Sunday Night Eggs

I am a big fan of eggs, unlike the hippie vegans I used to live with.  Mr. Tree (he was hitting 2 metres tall!) loved to tell me and anyone else who would listen that they were chicken abortions!  He lived on seaweed, tofu, potatoes, honey, peanut butter, soybeans and bread.  He was always hungry, let me tell you!  Frankly, I just think eggs are so delicious and useful.  Sorry to all the chooks out there.    

I do a bit of cooking for our neighbour, and I like to give her a 3-egg omelette each week.  I figure all that protein is fabulous for aged bones.  Mm, I guess I need to eat more eggs ...  

This recipe is from Belinda Jeffery's book In Belinda's Kitchen; it calls for chorizo with the eggs, but as Mr P. and I don't eat a lot of meat, I decided to go for mushrooms.  You gotta be careful with the 'shrooms these days; there have been several deaths here recently due to eating poisonous ones.  They were foraged, and deadly, and one woman is in jail accused of murdering her ex-in-laws!!

lots of flavour here

Serves 2 generously:

ingredients:

2 Tbs EV olive oil

2 medium red onions, diced

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 small red chilli, finely chopped

2 large red capsicums, chopped into small pieces

1 Tbs sun-dried tomato pesto or tomato paste

2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped

3/4 tsp sugar

1-2 Tbs red or white wine vinegar

200g./7 oz of mushrooms, diced small, or of chorizo, sliced thinly

3/4 tsp sea salt flakes

black pepper, to taste

2 Tbs green or black olives, sliced

4 large eggs (about 60g./2+ oz) 

basil or parsley, chopped, for garnish

Method:

Grab a medium frying pan, chuck in the oil and onion, and let it cook up for about 10 minutes over medium heat, giving it a stir now and then

In go the garlic and chilli, which you cook for a couple of minutes

Turn up the heat and throw in the capsicum/peppers, and stir for about 5 minutes

Whack in the pesto, tomatoes, sugar and vinegar; stir it in and cook for a few more minutes, with the occasional stir

Turn the heat down to low, cover the pan and let it cook away till the capsicum is tender (Belinda says 8-10 minutes)

Your diced mushies go in now, just for a few minutes till tender

Now stir in the salt, pepper and olives - add more vinegar if you wish

So grab a big spoon and make 4 egg-sized dents in the mixture, then break the eggs one by one into each of the dents

And cover the pan again, and let 'em cook gently away to your desired eggy-ness  (I like my yolks a bit runny, tho they ended up fairly set) - once again, Belinda says this will take about 8-10 minutes, though a bit less if you want 'em runny-ish

Throw on the chopped herbs, and serve with bread or as is!

Notes:

After squeezing out the seeds and juice from the tomatoes, I shove it all into a plastic bag, and into the freezer it goes for stews etc

Cook up the chorizo separately in a frying pan for 5 minutes if using, and place them into the veg. mixture at the end of cooking

squeeze out those seeds!

do some chopping

fry up the onion

and the capsicum

add the mushies

on go the eggs and the herbs

and down the hatch it goes (i.e. - ready to eat!)

(Joining in with Min from Write of the Middle blog for #WWWhimsy)

c. Sherry M.