Cooking with Mary: Breakfast. 3/2/14

I met my husband in 2011, and I have to say ever since we've officially been together, we've made breakfast together every Sunday (almost). So, the breakfast we make is always without toast, pancakes, waffles or anything regarding breaded breakfast foods, and we always stick to other types of starches, and heavier on the protein.

So we take a couple potatoes, dice them up and put them into a bowl--then put the bowl in the microwave for about 3-5 minutes. This will get the little potato chunks a little softer which will speed up the cooking time in your pan. Once you take the potatoes out of the microwave, put those chunks into a pan that has some kind of oil in it that's been heated up. We use olive oil almost always.

We use our cast iron pants almost religiously, we love them. We usually add onions, green peppers and sometimes tomatoes to our little potato hash. And cook them to your preference- soft or a little crunchy

Now on to the bacon-- I said I love bacon! I usually buy GF bacon, most bacon is GF, but sometimes you have to be careful because the additives they sometimes add to store bought meat. Again check your labels! Then I put it in the other cast iron pan that we own, you really can put it in any sort of pan suitable for bacon, its just my preference. We also have something called a "bacon press"& I use it for more than just bacon. It's a great tool to have if you like quesadilla's and other grilled items. (I'll show you a GF quesadilla in a later post) The bacon press, does exactly what it's called, it presses bacon. But the really cool part is that it keeps your bacon flat, so it doesn't oddly curl up, it cooks it from both sides so you don't have to flip it, and it helps prevent splash back and getting burned. You can buy one for 20 bucks or less from any kitchen store. But it does get messy by your 3rd or 4th go around with bacon because the grease level increases. So just a hint, to have a separate paper towel set up so you don't get grease all over your counter when you're getting your bacon out of the pan.

Then the eggs. I wanted to include a section on making omelets because a lot of time when I say "I made an omelet for breakfast" people look at me funny and accuse me of being fancy. Which is silly, omelets are easy to make it just takes some patients and practice.

So I start with 3 cracked eggs. 3 is the number I like because it makes the omelet a little more sturdy when its time to flip, I also just have way to many eggs in my fridge at the moment.

& beat the eggs

Put it in a greased pan (I use a little bit of butter) thats not too wide, because the wider the pan the thinner the eggs and the harder it will be to flip, It's possible, but just harder. I then add however much salt and pepper I'm feeling. Then I wait. Another thing you can do, if you actually want veggies and things mixed into the egg and not just sandwiched in the middle, this would be the point where you'd add it to your eggs. Just remember if you do this, it can rip easier from all the extra weight in the actual egg.

You then start slowly pulling back the sides and letting the raw egg move to the outside, & you keep doing that until theres not very much raw egg moving around on the top. If you pick up the pan and its slushing all over the pan, then keep slowly pulling back. Always pull from the outside ring of the egg in towards the center. & I say do it slowly and carefully because if the eggs rip then you won't get to flip it in one piece. & when that happens I usually just turn it into scrambled eggs....

and once its flipped, you can add whatever sort of insides. I usually add things like tomatoes, or turkey from the deli but today, I didn't have those things in my fridge. So just a little bit of cheese.