Easy Breakfast Skillet

I've been terrible at keeping up with this blog lately and I apologize.  I've been working a lot and any time I get any free time, I have to do laundry, clean, or go to a practice for either tennis, softball, or soccer.  I typically don't get home from any of my activities or job until after 7 and by that time, it's dark and there's no point taking pictures of food because they look like crap.  Josh has also been gone a lot this month so being alone, I don't feel like cooking nice meals anyway. 

I managed to cook a decent breakfast one day when I didn't go in to work so early last week.  It's one of my easy favorites that I usually make when I have a bunch of veggies about to go bad or just lying around because it's very forgiving as far as ingredients go.

This is how I made mine: 2 servings, 30 min

2 tbs olive oil
3-4 decent-sized red potatoes, chopped into 1/2" cubes
1 small sweet onion, chopped
1/4 red bell pepper, chopped
1/4 orange bell pepper, chopped
1/4 yellow bell pepper, chopped (or about 1 small red bell pepper if you don't have the others)
2 jalapenos, seeded and minced
5-7 slices low-sodium turkey bacon, chopped (optional)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbs fresh chopped parsley
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste

2 eggs (optional)

 

Start by whipping out your cast iron skillet (that's why it's called a "breakfast skillet") and heating the oil over medium-high heat.  Add the onions and potatoes and let them cook until the onions are juuuuuust starting to get translucent.

While the potatoes are cooking, chop your peppers.  When the skillet contents are ready, add the peppers and give it a stir.

Add a pinch of salt and pepper to the mix and let cook another 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure the potatoes get cooked evenly and nothing is getting burnt to the bottom of the pan.

When the potatoes are almost completely tender, add the garlic, bacon, parsley, and cumin.  Stir to combine and let cook until the garlic is very fragrant and the potatoes are soft.  If you want, you can use regular bacon but add it to the pan at the beginning with the onions and potatoes and only use 1 tbs oil.  It's quite a bit greasier than my bacon so it'll lube the pan up all by itself once the fat renders out.

Oh goodness, smell that garlic!  Add a touch more salt if you think it's necessary.  You must taste throughout the process to get the right flavors!

While your skillet is finishing up, get a pot of salted water boiling.

I have these cute little egg poachers from my personal Heaven, Crate and Barrel.  I've tried many times to poach eggs the old-fashioned way but it's very difficult to get right without having boiled egg ribbons all over your pot so go ahead and spend the $4 to get one.  It's totally worth it.

Boil the eggs until the whites are almost completely opaque.  I found myself needing to use a spoon to flip the egg over in its little cup to properly cook the top.

What you end up with is a relatively quick, healthy, hearty breakfast that will keep you full well past when you think you should be eating lunch.  That's always a plus for me.  Cereal or smoothies sometimes just don't do it and I'm hungry an hour later.

Not so in this case.

The egg puts that perfect finishing touch on this dish.  When you split it open and the gooey yolk spills out over the potatoes and veggies, it adds this wonderful softness and creaminess to an otherwise rather business-like meal.  You can easily make this dish vegetarian by leaving out the bacon and egg, but what's life without bacon?  Yeah, that's what I thought.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I used to only grudgingly eat bananas when my dad told me I needed to eat them before playing soccer.  Something about being told to do it made this otherwise delicious fruit not taste good.  Now that I decide for myself what to eat, I love bananas.  Sometimes I buy too many though (as many of you may have done as well), and they start to get brown and soft.  Even though they aren't so perfect anymore for peeling and eating, they are perfect for baking. I found this recipe in its original form in Food & Wine.  Like I do, I changed out the white flour for whole grain and the sugar for honey.  The only things you need to change when making this substitution are to lower your oven temp a little and use about 25% less honey since it's sweeter than sugar.  The honey caramelizes more than sugar so the final product will be darker in color but not at all burnt so don't worry.  I also used dark chocolate because I like how the delicate bitterness tones down the sweetness of the rest of the ingredients. 

Makes 36 muffins:
2 cups mashed overripe bananas (about 6)
1 cup honey
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs
2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (10 oz or almost a full bag)

Mix the dry ingredients (besides the chocolate) in a bowl and set aside.

Mash the bananas in a mixing bowl until smooth.

 Mix in the butter, honey, and eggs.

 Then slowly add the dry mix until smooth.  You may need to scrape down the sides from time to time.

Add the chocolate chips and hand mix until thoroughly incorporated.  

Fill your muffin cups almost to the top since these don't rise much.

 Bake at 325 degrees for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Josh and I both have a bad habit of eating these before they're cooled properly.  We have the burns to prove it.  It's just so hard to resist chocolate chips all melty and fresh out of the oven!

Josh loves these muffins for breakfast.  This particular batch only lasted 3 days just between the two of us because he took about half of them out to a multi-day field job and barely ate anything else.  I can't really blame him.  All the guys at the site ever buy for the crews is pizza and fried crap.  Even still, these muffins are amazing and if he hadn't taken them away, I would have scarfed them up for myself.  It's dog-eat-dog in our house with my cooking.  If it's yummy, you'd better eat it before someone else does.  Maybe that's why we can't seem to lose weight...oh well.  I don't make the muffins every day so they're a nice treat.  They're whole grain and use honey and bananas instead of sugar so there are way worse things you could snack on.  Enjoy!