What's For Breakfast?
Recipe
Since it’s the first meal of the day, you might as well set yourself up for success!
Prep Time: About 30 mins each meal.
May 14, 2019 • By Seamus Mullen
I go back and forth on the idea of breakfast. I mean, for years we’ve been told it’s the most important meal of the day, but I don’t really agree with that. In fact I think it’s the most oversold meal of the day. If we look at breakfast from an evolutionary perspective, it’s a realitively new concept. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn’t eat three square meals a day, they feasted when they had a windfall and fasted when times were lean.
In the modern world we live in, where sugars and and simple carbs make up a huge part of our diet, it can be very hard to go long periods of time without eating. Our blood sugar dips, our energy levels drop and we reach for food. When I’m traveling, I’m always congnicent of my breakfast choices. In fact I had an early flight yesterday morning, I was at the airport and sussing up the options and if I wanted something that was low in refined carbs and wasn’t a pastry, baked goods thingy, I was totally out of luck. Zero option that didn’t have lots of bread or sugar. I think this is largely because when you get on the sugar rollercoaster, as most of us are, you gotta keep stoking the fire with more junk or the body just doesn’t want to function. So when I’m at the airport early in the morning, I tend to just skip it.
I am, however, a huge fan of eggs. And I’m a fan of making breakfast nutrient dense and nourishing, just like any other meal. After all, since it’s the first meal of the day, you might as well set yourself up for success! I love the idea of getting creative with savory breakfasts, making things that are a little outside of the breakfast comfort zone, but still tick all the right boxes. One of my new obsessions, actually it’s a throwback to an old obsession, is yucca. Yucca is a starchy tuber native to the Americas and it has a number of surprising health benefits. I like to think of it as a potato, only waaaaaaaaaaay better. Chief among it’s benefits are two things: 1) it’s a resistant starch, so it doesn’t hit your blood stream quickly and won’t cause an insulin spike, and 2) It’s delicious. There are a ton of other great things about it (antioxidants phenols like resveratrol, natural inflammatory suppressor, yada yucca yada), but I just like that it’s cool. And tasty. And inexpensive!
Make the batter ahead in batches and just use what you need to make a delicious and fancy schmancy savory pancake that will blow the doors off your breakfast game. Adding in healthy fats and proteins in the salsa verde and with the eggs makes this a powerhouse!
One of my other recent breakfast favorites is the Israeli dish, Shakshuka, or eggs baked in tomato sauce. To be completely honest, I always love the idea of Shakshuka and then if I order it in a restaurant, 99% of the time I’m totally dissappointed. The tomato sauce is thin on flavor and leaves me feeling less than amazing. HOWEVER conceptually I love Shakshuka. So this is a more vegetably-focused riff on the dish, incorporating some of my favorite flavors, including the anti-inflamatory power house, turmeric. The kale is a great addition that brings some more nutrients to the party, but feel free to add whatever veggies strike your fancy. Oh and if you don’t like feta cheese, try using goat cheese, or no cheese! Whatever you do, don’t skip on the fresh herbs, they bring a lot of freshness to the party. And every party can benefit from some freshness!
Slow-fried Eggs with Savory Yucca Pancake and Cilantro-Lime, Almond Salsa Verde
Yucca Pancake
Ingredients
½ pound yucca, peeled, boiled in salted water until soft and deveined
1 small shallot, quartered
1 clove garlic, chopped
3 tbsp cassava flour
¼ cup cilantro
1-1.5 cups of water
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 cup avocado oil
Method
1. Combine everything except oil and water in the Vitamix and puree into a sticky batter, slowly adding water until it has the consitency of a loose batter.
2. Heat the oil in a non-stick or seasoned cast-iron pan and add the batter, cooking until golden brown.
Eggs
Method
1. Meanwhile heat up 1 TBSP unsalted grassfed butter with 1 tsp of EVO over medium low heat and add the eggs once the butter begins to foam.
2. Cook until the eggs are just cooked through, about 7 minutes.
Ingredients
2 pastured organic eggs
1 TBSP unsalted grassfed butter
1 tsp EVO
Cilantro-lime, Almond Salsa Verde
Method
1. Combine all ingredients in the vitamix and pulse for 15 seconds until chunky.
2. Heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat until the butter begins to foam, then add the eggs and gently fry until the whites are cooked and the yolks are just barely set.
3. Serve the eggs over a yucca pancake and finish with a few dabs of salsa verde and some sprigs of cilantro.
Ingredients
2 cups cilantro, loosely packed
¼ cup dry roasted almonds
1 jalapeno, seeded
Juice of 4 limes
½ cup EVOO
Salt and pepper to taste
Baked Eggs, Carrot and Harissa Shakshuka, Kale and Feta
Eggs
Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 375 F. In a 7” oven proof dish or a skillet.
2. mix the shakshuka sauce with the kale, add two eggs and bake in the oven until the eggs are just cooked through, about 7 minutes.
3. Garnish with crumbled feta and fresh mint and cilantro.
Ingredients
3 pastured organic eggs
½ cup shakshuka sauce (see below)
1 cup chopped Tuscan kale
2 TBSP crumbled feta
cilantro and mint to garnish
Carrot and Harissa Shakshuka Sauce
Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 350F.
2. In a large sauce pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat and sweat the onions and garlic with the cumin seeds for 5 minutes until translucent.
3. Add the blanched carrots and harissa sauce and vinegar and season with salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes then transfer to the vitamix and puree until smooth. Set aside.
4. In a medium sized cast-iron pan, mix the shakshuka sauce and kale, then add the eggs and bake until the eggs are just set, about 7 minutes.
5. Garnish with crumbled feta, cilantro and mint and serve immediately.
Ingredients
½ pound carrots, peeled,
boiled in salted wateruntil soft then shocked in
an ice bath1 small shallot, quartered
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 TBSP harissa sauce
1 tsp black cumin
2 TBSP white wine vinegar
2 TBSP EVO
Salt and pepper to taste