Archive for Breakfasts
Breakfast In A Ramekin: Baked Eggs With Polenta And Sausage
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Lovely to look at and absolutely fantastic to eat. Bring these to the breakfast table and you’ll have one happy crew of devils. As your spoon breaks through the softly cooked egg and melted cheese, dives through the creamy polenta, and scoops up the fragrant sausage at the bottom. Each bite is a taste sensation.
Oh yeah! They’re also easy to make. Brown the meat, cook the polenta, layer the fixin’s in a ramekin, stick ‘em in the oven, and go get dressed while breakfast cooks.
Ingredients (4 ramekins)
Sausage
½ lb (220g) ground pork
2 tsp dried sage
½ tsp dried thyme
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
Polenta
1½ cups water
½ tsp salt
½ cup coarse-ground cornmeal (aka polenta)
2 tbsp butter
¼ cup cream
¼ tsp pepper
Egg Topping
4 eggs
4 oz (110g) cheddar cheese, grated
¼ tsp pepper
Prepare Sausage
1. In a large bowl, combine and mix well all of the sausage ingredients.
2. In a large frying pan, over medium-low heat, brown the sausage meat for 10-12 minutes.
Make Polenta
3. In a medium pot, bring the water and salt to boil. Stir in the polenta and simmer, covered, and on very low heat, for 15 minutes – stirring occasionally.
4. Take the polenta off the heat and mix in the butter. After the butter melts, add the cream and pepper.
Bake The Eggs
5. Pre-heat oven to 350F (180c).
6. Divide the sausage meat amongst four buttered 8 oz ramekins.
7. Divide the polenta and spread it over the sausage meat. Smooth out evenly.
8. Crack an egg over each ramekin.
9. Sprinkle the grated cheddar cheese over the eggs, and lightly sprinkle with pepper.
10. Bake for 12-15 minutes – until whites have slightly set, cheese has melted, but yolks are still wonderfully runny.
Devil’s Breakfast – Salsa Chutney Fried Egg Sandwich
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Messy to eat. Sounds like it could strip the vanish off your internals. But, this is one sinfully delicious snack. Especially perfect for a late-night, just-got-home-from-a-night-out, gotta-eat-something, must-be-quick-and-easy snack.
A few decades ago, I was watching an episode of the British space comedy “Red Dwarf”. In one episode, ship slob David Lister introduces his shipmate to the “ultimate hangover cure” – a fried egg chili chutney sandwich. Feeling adventurous, but not having any chili sauce on hand, I tried it with some salsa. And sinful deviliciousness was born.
The beauty of this sandwich is, you simply fry an egg, slap some chutney on one slice of bread, slap some salsa on the other, stack it all together, and enjoy the flavour sensation.
And, you can easily adjust flavours. For one who desires more spice, slather on more salsa. For the sweet of tooth, increase the ration of chutney.
Ingredients (1 sandwich)
2 slices bread
2-4 tbsp mango chutney
2-4 tbsp salsa
2 eggs
1 tsp butter
1. Spread mango chutney on one slice of bread, and salsa on the other. Don’t be stingy – spread it on thick.
2. Fry the eggs in butter over medium heat. Fry until whites are just firming up, then flip over and fry other side (about 1 minute per side, or less). Don’t overcook, as you want a runny, gooey yolk.
3. Remove the eggs to one slice of bread and assemble sandwich.
Watch out for dripping egg yolk. This is a messy snack – which makes it even more fun and delicious.
Devilicious Scrambled Eggs Breakfast Muffin
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Looking for a quick and easy, yet crowd-pleasing, treat for Sunday morning? You’ll have nothing but happy faces around the brunch table when you serve up these devilicious treats. And they take just a few minutes to create.
The credit for this scrumptious breakfast combo goes to an old school friend. One summer vacation morning, the two of us assembled scrambled eggs, ham, and cheddar cheese on an English muffin, and slid the whole assembly under the broiler. And so, a fantastic breakfast (or lunch, or dinner, or late night snack) was born.
Ingredients (4 muffins)
2 English muffins
2 tbsp butter
4 slices ham
4 eggs, beaten
3 oz (85g) cheddar cheese, grated
1. Split the English muffins into four halves. Toast them and spread 1 tbsp of the butter on the toasted muffin halves.
2. Melt half of the remaining 1 tbsp butter in a frying pan and add the ham slices. Fry the ham over medium heat for about 1 minute per side, until lightly browned. Place on the buttered muffin halves.
3. Add the remaining butter to the frying pan and cook the eggs over medium-low heat. Stir and fold the eggs over until you have softly cooked (still wet and just beyond being runny) scrambled eggs. Spoon the eggs over the ham.
4. Pile the grated cheese on top of the scrambled eggs.
5. Place the assembled muffins on a baking tray and slide under the broiler for 3-4 minutes, until the cheese is nicely melted.
That’s it! In under 10 minutes you have a breakfast muffin that gets your day off to a devilishly happy start.
Hearty Cowboy Scrambled Eggs
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Cooked in a large cast iron frying pan, these delicious scrambled eggs are reminiscent of hearty chuckwagon breakfasts. But, with red bell peppers adding vibrant colour and a slight crunch, mushrooms adding their own brand of specialness, and melted cheese ramping up both flavour and stick-to-your-ribs heartiness, this is a dish Cookie would never have spoiled his cowboys with.
Ingredients (Serves 2 – or 1 hungry cowboy)
1 tbsp olive oil or butter (depends upon how devilish you feel)
6 slices bacon, cut crosswise into ½” (1cm) pieces
1 red bell pepper, chopped into ½” (1cm) pieces
1 green onion, sliced into small rounds
6-8 white mushrooms (champignon), thickly sliced
3 oz (85g) cheddar cheese, cut into ½” (1cm) cubes
4 eggs, beaten
1. In a large frying pan, melt the butter. Add the bacon and stir fry on medium heat for 3-4 minutes, until lightly browned but not crispy (the bacon will cook more as other ingredients are added).
2. Add the red pepper and green onions, and stir fry for 2 minutes.
3. Add the mushrooms and stir fry for 2 more minutes.
4. Add the cheese and gently stir fry for ½ – 1 minute, until the cheese is softened and just starting to melt.
5. Add the eggs and mix into the other ingredients, scraping cooked cheese off the bottom of the frying pan. Cook the eggs only until softly cooked.
Serve this to your hungry cowboys or little devils right away. These scrambled eggs are great as they are, or served up on some pieces of toast.
