Polish Cowboy Breakfast

My last post got me reminiscing about the scramble of my childhood, “Cowboy Breakfast”. This week I decided to make it. I made it on a morning that I had a day off so that I could spend time savoring the meal. I put some olive oil in a pan, started the potatoes and got the rest of my ingredients together. I made sure to leave the skin on the potatoes to add flavor. I when I went to the freezer for some bacon I was stopped in my tracks, kielbasa sausage! It was low fat turkey kielbasa but still savory and tender. Tasty enough that you wonder what kind of chemicals and fake food to which you are exposing yourself. No longer am I making the cowboy breakfast of childhood I am making “Polish Cowboy Breakfast”. Choosing between pork can be a rough decision but I chose correctly. Just reinforces that improvisation can bring you pleasant surprises.





olive oil not shown



Polish Cowboy Breakfast Recipe

Time: 30 min
Servings 1-2

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 small or medium potato cut into half-inch pieces
1 tbls olive oil
3 inches of kielbasa sausage
Salt and pepper to taste.

Heat oil in a skillet with a lid on medium heat. Cut potato, cook in skillet moving potatoes as little as possible (maybe four stirs) until brown, and tender (10 minutes). Cut kielbasa into bite sized pieces put in skillet and heat until warm. Add eggs and scramble until done. Add Salt and pepper to suit your taste.

Vegetable Scramble

There are some evenings that you do not really feel like spending a lot of time cooking your dinner. This is where eggs come in. Eggs are quick, easy, and can be made many different ways. My favorite way to make eggs is to scramble them, they are easy and as long as they don’t get burnt then everyone is happy. My favorite way to eat them is to fry them but I do not make fried often because frying an egg at 5:30 in the morning is not an appealing task. The other night after eating chicken for the past week, we decided to have eggs for dinner. We had some vegetables that we wanted to fill out the eggs. Some people would say to make a frittata but we do not have an oven safe skillet. My answer to that is a scramble.

A scramble is where you cook the scrambled eggs with the precooked fixings. Growing up my favorite breakfast was when my mom use to make what we called cowboy breakfast. Cowboy breakfast was a scramble made with country style potatoes and bacon. Every time I eat that meal, it brings me back to Saturday mornings around the breakfast table with my folks and siblings. It seemed to be always sunny and we usually had orange juice and pancakes or toast. Alas, no bacon of childhood in this scramble, but this is still a great meal.

Vegetable Scramble Recipe

Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 1

2 eggs beaten
4 stalks Asparagus woody parts removed and cut into bite sized pieces
4 button mushrooms sliced
2 tbls diced red peppers
Salt and pepper to taste


Heat a nonstick pan sprayed with Pam over medium-high heat. Sauté all vegetables until tender. Add eggs to vegetables and cook until done. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with toast if desired

Strawberry and Blueberry Crepes

Recently I had a little bit of time so I decided to make some crepes.  The crepe recipe I used is adapted from basic Crepe Recipe in the first edition of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.   The recipe made one dozen crepes, so I made a quarter of a recipe since I was cooking for just myself.  Since I had never made a crepe before I had to get the technique down.  I did not have the a crepe pan so i used a nonstick skillet. The second of my three crepes was the best.  The first crepe was too thick because the batter was not runny enough.   I added about a tablespoon of water to the remaining batter so the second crepe was beautiful. The third crepe was lumpy because I poured the excess batter from the second crepe out of the pan back into the bowl so there was partially cooked batter in my batter bowl. 

I wanted a rolled crepe with filling inside so I decided I would use berries.  Strawberries are something that thinks I could eat at every meal.  They are the first place I head towards in the store.  I was not sure how to make the filling so I decided to blend the fruit in the blender.  This made fruity syrup but I wanted some more chunks so I put some cut strawberries and the syrup in a pan on the stove to heat it all up. 

Once the fruit was warm, I put the chunks inside the crepe and rolled it up.  Drizzled the some syrup on the top of the crepe and finished with a dollop of whipped cream on top.  The flavors were great together the fruit was just sweet enough to cut the tartness of the fruit without the meal tasting like I was eating at IHOP.

Strawberry Blueberry Crepes Recipe
Crepe recipe that highlights the fruit and not just the sugar.

Time: 45 min

Servings:  1 (2 or 3 Crepes)

9 small strawberries

¼-cup blueberries

1 tsp of sugar

¼-cup flour

¼-cup milk

One medium egg white

1 tsp canola oil or melted and then cooled butter

Dash of salt

Water

whisk flour, milk, egg white,oil and salt together. If you still have lumps, it is ok.  check the consistency of the batter, it should be thin enough to run thinly across a pan when tipped. If it is too thick, add water a teaspoon at a time. let set while you make the filling. 

Wash,core and slice strawberries putting half into a blender and setting half aside. Wash blueberries, remove stems, and put half into blender.   Blend fruit until smooth. You can run the pure through a strainer to remove seeds but it is not necessary. Transfer to small saucepan and put on medium heat.  Add remaining fruit and sugar to the pan and heat to simmer and remove from heat. 

Heat an eleven-inch non-stick or buttered skillet on medium heat. Otherwise, grease the pan with butter, oil or cooking spray.  Once pan is hot, pour ¼ cup of the batter into the pan and tilt the pan to cause the batter to cover the entire bottom of the pan.   Pour the batter that does not set right away out of the skillet and let what does not pour out cook until the underside is brown. Flip and let the second side brown, remove and stack on a plate and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm.

Build crepes by spooning filling on to crepe and roll like a burrito.  Top with more filling and whipped cream.