so wrong. The flavor and texture of the avocado and the egg together are fantastic. The avocado needs no additions, though admittedly, I did try mixing in salsa one day, and while it was delightful, I still preferred it all by itself.
The eggs, while you’re smashing avocado, fry gently with their yolks unbroken. If you’re not a fan of runny eggs, don’t worry, just break the yolks with a fork and cook them a bit longer on the second side for a firm yellow center.
This simple breakfast is super-quick for rushed weekday mornings when you want to pretend, just for a minute, that it’s already the weekend. And it’s fancy enough even for the weekend. Why go out for breakfast when you can stay in your pajamas and have this?
Egg & Avocado on Toast
Makes 2 servings
1/2 an avocado
1/2 T butter
2 eggs
seasoned salt
black pepper
2 slices of bread
Scoop the avocado out of the skin into a bowl. Crush the avocado with the back of a fork until it is mostly crushed. Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Once warm, add the butter to the pan and coat the bottom of the pan as it melts. Crack the eggs into the pan without breaking the yolks, keeping the eggs separate. Sprinkle lightly with seasoned salt and black pepper.
While the eggs cook, toast the bread and smear avocado evenly over both pieces. After eggs have cooked for about two minutes, flip carefully with a spatula and sprinkle the opposite side lightly with black pepper. After about 30 seconds, gently lift the eggs onto the toasts, placing them on the avocado.
It’s entirely possible that I’m the last person to arrive at this party, but these days I find I really, really like soft-cooked eggs. Growing up I thought I only liked scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, and deviled eggs (who doesn’t?) but recently, I’ve discovered the pleasure of the slightly runny yolk.
And THIS, it turns out, is the best way I’ve found to enjoy it. I feel a little generous even calling this a recipe because it’s SO quick, SO easy, and amazingly, deliciously good.
I’ve seen this recipe with a number of different names. Egg in a Hole, Frog in a Hole, Egg in the Middle… but the principle remains the same. You take a piece of bread. And you punch a hole in it. And then you put an egg in the middle and cook. Simple!
I like using a round cookie cutter for this, but you could get cutesy and use a heart, a square, or whatever shape you want. The important thing is to not make it too small. Trust me, if there isn’t enough hole, the egg will just overflow and not cook and you won’t be able to flip it and all will be ugly for your breakfast.
I have a really bad habit of planning my weekends too much. I always make a list full of more than I can possibly do, gradually shifting things to later in the week as the impossibility of my plans becomes clear.
But every once in a while, one of the items on those lists turns into a relaxing, inspiring, reflective endeavor with delicious results. As with this frittata.
My initial impulse to make this crowd-worthy breakfast came from a delightful alliance of ingredients currently in season. “Egg season” (yes, there is one) has begun here in the Carolinas, and every week I see more and more vendors with teetering piles of egg crates on the corners of their tables.
I don’t really recall eating much rice before I was thirteen. It was then that I had my first delicious bites of Chinese takeout (strangely, in Disneyworld). My sister and I were hooked, so suddenly, stir fry became a regular meal in our household. My dad would bust out a giant wok, a pound of chicken breast, and a smattering of stir fry vegetables, and within minutes the house would fill with the sounds and smells of the quickly cooking meal.
Rice, too, was always part of these week-night stir fries. And it was the rice that yielded the best leftovers, because the following morning, dad would make rice cakes.
Rice cakes, as I grew up with them, are not comparable to the puffy, crunchy discs of rice you can buy at the store. These rice cakes are rather more like pancakes, cooked in a frying pan and slathered with butter and maple syrup to make a scrumptious breakfast.
Whether you make your rice for stir fry, curry, or something like this, make a little extra and you can set yourself up for a week’s worth of awesome breakfasts.
This is, I think, the first Easter for which I have not dyed any eggs. Not one cup of pigment-stained vinegar has graced my kitchen counter, nor one hard-boiled egg.
But this quiche?
Possibly my new favorite way to celebrate the humble egg.
Previously, I’ve really only eaten quiche in miniature form at catered gatherings and parties, but had never really considered the possibility of making them myself. Or if I had, I became rapidly intimated by the idea of a homemade crust (I’d never actually made one before this). But oh! What a new world lies ahead now that I have quiche AND pie crust in my culinary arsenal!
This is one of those rare weekends when I have not a single show to work. I love working in performing arts, but oooooh how I do relish these weekends with minimal events.
I feel like a superhero the Friday before a full weekend. So many potential things to do… elaborate cooking projects! Sleeping in! Planting seeds! Reading on the porch!
And of course, the opportunity to make fancy breakfasts. Or at least something fancier than a poached egg and an apple, my normal morning fare.
