The Anything Egg Scramble

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I call this the “Anything Egg Scramble” because you can put just about whatever you want in it (or whatever you have). The only essential ingredient really is….eggs. So technically you can just have an egg scramble. But that’s not what makes this taste so outrageous and be potentially healthy and filling. The key is to bulk up your scrambled eggs with vegetables and possibly some meat.

In the recipe shown below I’m using specific vegetables. Why? Cause that’s what was in the fridge! And I was hungry. As you learn to cook, try to catch the basic idea and then riff off of that to make something unique and tasty.

For vegetables, the following (in just about any combination) make for some nice egg scrambles:

A nice thing to use is a left over baked potato cut into 1/2″ chunks. If you want potato but don’t have them baked, then just stick it in the microwave for a few minutes until soft.

Adding a little meat makes it delicious too, but slightly less healthy. Bacon or ham are always fitting. However, a nice spicy pepperoni, hot italian or chorizo sausage is killer (if you like spicy). I don’t think I’ve ever used chicken or beef, but hey…whatever you’re into. I’m not gonna judge. Just put it in the pan and fry it up!

Then there is cheese. Now my eldest daughter hates cheese. No seriously. Some people are freaked out by clowns, she’s freaked out by cheese. For the rest of humanity who loves cheese, there pretty much isn’t a soft cheese you can go wrong with in your Anything Egg Scramble. American cheese is the safest, but shredded cheddar is outrageous. My wife likes feta. Me? Not so much. Experiment. The only thing I would avoid is hard cheese because it doesn’t melt very well and might be a bit strong smelling.

One of the keys to cooking is knowing how long each ingredient takes relative to the other ingredients. Another important thing to know is that you don’t have to cook everything at the same time. Take broccoli for example. It takes a pretty long time to cook in a frying pan relative to the other vegetables. You can speed things along a bit by sprinkling in some water onto the hot pan of broccoli and letting it flash to steam. That steam rapidly cooks the broccoli and tenderizes it. You want to do that with no other ingredients in the pan. So to do that you cook the broccoli by itself. When it’s done, you take it out of the pan and set aside in a bowl and get to work on cooking the other ingredients. When they’re all done you can combine them again in the frying pan. So simple. No stress.

Scrambles are even easier if you cut up the ingredients and store them in the fridge so when you get up and make your breakfast at O’dark-thirty all you have to do is take the ingredients out of the fridge, throw them in a pan and fry em up (technically “sauté”). If you do that kind of prep in advance, then the Anything Egg Scramble can be a quick and filling breakfast for you. So follow along below, but don’t get hung up on the specific ingredients I use. Experiment. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

Recipe:

1. Heat a tablespoon of butter or oil in a non-stick frying pan.
2. Cut broccoli florets into chunks and sauté (fry) in the frying pan until crisp but cooked. (Optional: Sprinkle a bit of water after they are browned a bit to steam them and cook quicker.) When cooked, remove broccoli from pan and set aside.
3. Dice onion and green pepper and sauté in pan with a little more butter or oil. Cook until pepper is soft and onion translucent. When cooked, remove from pan and set aside.
4. Cut zucchini into 1/2″ chunks. Saute until soft and set aside.
5. Add bacon or other breakfast meat cut into bite sizes to the pan and brown or heat. Remove from the pan and set aside when cooked.
6. Add a little butter or oil to pan and then two handfuls of baby spinach. Saute and stir until spinach is deep green and soft.
7. Cut baked or microwaved potato into 1/2″ chunks and saute until slightly brown. Remove and set aside.
8. Add other cooked ingredients back into the frying pan and mix together. Once mixed well, take the mixture of ingredients out of the pan and place into a bowl.
9. Spray the pan with non-stick spray (or evenly coat with a teaspoon of butter or cooking oil). Heat the frying pan until hot.
10. Take about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the vegetable/meat mixture from the bowl and place it back in the frying pan. Sprinkle your favorite spices onto the vegetables. I like Adobo. It’s the spice of life! But you can also use salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Seasoned salt is good too. Whatever you like.
11. Take scrambled eggs and pour over the vegetables into the pan.
12. Take a wooden or plastic spoon and mix the eggs with other ingredients as they cook. Keep doing this until the eggs are cooked.
13. Add a slice or two of American cheese (shredded cheddar is also great). Let it melt a bit. Then fold into the Egg Scramble until fully melted. I like mine to get slightly toasted too. But you “do you”.
14. Remove from the pan and serve on a plate.
15. Repeat for the rest of your company.