White Bean Hash with Eggs

Breakfast is not a very sexy meal.  It's functional.  We wake up and eat eggs or oatmeal.  Sometimes it's cereal or a little fruit and yogurt.  None of these are the most inspiring dishes.  Though, I will give oatmeal and eggs some credit.  They can get pretty fancy.  Ever baked an egg inside an avocado?  Fancy.  But, in general, we eat breakfast to get our day started right and we go for as much bang for as little effort as possible. 

For the few times we might want a little more effort put into our breakfast, but not necessarily wanting to do it ourselves, there is the diner.  I love going to diners for breakfast.  I want pancakes. I want oversized omelets with a ton of ingredients.  I want eggs benedict over an English muffin. I want home fries. I want corned beef hash.  Hmmm.  I seem to want a lot of things, but everything always tastes so good at the diner!

The hash thing is something I've only recently come around to.  The idea of hash - random things thrown together - didn't really appeal to me.  Which, honestly, is pretty strange.  I have never shied away from weird things all thrown together in one pot.  However, I have always been in control of the weird choices, maybe that was the difference.  I need to be the arbiter of weird, not some anonymous diner chef.

So here we are.  This is my offering to the breakfast gods - a very unsexy and a little weird, kitchen and pantry throw together hash.

White Bean Hash with Eggs

 

Ingredients:

 

1 onion  - chopped
2 medium carrots - chopped
1 tomatoes - diced
1 can cannellini beans - rinsed and drained
Eggs - fried

Directions:

Heat some oil in a large skillet and cook onions until they are soft, about 7 minutes.  Add the carrots and cook another 7 minutes.

 

 

Add the diced tomatoes and cover.  Cook for about 10 minutes.  You want the tomatoes to soften up and almost create a sauce.

 

 

 

Add the cannellini beans, cover, and cook for an additional 10 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Now come the eggs.

 

 

I decided to cook the eggs with the hash still in the skillet.  If you wanted, you could transfer the hash to a bowl and then cook your eggs.  This hash is enough for 4 servings.

 

 

See...not sexy.  But... it made for a great weekend breakfast.  The combination of the beans and the eggs made this dish quite filling. It was a nice break from my typical fruit and oatmeal.

 



Eggs Florentine

I learned a new skill over the weekend - how to poach an egg.  Poaching an egg is no easy task; it is  incredibly fussy.  Of course that means I did not bother to practice awhile and get my technique down before taking on a recipe that required me to poach six eggs.  "Who practices?" She asks while she rolls her eyes at herself knowing full well that smart people practice.  Nope, you will be witnessing my first ever poaching attempt.  I warn you now, they were tasty but a few look pretty darn ugly. On the bright side, I officially knocked out two more of Maria Luisa's recipes and none of the yolks broke prematurely.

However, no Italian Cookbook Challenge posting would be complete without some sort of complaint.  Don't roll your eyes at me, you know you find my unnecessary anger hilarious.  There are 420 recipes in The Italian Cookbook.  I'm fine with that because I wholeheartedly believe that not only are there 420 Italian recipes worthy of being in a cookbook, there are likely a half dozen other recipes not included for every one that makes it in.  Therefore, I find it more than a little annoying that she gave space to a recipe entitled "Spinach in Butter."  Why?  Why must "Spinach in Butter" take up page space in this book?  Why couldn't she just include "saute spinach in butter" as part of the directions for all the recipes that required buttered spinach?  I love spinach, but this recipe does not deserve the two inches of real estate it took up on a 7 1/2 inch page. [Yes, I measured.]  That being said, you will still find the recipe below.  At this point, it would be plain unfair to not include it after ranting about it.

Spinach in Butter

Spinaci al Burro

[Disclaimer first...I am only giving you the Spinach in Butter recipe first because it is required as part of the first sentence in the Eggs Florentine directions.  These recipes are listed in order of necessity not importance.]

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs spinach

6 Tbsp butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Fill a large sauce pot with about an inch or two of water and add some salt.  Bring to a boil and then add the spinach.  Cover and cook for about 10 minutes.  Drain well.  Melt butter in a large saute pan and add cooked spinach.  Sprinkle on some salt and pepper.  Stirring occasionally, cook for about 5 minutes.  You want some of the excessive moisture to evaporate off.

Eggs Florentine

Uova alla Fiorentina

Ingredients:

6 lightly poached eggs

1 recipe Spinach in Butter

1/2 recipe Mornay Sauce

3 Tbsp Parmesan cheese - grated

pepper to taste

Directions:

Take the previously prepared spinach and place in a 9 x 9 baking dish.  Level the top with the back of a spoon and place the poached eggs on top.  I poached my eggs for 3 minutes each in simmering water.

Pour the Mornay Sauce on top and sprinkle with cheese.  At no point in these directions does she ever mention the "pepper to taste" ingredient.  I'm going to tell you to add some pepper here or maybe add it prior to the addition of the cheese and sauce.  You could also wait and crack some pepper on top after it's baked...whatever rocks you culinary world.

Bake for 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 350F.

I was a little worried that baking the eggs would cook the yolk completely, but they were still wonderfully runny when I finally pierced them with my fork.  While the poaching process was a little stressful, it was worth it in the end.  The next time I make breakfast for friends they might just find themselves feasting on this recipe.

Cooking with Dad

I definitely get my foundational cooking skills from my mother but, my comfort with just throwing things together and seeing what happens should be attributed to my father.  Most nights mom would be home with enough time to cook dinner or she would put something in the crock pot for us. However, every once in a while, we would be left to our own devices.

Coming from a family in which all of us cook, that was never an issue.  But, the results, that's where it gets interesting.  I remember two such instances where dad and I got experimental with the contents of the fridge and pantry.  One experiment turned out pretty great.  We aimed for meat sauce, we got something more along the lines of American Chop Suey.  Not surprising since we used about 2 pounds of ground meat to only one can of crushed tomatoes.  We threw in a few vegetables, shook in a few herbs, tossed it on top of some elbow macaroni, and called it complete.  I do remember getting the eyebrow from my father, the eyebrow that said "what will your mom think?"  We would not have been to high up on her list of favorite people if she found out we used 2 pounds of meat for an inedible dinner.  Luckily, that meal actually tasted good.  Experiment number two was a different story.

The take-away from Experiment 2?  Do not put orange juice into a hot saute pan.  All you get is an ugly sticky mess.  That mess was supposed to be sauce for the chicken breasts.  We started with the best of intentions and, if I remember correctly: orange juice, maple syrup, soy sauce, and some random spices.  I think we started off with the desire for something citrus with Asian flair.  The maple syrup comes in because maple syrup flows like water in that house and if it tastes good on kielbasa, why wouldn't it taste good on chicken.  It does taste good on chicken, just not when it's been added directly over the chicken while it's in a hot pan.  I also walked away with a health respect for pre-planning and marinades.  Oh, was that meal gross, edible, but gross.  We ate it though, we made it so we ate it.

Today's recipe is an homage to the throw together recipes of my youth and the way I cook for myself on a regular basis.



Step 1: Look in the fridge
Step 2: Look in the pantry
Step 3: Go back to the fridge and pull stuff out
Step 4: Go back to the pantry and pull other stuff out
Step 5: Put it all together
Step 6: Cross your fingers

Breakfast Lasagna

Get in the kitchen and get creative!