Leaves for Breakfast: Quail Eggs and Greens

Scene: Midnight, inside. Lights are off, all is silent. Husband and wife are on the brink of sleep.

Husband (suddenly, without warning): What do you suppose would happen if we made an omelet out of the quail eggs?

Wife: Mmph.*


*Translates as: "I'm sorry, the person you're trying to contact has already fallen half asleep and can't respond using prototypical language at present, but clearly that's an empirical question that we need to investigate first thing in the morning."
 
Answer: Good things happen. It's not that quail eggs really taste different than chicken eggs, but it was like this had a whole extra layer of freshness and eggy taste to it. If that makes sense. Which it probably doesn't. So you'll just have to make it sometime and see.

Ingredients
8-10 quail eggs, or 2-3 pastured chicken eggs
Olive oil
1 medium shallot, sliced into thin half-rings
1-2 handfuls mild greens (e.g., fava, baby mustard, and/or spinach), coarsely chopped
1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Ñora pepper
2 slices whole grain bread, toasted

Carefully crack the quail eggs into a bowl without breaking the yolks (use a fingernail to get through the membrane under the shell, and peel back to get the egg out).

Heat a little olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the shallot and a pinch of salt, and saute for a couple of minutes until soft. Add the greens and cook, stirring, until just wilted, then add the pepper, parsley, and ñora and stir to mix. Pour in the eggs (still without breaking the yolks) and turn the heat down to low.

Wait about 10 seconds, then slowly stir the eggs and greens together, and continue cooking for a minute or two until the whites have set.

Lightly drizzle the toast with olive oil, top with the eggs, and serve hot.


Serves 2 for a light breakfast.

Best Oatmeal Ever

The only thing that I have to say about this recipe is that it is oatmeal-hating-husband-approved, after eleven years of wrinkle-nosed reactions to anything remotely resembling porridge.

Ingredients
3/4 cups Bob's Red Mill steel cut oats, or slightly more
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup golden raisins
Marcona almonds, very coarsely chopped
Brown sugar
Cinnamon
Freshly grated nutmeg

Heat a smallish pot over medium-high heat. Add the oats and toast, stirring or shaking the pan from time to time, for 3-4 minutes. Push the oats to the side of the pan, and add the olive oil to the other side to heat. Stir to coat the oats, and continue toasting for another couple of minutes until they smell fragrant and start to brown.

Add the water and milk, cover, and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 13 minutes. Add the raisins, stir, and simmer for 2 minutes more. Uncover and continue to cook, stirring, until any excess liquid is evaporated and oats are just slightly wetter than desired texture. Turn off the heat, replace cover, and let sit for a couple of minutes.

Serve sprinkled with a little brown sugar, cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, and Marcona almonds. (If you don't have Marcona almonds, you could toast sliced almonds and put them over the top, but the Marconas are worth finding, especially because their slight saltiness complements the sweetness of the brown sugar.)

Serves 2.

Leaves for Breakfast: Sauteed Kale with Egg and Toast

I am, I have to admit, a little stumped about kale.

First of all, it's one of those hippie vegetables. (Apologies if you are a kale-lover and/or a hippie. Nothing wrong with either one.) But I've always kind of had the impression that kale doesn't actually taste good, and that you eat it because you're a crazy health nut who drinks Smoothies of Unnatural Color and dines daily on wheat germ and hemp protein powder.

Second of all, I think it's related to cabbage, and I harbor a deep suspicion of cabbage dating back to an elementary school science pH experiment with boiled cabbage juice, vinegar, and baking soda.

Thirdly, having conquered my persistent conviction that any kale, once placed in a grocery basket, would sprout wheat germ arms and hemp protein legs when I wasn't looking, I bought some and brought it home, contemplated its pretty leaves, gazed at it searchingly, surfed online recipes, but found nothing particularly inspirational to do with it. We made it for dinner last night, but the non-kale ingredients outshone the kale and would have been better with a different leafy green. So, stumped and still working on it.

In the meantime, however, I had extra chopped kale in the fridge this morning, and threw together a breakfast that turned out to be surprisingly delicious and not very complicated to make. Which doesn't quite count as conquering the kale, since I set out to cook it for dinner, but does convince me that it has potential.

Ingredients
2 eggs, preferably from chickens who get to run around eating grass and things
2 slices of whole grain, not-too-many-ingredient bread, toasted
Olive oil
2-3 large handfuls of chopped red kale, rinsed well and dried in a salad spinner
1 large clove garlic, pressed
Salt, freshly ground black pepper, ñora pepper if you have it

Boil the eggs for 6 minutes or a few seconds longer (this will give you medium-boiled eggs, with a soft yolk but cooked white -- you could boil shorter or longer if you like, or poach them). Run under cold water for a few seconds and peel.

Meanwhile, saute the garlic with some olive oil in a small pan over medium heat. Add the kale, cook for 2-3 minutes or until just wilted, and toss in some salt and pepper.

Spoon the kale over each piece of toast and top with an egg, then slice the egg into quarters, lengthwise, and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.

Serves 2.

Quick Breakfast: Fruit with Cereal

I often eat cereal for breakfast on weekdays, but reading In Defense of Food got me wondering what exactly was in my various favorite cereals, almost all of which make heart-healthy or low-fat or other sorts of health claims. The answer? Many, many things I can't pronounce, that my great-great-grandmother would certainly not have recognized, and that fail just about every other food rule you could throw at it. So then I tried getting cereals that have relatively few ingredients, all pronounceable, without high fructose corn syrup, and without sugar as one of the first few ingredients. Except these tend to be dense and unsweet and not so tasty.












The answer, at least in the summertime? Fruit with cereal, instead of cereal with fruit. That way, most of it is a whole food, and the relatively small amount of cereal can be a decidedly unsweet, whole-grainy sort  of affair, which ends up bringing a pleasant crunch to the whole thing (and the lack of sweetness becomes a plus, because it doesn't overwhelm the sweetness of the fruit). Peel a peach, or slice a handful of strawberries, and toss into a bowl with a little granola or some multigrain flakes and a splash of pastured milk.

Soft Set Eggs with Shiitake Mushrooms and Amaranth Greens

Found at the coop: Amaranth greens. No idea what to do with these. The internets suggested something called callaloo soup, which was great fun to say, repeatedly (go on, you know you want to try it), but which was accompanied by some greenish-gray pictures that didn't look particularly appetizing. The next meal was breakfast, so we thought we'd put them in an omelette and see what happened (only we like revueltos, or Spanish soft set eggs, better than omelettes, so that's what this is).

Ingredients
Olive oil
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
3-4 scallions, sliced
1 clove garlic, pressed
4 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
A few shakes of crushed ñora pepper
Coarsely chopped amaranth greens (about 2 cups, or a little more)
4 pastured chicken eggs

Break the eggs into a bowl, leaving the yolks whole. You can make this with two whole eggs and two egg whites, or all whole eggs.

Heat a little olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the mustard seeds and toast for 10-15 seconds, stirring, then add the pepper and scallion and cook for about 2 more minutes. Add the garlic, saute for another minute, then add the mushrooms, salt, black pepper, and ñora pepper. Cook until the mushrooms just start to release a little liquid, then add the amaranth greens and saute until just wilted.

Pour in the eggs, turn heat down to medium low, and slowly stir the eggs in with the vegetables. They should set softly as you stir. I like to break one yolk, stir once and wait for a moment, then break the next. You want the white and yellow to still be distinct when it's done.

After a minute or two, the eggs will have set. Serve hot.

Serves 2 for breakfast.