In praise of this morning's breakfast: Fried egg and pot greens.

It's nothing terribly special, and I think I have mentioned similar things before, but I thought it was a particularly elegant solution to my dual problems of "get more green leafies into me since they aren't appealing to me very much" and "what to put under my egg in the morning so I don't overload on carby things."

• 1/2 to 1 cup cooked leafy greens (with about a tablespoon of pot liquor if you have it)
• 1  tsp balsamic vinegar, or to taste 
• Up to 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil -- at minimum, just a bit more than you need to fry the egg comfortably
• 1 egg  
• Salt and pepper to taste 

Toss the hot greens in a bowl with balsamic vinegar and pot liquor.

Fry egg in the generous pour of olive oil.  When the egg is done to your liking (me:  crispy on the edges, over very easy) slide the egg, oil and all, on top of the hot cooked greens.  Hear the sizzle as the hot oil comes into contact with the greens?  Top with salt and pepper to taste, pierce the yolk, and dig in.

Let's talk about the greens.  The easiest way to make this dish a quick weekday morning breakfast for one is to keep some precooked pot greens in their pot liquor in the fridge.   It's a great use for leftovers.  But you could also begin with fresh tender greens, like spinach or chard or young kale, and quickly steam-saute them in a little water in the egg pan before transferring them to the bowl.  Wipe out  the pan, then fry the egg.   

The culinarily gifted will immediately see ways to make this dish more interesting and/or fancy.  The two most obvious to me are (1) saute some sliced garlic in the oil and remove it before adding the egg and (2) same thing with chopped bacon, use less oil. If you are desperate to eat less fat, you could toss just a drizzle of olive oil with the greens and use a poached egg; it is quite nice that way.  If you like Asian flavors for breakfast, you could do coconut oil and a bit of fish or soy sauce instead of olive oil.  But I think my version is simple, rich, and healthful.  It is good down to the last drop of vinegary, egg-yolky pot liquor at the bottom of the bowl.  

I have not tried this with frozen greens.  We eat a lot of frozen greens in this house because they're so conveniently added to almost any meal, but I much prefer fresh.  In almost any season, pot greens are among the best bargains in the produce department, especially if you measure nutritional bang for the buck, so there's no excuse not to buy some fresh every week.

P.S.  I would think that if fate has dealt you an egg allergy, that some fried Canadian Bacon would be a very tasty thing to put on top of your greens for breakfast, and would be just about as quick and easy. Sausage is another possibility -- I would choose a leaner sausage here so that the olive oil provided a higher proportion of the fat.  Maybe a turkey kielbasa.

Comments

[Amber]

Hey, this sounds like my breakfast for tomorrow! I just picked some kale this afternoon to have with an egg in the morning. BTW, growing greens is a nice way to go too - they are very easy to grow, live a long time, do well with harvesting a few leaves here and there, and are quite cold tolerant. You can also let them go to seed and end up with kale and chard all over the place. (as we have discovered this year) Whether or not this is a good thing depends on your garden/yard space! *grin*