The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Egg in a Nest

Had your breakfast yet?  You should - most important meal of the day, they say. 

Weekday mornings it's usually a quick affair for the kids and Bill - oatmeal or cereal, or sometimes scrambled eggs or even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

But it doesn't really take that long to do something a bit more fun with the eggs, and my kids love them this way.

Egg in a nest - goes by other names as well.  The fun part about this is if you've got cookie cutters (and we all know I do) you can vary the theme from time to time.  Trust me - it's a little thing, but it's a big deal to the almost-4 to almost-6 year old set. 

This morning I decided to cut out bunny shapes.

All you do, is get a piece of bread and a cookie cutter that will cut out a shape and still leave a sturdy outline of bread all the way around.

Cut out your shapes, being careful to get all the little corners and crevices if you can, so the cut-out looks like what it's supposed to.

Heat up a griddle or frying pan and melt some butter in it (butter adds flavor)...then lay all your bread pieces down (if they all fit - you can also work in batches.  If you are, do the inner shapes first.)

Once they start to brown a bit on the underside, pour in your eggs.

Once the bread starts to brown...

Flip them all over - use care when you're flipping the egg-filled bread so nothing falls out and breaks.

Cook just enough to set the white on the other side (we're an over-easy family here) and then serve.  When you plate them, you want to flip them back over so the "prettier" side is face-up.

(You'll note the darker bunny on the left, the lighter bunny on the right - I sometimes forget to lower the setting on the power burner in the front part of my stove - things above it cook faster.)

Anyway - success this morning - happy, breakfast-eating children!

Breakfast can be fun!  (Okay, yeah, I sound like a nut.)

Corned Beef Project: Day 11 - Corned Beef Hash

There's a small restaurant in Chepachet, RI called, simply, The Harmony Restaurant.  My husband discovered it years ago when he was teaching part-time in the area, and I remember he was very impressed with their breakfasts (though not so much with the coffee, or the heavy smoking that was allowed in the restaurant back then.)  I've been there with him a number of times over the years, and I have to agree - they really do breadfast up right.  Generous portions, fluffy pancakes, eggs done perfectly, and amazing corned beef hash.  Corned beef hash that someone there actually made.  Someone spent a bit of time and care on this dish, and it shows.  Their corned beef hash has a creamy texture, as opposed to the stuff you get in a can (and at some other restaurants). 

I wanted to make corned beef hash like this.  Or better.  And I don't know - I'm not all that good at self-promotion - but I think I make a mean corned beef hash.  You could ask my husband, but he had some (too much) for breakfast this morning and he's still in a blissful coma.

Anyway, here's what I do.

First - I make corned beef a day or two before.  It's kind of essential.  And potatoes - cooked with the corned beef if possible.  Or baked.  But cooked before the morning you plan to make the hash.

Also, a green bell pepper.  And an onion.  Some butter.  Salt (not a lot) and pepper.  That's about it.

Here's how I make it:

Preheat the oven to 375.

Cut up the green pepper.

Chop up an onion.

Heat a large pan on medium high and melt some butter in it, and then toss in the pepper and onion and saute

until the onion starts to brown a little bit.

While that's happening, get out your leftover potatoes from the Corned Beef and Boiled Vegetable dinner you made a couple of nights ago and dice up the potatoes.

When the onions and peppers are looking good, add in the potatoes and sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.

Let that cook while you slice and shred the corned beef.  Then add the shredded beef to the vegetable mixture.

When everything has been heated through, shut off the heat and remove about half of the corned beef and vegetable mixture and - in batches - run it through a food processor until it's approaching the consistency of mashed potatoes.  Add that all back to the pan.

If you look at the picture below, you can see the pureed portion on the top/left...and the rough cut portion on the right/bottom.

Now work the two sections together with a wooden spoon or fork or spatula until well blended.  You should see smooth areas and chunky areas.

Press all that down evenly in the pan and top with about a tablespoon of butter, broken into bits.  Put the lid on the pan and place the whole thing in the oven for about 15 minutes.  When the timer goes off, remove the lid and let it cook a bit more while you cook the eggs (if you're having eggs with your corned beef hash, and really, I can't imagine why you wouldn't, as they are meant to be together). 

We usually have the eggs either over easy or poached.  Today I went the over easy route.  I also warmed up some leftover bread from the Corned Beef dinner extravaganza and served that, too.

Like so:

 

This is not a breakfast to have on a day you need to bustle about and accomplish a lot. 

This is a breakfast for a day of leisure. 

A day of reading the paper and making some more coffee or tea.

 

And maybe a nap, if you can get away with it.

Breakfast in the Barefoot Kitchen

On weekends, I'll make something pancakes or french toast or an omelet - it's a much more relaxed time, so I don't mind cooking something special to order.

But on weekdays, there's not really enough time for that, so it's usually something quicker like oatmeal or cereal or eggs or Alex's personal favorite - a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich.  Or - "SAHMwich" as he sometimes snootily refers to it.  I don't know why. 

So that's what he had this morning.  And while I was spreading peanutbutter (Teddy, Old-Fashioned, Smooth) I thought I'd like some toast and peanutbutter with my coffee, too.  So I put a slice of bread in the toaster, brought Alex his SAHMwich, and sat down on the loveseat in the living room with my coffee.  Bill and Alex were sitting together in the slightly over-sized chair we have, watching the lizards and discussing what the native peoples of Alaska and parts north dine on.  Seals, fish, whales, etc.  Whatever they can get to eat.  And that led to a discussion of whether or not it's bad to eat other animals (* and please - this is just a little snippet of my morning, not an invitation to debate whether or not it's right to eat other living creatures.  This is not the place.)...and that led to a discussion about whether animals that eat OTHER animals are bad or not.  (General consensus - not.)

And while we were sitting around having this conversation, I got my camera, because Alex is really very cute when he's eating.  He just enjoys his food.  And I have taken a lot of pictures of Julia "Palsy-Face" Rose lately, so I figured I should balance things out with some shots of Alex.

Here's one.

When Alex eats a SAHMwich, he is very organized about it.  He goes straight across the cut edge of the bread, then back to the beginning, and across, and so on.  Occasionally he will pause to inspect his work, and then he'll get back to the task at hand.

While this was going on, and Bill was holding up his coffee mug because he doesn't like having his picture taken (I told him I wasn't interested in him, but in Alex, and that persuaded him to lower the mug.), we kept hearing two things - one was Julia speaking in a few different voices upstairs, obviously playing with a few of her million babies before joining the rest of the family.  The other sound was a brief hum coming from the kitchen - like something was turning on briefly and then off again.  Maybe the icemaker...maybe there were ice cubes stuck and they were jamming up the works.  That happens occasionally.  Whatever.  We've got dragons to talk about.  Are they bad?  No.  They are just doing what dragons do.  But they're not real anyway, so it's kind of a moot point.

And then something clicked in my slushy brain, and I went into the kitchen and realized, ah, my toast is ready.

Now, most people have a preference as to how dark or light they want their toast.  I vary, depending on the kind of bread, and whether or not I'm going to put butter or peanutbutter or butter and jam or what on the toast. 

But this morning was different.  I let the psychotic toaster decide.  And the toaster chose this:

 

Yes.  It's called "Blackened Bread" and if you like the cleansing effects of carbon on your teeth and innards, this is the toast for you.  If you like your toast extra crispy, look no further. 

Not everyone can achieve this level of cinder-like perfection.  I mean look at the even blackness over the entire surface of the bread, with that sad hint of brown reaching out from deep within the tiny nooks and crannies.

 

It helps to have a toaster that doesn't work properly any more.  The timing mechanism is broken, so when you're toasting something, the little knob just stays wherever you've set it, and the heat just comes on and stays on.  Forever.  Or until smoke is pouring out and someone finally realizes that OH, S***! - she was going to make toast this morning!   (Normally I set the oven timer when I am going to toast something, but this morning I was distracted by the food conversation in the other room.  Yes, I'm an idiot.)

I left the little toaster oven door closed and opened the back door so I could fan as much smoke out of the house as possible.  Bill disconnected the two smoke detectors near the kitchen and opened a window.  My eyes should stop stinging by mid-morning, I think.  I lit a candle to battle the smell.  It's not working yet.  Bill gratefully escaped to work, and the kids retreated to the basement to watch Curious George a bit before school.  And I, of course, took pictures.

Blackened Bread.  An exciting start to any morning.