Colorful Egg Omelette by Hari (a friend of spicetruck)

Spicetruck 'fan', a great cook and my good friend Hari Swarup shared his recent breakfast:

two homegrown chicken eggs (locally bought in State College PA), dill, sliced cherry tomatoes, homegrown basil (starter potted plant from Trader Joe's), crushed red pepper and salt.

Cooked a low-medium heat with ~ 1 tsp butter.

Cooked eggs topped with lightly roasted cherry tomatoes, basil, dill and crushed red pepper flakes. Pic credit: Hari Swarup, State College PA

Simply Avocado Toast

A very simple but color avocado based breakfast sandwich (open faced). Add a fried egg to it and you have a near complete breakfast!

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado
little bit of a red or orange bell pepper
half a peeled n sliced cucumber
2 slices rye toast
salt
pepper
Optional: Fried egg add on.

Fry an egg in a skillet and keep ready. Toast the rye bread slices. Lay flat on plate. Cut and scoop out avocado fruit, mash is down with a spoon and spread it. Add assorted veggies on to other side.

Fresh Avocado, red pepper, cucumber slices on rye toast.
add salt and pepper to spice it up

This is from a dinner sandwich I made a few days, when I felt like eating breakfast type food for dinner!
Add some spicy salsa to complement it

Egg Veggie Cups

I call them Egg Veggie cups, some others call them egg muffins.  Eggs make for great breakfast material. If you want to have a protein-rich breakfast low in carbs, then go for these egg "muffins" - You can make them from few ingredients and they form an easy bite to gran for busy mornings.

   

 Ingredients
Eggs - 10 (you can also use egg whites alone or remove a certain no of yolks to adjust for color/cholesterol preferences). - break the eggs into a bowl, whisk them lightly.
Onions - chopped to 1/4 inch or fine.
Red bell peppers - chopped fine.
Spinach - chopped up.
Green chilis (for a spicy kick) - chopped fine Optional.
Cheese - shredded cheese - optional.
Cilantro leaves for seasoning.- chopped fine.

In addition to these you can also add chopped broccoli or carrots.

  

So.. how did the final product come out? Wait till the end!

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Saute the vegetables in a skillet and season with cilantro and keep ready. Onions first, peppers/carrots/broccoli  next, Add green chilis after the onions, add the spinach last and do not sautee for more than 3 mins total.
3. Grease the muffin pan or baking pan with thin layer of oil or cooking spray.
4. Add a spoonful of sauteed vegetables to each muffin cup.
5. Pour tablespoon of the whisked egg mixture so that the muffin cup is 1/3rd to1/2 filled.
6. Sprinkle cheese and load tray into preheated oven. 
7. Bake for 20-25 mins or until eggs are set. 
8. Take out pan, and after letting pan cool a bit, use a spoon to press the baked egg from the circumference at 3-4 points, then it will release more easily and come out.
9. Allow to cool and store in refrigerator (4-5 days) or freeze.
10. To reheat, wrap in foil and heat in a toaster over for 4-5 mins or use skillet. Microwave might make it soggy but you can do it as last resort heating technique.

Speed/Laz-E tip: 1) Use liquid eggs
2) Use assorted frozen vegetabes, microwave them then lightly saute them in a pan over a spoon of oil.

  

If you dont like to deal with muffin pans..you can make them in a larger pan and cut into rectangular blocks or be creative - cut them to different shapes using cookie cutting tools or other shapes.

Update (/1/201) - See also this site: http://www.macheesmo.com/breakfast-sandwiches/

Revolution in the Egg Industry (Plant Protein)

A new development of plant protein based egg-substitutes brings about the idea of egg-free eggs!

Fast Company, the magazine company for entrepreneurs, also runs other ventures are coexist, co create and co lead. One of those, co.exist, has a neat story on egg substitutes (Beyond Eggs egg-substitute) that can take place of eggs in lot of processed foods that are still consumed in huge quantities (like mayonnaise)

http://www.fastcoexist.com/mba/1681440/you-cant-tell-that-this-new-cheap-egg-substitute-is-made-from-plants

Below are excerpts from the Fast Co.Exist article.

 "Our food system is abysmally broken," says Josh Tetrick, CEO of San Francisco-based Hampton Creek Foods, maker of the Beyond Eggs egg-substitute. "It’s not about the morality of eating animals or not. It’s about the conditions that a lot of these animals are raised in. These hens are kept inside a cage for two years, pumped full of feed and antibiotics, and it’s just cruel. We don’t all have to stop eating eggs. But we should ask if we want to participate in that."

Tetrick’s team has deconstructed the egg, analyzed its 22 special functions, and replicated it with plant-stuffs like sunflower lecithin, canola, peas, and natural gums from tree sap. By all accounts, the substitute tastes just like the real thing--even if it doesn’t look like it. It’s sold as a gray-green powder that you need to hydrate before use.

NYT Opinion Column About the Egg Industry

Nicholas Kristof - who write on many topics for the New York Times, just wrote an opinion column about eggs and the egg industry - in the light of an upcoming expose to be revealed by the Humane Society.

In that, he describes the observations of an undercover worker at a large commercial egg farm and processing facility, which describes the unsanitary and unsafe conditions at the factory farm.

One thing we do an "modern human beings" is that a lot of us eat eggs, meat and dairy on a daily basis (in fact on multiple occasions in the same day). This is vastly different from the ancient humans who had to literally hunt for food. They got more exercise and their diet was more regulated. Now, we sit around more (like I am doing right now) and we eat more! wow....

No wonder health care  is a huge problem - when prevention is not practiced much but pills and knives (and lasers) are seen as panacea.


Good diet (ie reducing meat/animal product intake to twice a week and increasing plant based food to a higher frequency, coupled with exercise should improve over all health fast enough. If you are asking me for scientific proof - I will just say this - please join the study group - not as a control, but as the study subject! And we'll find out for ourselves soon :)