Cookin' With Leo

By Leocthasme

Breakfast Stuff That's Good,
Even If It Did Come From A Diet Book

Well now, all you regular readers know I ain't much on diet stuff, especially me. I ain't into Lite Beer, Wine, Whiskey, or fer that matter Lite anything. I figure if it is supposed to be 'heavy' then leave it that way. But, then I ain't never had no weight problem either, so such things as calorie intake, fat intake, carb intake, or whatever intake never entered into my way of enjoyin' good eatin'. Whatever it was, if it tasted good I ate it, an' if it didn't taste good, maybe the dog liked it. Of course if the dog wouldn't touch it, then whatever it was never ever was thought of again. I guess I was sorta raised that way, since my family cooked good and enjoyable meals for the most part. A lot of good homemade bread, cake, pies, beer, wine, and booze, from grampa, gramma, and pa an' ma added to the 'joy of eatin'. Well, so much fer humble beginnings, whatever, but now I found somethin' good in a diet book. From a book by a Doc named Atkins, I found a good breakfast recipe. Of course, I did it his way once and that was good, so I began to improvise with variations. And, since I am a great improviser, I came up with a different variation fer a whole week of breakfasts.

Here is the way the Good Doc done it:

Get a muffin pan and butter up all the compartments so nothing sticks. Use cow stuff not no 'lite' un-natural stuff for greasing the pan. Place a tomato slice in the bottom of each compartment; wrap a strip of not too crisp, fried bacon around the sides of each compartment. Now crack an egg into each compartment and sprinkle a little parsley on top and pepper to taste. Bake that in the oven for 20 minutes at 300°, and there is a good tasting breakfast.

By the way, just because there are 6 or 12 muffin compartments in a muffin tin you don't have to use all of them. If you only use 4, then put a little water in the unused ones so they don't scorch in the hot oven.

Now after you tried that here are some variations:

In the bottom of the compartments, not only can you use tomatoes but also you can place slices of mushrooms, nopalitos (cactus strips), jalapenos, cheddar or colby cheese slices, tomatillos, and if you get real creative, mix and match a bit with all the ingredients.

Beside wrapping bacon strips around the sides, you can wrap slices of ham or slices of thin roast beef or pork.

And instead of just dropping a whole egg in each compartment, I jazzed up the eggs a bit by whipping them with cream cheese and/or heavy cream, and filling the compartments with the mixture. Of course pepper, chives, parsley and even red pepper flakes can be added to the egg mix. When whipping the eggs, do not fill the compartments to the top, as the cream cheese and cream tend to 'raise' the egg mix as it bakes.

For those with a sweet tooth, (Note: not a diet variation) try this: drop a spoon of raisins in each compartment with a slice of apple, cover with a teaspoon of sugar, and a dash of cinnamon. Whip the eggs with cream cheese and sprinkle a little powdered sugar and cinnamon on top.

That ought to make your breakfasts interesting for a week or so.