More often than not, meals in our home are inspired by what’s sitting around in the fridge or pantry. Some weeks I’m extremely ‘wifey’ and make a menu and then make a grocery store list, organized by ingredient, but those weeks have become increasingly fewer and farther between. Sorry hun. This meal was inspired by the egg whites that desperately needed to be used up from making mayo awhile ago, a pint of cream that was reaching expiration and a clamshell of fresh spinach that was looking less and less fresh. Creamed spinach, meet your new friend spinach souffle.

Ingredients

• 1 T butter
• 1 shallot, minced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 12 oz fresh baby spinach
• 1 c heavy cream, preferably raw
• 2 T potato starch (I used Bob Red Mill’s unmodified potato starch)
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1/2 c egg whites (from about 4 eggs)
• s&p
• grated parmesan or raw cheddar, optional

Visit Food Renegade for the How-To

Link: http://www.foodrenegade.com/creamed-spinach-souffle/

Last Saturday was a busy day. After breakfast we knew we’d have no real time to eat again until that night. So we threw together the biggest, most protein and fat packed meal we could possibly conceive. It was enough food to keep a cowboy full for hours…believe me, I feed one. It’s the usual suspects here: eggs, sweet potatoes, sausage, cilantro and avocado. I was inspired by our Baked Bibimbap to make a baked version of Huevoes Rancheros. Runny yolks oozing alongside crispy, sweet potatoes and salty sausage. I’m sorry if you’re bored by my constant use of these ingredients, but I obviously am not bored (and I’m not sorry either :p). They can do no wrong in my book.

Ingredients

• 1 lb breakfast sausage
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, diced
• 5 eggs
• 1 avocado, diced
• handful cilantro
• hot sauce
• raw cheese, optional
• s & p

Method

Preheat your oven to 400ºF.

In an oven safe skillet, we used cast iron, crumble and brown the sausage.

Once it’s brown, use a slotted spoon to remove the sausage and let it hang out while we cook the sweet potatoes. Try to reserve as much of the grease as possible.

Toss the sweet potatoes into the sausage grease and let them get crispy and cooked through.

Add the sausage back into the pan.

Make a few wells in the pan–one well for each egg. Crack your eggs into the wells.

Place the skillet in the oven. We’re just baking the skillet long enough for the eggs to set, about 5 minutes.

Now, turn the oven to broil and hit up the top side of the eggs for a few minutes, but don’t let the yolk cook all the way through–unless you don’t like runny yolks. But man, oh man, the runny yolks go down really nicely with the crispy sweet potatoes. Just sayin’.

Remove the pan from the oven and douse the whole thing with avocado, cilantro and hot sauce.

Serve by scooping out an egg, along with its neighboring goodies, with a large spoon.

Cheap and easy. Sounds like a pay-per-view movie title. I’m talking about a five minute meal that costs less than five dollars to make. The best of both worlds, ya? This is a simple riff on the classic egg drop soup, which is an equally cheap and easy soup to make. My version really just mixes up the method, so the soup consistency is smooth, velvety and slightly more elegant, but not in a snobby way.

Ingredients

• 2 c chicken stock
• 3 eggs
• juice of ½ to 1 lemon, depending on how tangy you like stuff, I used a whole lemon
• salt

Method

In a small sauce pot, heat the stock over medium heat.

While the stock is heating…

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and lemon juice with a pinch of salt.

Once the stock is simmering, slowly pour about ¼ of the stock (while whisking) into the eggs.

Place the sauce pot back over the heat and pour the egg mixture into the stock (again, while whisking).

Turn the heat down to low. Whisk the soup on and off, for about 2 minutes, letting the soup thicken slightly.

If the whisking and pouring part sounds confusing, follow along with the pictures…

Shirt Update

We’re about to head to the printer, but need some help choosing the color(s).

Buy one here.

I got home from the gym at 8:11 and had this ready to eat, on the table at 8:43. No lie. Bibimbap is a Korean dish that’s just a big saute of vegetables, topped with a raw or fried egg. Well, the raw egg wasn’t going to happen and the hater-of-washing-dishes in me only wanted to dirty up one pan, so I opted for making little holes in the vegetable saute and baking the eggs.

Ingredients

• F.O.C.
• 1/4 t red pepper flakes
• 1/4 t coriander
• 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 thumb-size piece of ginger, finely minced
• 1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 4 oz mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 1/2 hot house/english cucumber, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 6 oz spinach, roughly chopped
• 6 eggs
• chili garlic sauce or sriracha

Method

Preheat your oven to 350F.

In an oven-safe or cast iron skillet, melt your F.O.C. over medium heat. Add the red pepper flakes, coriander, garlic and ginger. Then progress down the list, adding vegetables as the previous ones start looking cooked.

Using whatever tool you used to stir around the vegetables, make little holes by pushing the vegetables out of your way, throughout the skillet, big enough so you can crack your eggs into each one. The bigger your skillet, the more room you’ll have for egg holes. Crack the eggs into the holes and if you like heat, top with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

Stick the skillet in the oven and bake until the eggs look about 1/2 way done. Then stick the oven on broil to get the top side of the eggs cooked to whichever way you like ‘em–over easy, medium or hard.

Serve with a few squirts of sriracha or chili garlic sauce.

Breakfast for dinner. Or breakfast…for breakfast. Tastes the same going down, anytime of day…

Ingredients

• 1 lb fresh chorizo or breakfast sausage
• 8 eggs
• 3 small yukon gold potatoes or 1 medium sweet potato, cubed
• 1 small can diced green chilies
• 4 oz shredded raw cheese, optional

Method

Preheat your oven to 350ºF. Using a sharp knife, slit the backs of your sausages and remove the casing from the meat.  Put the meat in a skillet, over medium-high heat and break the sausage into crumble size. Cook until browned. Remove the sausage from the pan and reserve. Add the potatoes to the sausage grease (which you have meticulously left in the skillet and not with the reserved sausage). Let them cook until tender, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, sausage, potatoes, green chilies and cheese. Pour into an oven-safe glass or ceramic dish. I used a 9×9 Pyrex. Bake until the eggs are set, about 20 minutes.

We’re headed to Banff, Alberta, Canada (Is that how you write it?) until the end of the week. This recipe was a dinner+breakfast smashup inspired by our need for speed. I was hoping we could eat a few eggs for dinner and then pop the rest in our mouths as we head to the airport at 3 a.m (!). Looking forward to some good Canadian eats. Is moose consumption illegal? I’ll be sure to post photos on our Facebook page.

GOBlin Deviled Eggs (Goat Cheese, Green Onion & Bacon)

Ingredients

• 1 dozen eggs, hard-boiled
• 4 oz goat cheese
• pinch of cayenne
• salt
• 2-4 T mayo
• 2 green onions, sliced very thin
• approx. 8 oz bacon

Method

While the eggs are boiling, cut your bacon into thin strips (widthwise) and crisp them up in a saute pan over medium heat. When the eggs are done, peel & cut them all in half (lengthwise). Scoop the yolks out into a medium bowl. Whisk together the yolks, goat cheese, mayo, cayenne and salt. Using a small spoon, scoop some of the mixture back into the egg white. With an offset spatula, smooth the top–the goal here is to make it look like the yolks were never taken out of the whites. ← I think this looks nicer for presentation, you don’t have to do it–but it’s definitely more portable this way. Sprinkle with bacon and green onions.

We have 9 days until we have to move into the new casa and have finally finished installing all the unfinished wood flooring. Now we just have to get it sanded and finished, pull-out and install new carpet, paint, paint and then paint some more. Oh and then we have to pack up our old house. Anyway…

One of our ‘Picking up random odds and ends at the grocery store’ dinners was eating rotisserie chicken with our fingers on sub-floor. I decided to use the leftovers, along with some languishing refrigerator ingredients to throw together a frittata one morning. This sucker ended up lasting for 5 meals.

Ingredients

• F.O.C. (fat of choice)
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1 bell pepper, any color is fine, chopped
• about 1/2 of a rotisserie chicken (check the ingredients; some contain wheat, milk and soy– even if the flavor is like..Lemon Garlic), pulled into shreds
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 1/2 handful of cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 c salsa, we used tomatillo, but any flavor will work
• 6-8 eggs
• salt

Method

Preheat your oven to 375ºF. Heat a large cast-iron or (gasp) non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Melt your F.O.C. and add the red onion and bell pepper. Let them soften up and maybe even brown just a smidge. Add the chicken to the pan and let it sit on the bottom of a pan for a while, so it’ll brown up a bit too. Now stir in the green onions, cilantro and salsa. Turn the heat off of the range.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs with a pinch of salt. Pour the eggs over the chicken & veggie mixture. Using the residual heat from the range, take a spatula and stir everything around until you see about 1/4 of the egg cooked.

Place the pan in the oven and bake until the eggs are cooked through–about 10 minutes. Now, I’m not trying to be a nag, but because I’ve done this more than once, I’m going to share a learning experience with you. When you take the pan out of the oven, the handle will be hot–and when you place the pan on top of the stove, the handle will still be hot. Pleaseeeee don’t use your bare hand to pick up the pan, that is just not fun for anyone.

I had a hard time deciding what to call this recipe. It’s not really a frittata, often associated with Italy, but also means the eggs are beaten to a fluffy consistency. These weren’t. Then there’s the Spanish tortilla, which is an onion, potato, egg mixture. This really isn’t that either. So I figured I’d close my eyes, so to speak, and pick a name right down the center. Omelette, it is– even though it’s not an omelette in the traditional preparation, it’s just baked, no fancy flipping or multiple pan action needed.

Ingredients

• 1 lb fresh chorizo, casing removed
• 1 red onion, diced
• 2 poblano peppers, chopped
• 1 sweet potato, chopped (I was lazy and left the skin on, couldn’t tell the difference)
• 6 oz. mushrooms, chopped
• 8 eggs
• avocado slices

Method

In an oven safe saute pan, heat it up to medium high. Preheat your oven to 400ºF. Add the sausage to the pan and let it brown–making sure you crumble it into nice size pieces as it cooks. Toss in the rest of the ingredients (minus the eggs) and let them cook through and soften, about 10 minutes. Stir everything around every once in a while as to not let anybody burn.

In a medium bowl, thoroughly whisk the eggs together with about a ½ t of salt. Salt helps the egg proteins not bind too tightly together, so they won’t get too rubbery. Pour the eggs over the chorizo/veggie mixture and stir everything around to incorporate. The egg will start to cook a bit and that’s what you want to see.

Toss the pan into the oven and let it go until the eggs have set to your desired likeness. I like mine a tad underdone. Mine went for about 6 minutes, so start it checking then by pressing your hand onto the top of the omelette. It should feel firm.

Remove the pan from oven, slice and serve with some avocado slices.

Salmon, capers, red onion and boiled egg, it’s a classic 80’s combo…like Salt N Pepa or Vanilla and Ice. We’ve been eating chopped egg and onion with lemon over smoked salmon for a while. Then it just clicked–do it deviled style, so now all the flavors are wrapped up in a handy, take anywhere package.

Yield: 1 dozen egg halves

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup red onion, finely diced
• 3 T capers, chopped
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1/4 c mayo
• 6 eggs
• 6 oz wild, cold smoked* salmon, chopped
• Salt N Pepa
• dash of smoked paprika (optional)

Method

Boil, cool, and peel your eggs. (We put our eggs in room temp water and put on the stove at high heat. When the water reaches a slow boil we lower the temp to maintain low boil and leave it there for 12 more minutes. It does help to cool in ice bath or running water to stop the cooking process. Also, we’ve found, through much research, the fresher your egg, the harder it is to peel after it’s been boiled.)

Cut your eggs in half, lengthwise, remove and place the yolks into a mixing bowl. Set your whites on a serving platter/plate. To the mixing bowl add the onion, capers, lemon juice, mayo, salmon and S&P. Mix until evenly distributed and scoop and place in your egg white halves. Garnish with sprinkled smoked paprika.

*Cold smoked salmon, unlike hot, still resembles raw salmon, in texture, though it’s completely cooked through. Feel free to use hot smoked, if you can find it.

More sausage! Brandon was supposed to make dinner tonight and well, I kind of took over. He wanted breakfast for dinner and I’m totally in to that, don’t get me wrong. Problem is, we’re going out of town, out of the country actually, for the next 5 days and I had some stuff I wanted to use up in the fridge.  So we melded our ‘wants’ and came up with this beauty.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. link sausage*
• 6 eggs
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 1 avocado, chopped
• Salsa**

Method

For the sausage, use a knife to split the link 3/4 of the way through and use your fingers to split it flat. Cook the sausages in a saute pan, that’s on medium high heat, with the casing side down. Why? Because the casing needs to render out otherwise the sausage will curl up,  won’t crisp up and will taste oddly chewy.

While the sausage is browning, whisk together the eggs with a bit of salt. Remember, the salt helps keep the eggs tender. After the sausage is done, scramble the eggs in the sausage renderings, however you like–runny, slightly runny, hard and rubbery.

To serve, lay a few sausage links down on your plate, top with eggs, spoon with salsa and then sprinkle the green onions and avocado on top.

*We used plain, breakfast sausage, simply because that’s all I had in the freezer. Crumbled sausage or Chorizo would be fab-u-lous here too. I’d be interested to hear how a smoked sausage, like Andouille would be.

**We used a chipotle salsa and it was magical. If I had green salsa, that would have been on there too!