I was having a conversation with Mike yesterday about a CSA customer last year who, towards the end of the season, insisted we keep her Kale. Too much! – she said. I can’t eat any more greens!
I find this slightly comical, and I do not mean to disrespect any of our CSA customers (or otherwise) who hate the taste of swiss chard and kale. When my parents started introducing us to dark leafy greens circa 2003, I thought they were slightly nuts and could barely scoff down two bites of the stuff.
Looking back, I refer to those years as the dark years – before I discovered the incredibly versatile and delicious nature of dark greens, before I knew that their nutrient profile was like nature’s multivitamin, and before I realized that they were the perfect complement to my morning eggs.
In light of this, I’ve decided to start a new series to give all you leafy-green nay-sayers some nutritional inspiration in the morning to easily incorporate your dark leafy greens. I’ll typically go through one bunch of kale/swiss chard in a morning, and then have more later in the day if I’m feeling wild. Some caution should be taken:
1. I eat a ridiculous amount of food, and thus what is ample for me is probably going to surpass the content capacity of your stomach 3 fold (ask Mike, I could eat him under the table any day).
2. I also bike roughly 15 miles a day for transport, and spend several days a week doing heavy labor on the farm, so reiterate point 1.
3. I try to steer away from gluten as it makes my tummy uncomfortable (will not disclose further details for your own good) so all of these breakfasts are egg-based. I will try to mix in a fair bit of vegetarian options, but most are pretty adaptable to personal dietary preferences/restrictions. I also am a full believer in saturated fat from good quality animal sources, so if you are not, these breakfasts will not serve as much inspiration.
4. I am crazy.
So, today’s breakfast is:
Scrambeled Egg Skillet with Pan-fried potatoes, wilted arugula, and (of course) Bubba Goat Cheese (made with milk from the one and only Bubbles the Goat!)
3 small-ish potatoes, diced into 1/4 inch pieces (think red-gold size, although I used a combo of peter wilcox, adirondack reds, and yukon gems, just the smaller ones)
1 clove garlic (I prefer the milder soft neck variety we carry in the stand for quick cooking, harder neck is good for roasts)
1/4 lb arugula, cleaned and roughly chopped
3 eggs – the good kind.
salt/pepper if it’s your thing
1 tbsp good quality butter (I use kerrygold)
Goat Cheese to taste.
Very rough directions:
Melt butter and saute potatoes on low heat for about 15 minutes (if you’re impatient, which I usually am, you can turn up the heat and cook them less time, they just often tend to burn or cook unevenly). The smaller the chop, the faster they cook, so if you’re in a real hurry you can shred em. Or, sometimes when I’m feeling prepared I’ll cook a batch at the beginning of the week. If I don’t eat them all at once, they make breakfasts super fast. Add the garlic in about 5 minutes into potato cooking process. Keep low heat so the garlic doesn’t burn. Add chopped arugula once the potatoes are 99% cooked just to quickly wilt it. Once wilted, throw in the eggs and salt. Once eggs are evenly cooked, serve and top with fresh goat cheese. I never mix the goat cheese in because I feel like it masks the flavor too much, and goat cheese is yum.
A picture:
Ugh, I just remembered I have leeks in my fridge and those would have made a phenomenal addition. Breakfast fail.
This is what I made for one person. You could easily divide this by 2 if you’re smaller people or eat more human-size breakfasts. Or you could double it for the family breakfast in the morning.
Happy Sunday everyone, and happy breakfasting!