Free-style Cooking

It’s almost lunchtime. You’re in quarantine. What do you have for lunch?

One of my core values is to replace fear in the kitchen with curiosity and joy. From my perspective, this happens as you experiment and are willing to make mistakes. Please, PLEASE don’t pick an important dinner party for 20 people as one of your first opportunities to experiment. Too much pressure and unknowns. You’ll end up focusing more on your food than your guests.

When Vicki (my wife) is away or when I’m at home for lunch, I like to experiment with different foods and flavors using what I have at home. And, wasting food? Not my favorite thing to do.

So, I head to the kitchen for my own version of the Food Network show “Chopped.” It helps to have a few good basics. In my kitchen, onions are a must. I love to keep some green stuff – herbs, spinach, broccoli. We’ve got 17 hens hard at work laying some of the most beautiful and tasty farm fresh eggs — one of my favorite ingredients for lunch.

Hens at the @WilsonFamilyFrm

Today, I decided to make fried eggs over easy on a toasted bagel with Colby cheese. What made this a little special was a fresh sprig if rosemary.

Ingredients

2 eggs, fried sunny-side up
1 whole wheat bagel, toasted
6 thin slices of Colby cheese
Sweet onions, sliced thinly
Black olives, sliced
2 TB Duck fat
2 TB Butter
Fresh sprig of rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh seasonal fruit (optional)

Directions

  1. Warm cast iron skillet.
  2. Slice onions and black olives.
  3. In a warm cast iron skillet, add butter and duck fat.
  4. Add onions.
  5. A few minutes later, add the black olives.
  6. Sauté until onions are translucent.
  7. Group half of the onions and half of the black olives on opposite sides of the skillet.
  8. Crack eggs and put one on top of each pile of onions and olives. Salt and pepper.
  9. Put both halves of the bagel in a toaster.
  10. Slice Colby cheese.
  11. When the bagels are toasted, add a little butter and lay 3 slices of cheese on each bagel.
  12. When the eggs are done, carefully remove them from the pan and lay them on top of the cheese.
  13. Add a small sprig of rosemary on top of each egg.
  14. Add fruit.
  15. Top with a little fresh cracked pepper.

What will you experiment with today?

prjeffwilson