2-Minute Brunch Ideas

If there's anything worse than rolling out of bed on a weekend morning feeling hungry, dehydrated and lazy, I have yet to experience it. The walk to any available food outlet seems like the most outrageously difficult task in the history of the world when you are in this state, and putting on pants to make this walk is enough to make anyone throw a full blown tantrum. If you're anything like me, the idea of going to the obscene hassle of making eggs when you're still contemplating the angle at which you will swan dive back into your bed is unfathomable. However, there ARE a few brunch ideas that take 2 minutes MAX and will tide you over until you can become an awake enough human to drag yourself to a late lunch, and maybe even put on pants. These recipes are also totally college student idiot-proof and require very few ingredients and 0 cooking. Unless you consider using a toaster cooking. In which case...you're on your own.

1.  Cherry Tomato SuperBagel

If you have never tried this combo you are SERIOUSLY missing out. Toast your bagel, spread it with cream cheese, and arrange some lengthwise-sliced cherry tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and dill. The tomatoes add a juicy crunch that brings a boring bagel with cream cheese to the next level, and the dill adds a nice little kick. Def the perfect thing to tide you over until you feel like opening your eyes again next week in a few hours.

2. Blueberry Granola Bowl

I know what you're thinking: far too healthy for hungover food and NO presence of melted cheese. I get it. But greek yogurt with some crunchy granola is a prime combination, and the blueberries are packed with antioxidants to get you feeling ship shape in no time.

3. Bare Minimum

This option is only for when you are TRULY struggling. Hard boiled eggs solve all evils, and juicy tomatoes do the trick as well. Get some protein and potassium, and get back to bed.

Midweek 'Za

The first fifteen pages of my thesis are due on Monday. Thus, this week has been an emotional roller coaster which has included wandering around aimlessly with my shoelaces untied and/or teeth unbrushed wondering why time suddenly seems to be going by at warp speed, and making eating breakfast during class a very acceptable thing. I'm not proud of my behavior this week but I will say that my research is coming along pretty nicely and I have only had one meltdown. Well, two if you include this meal, which involved a very serious buffalo mozzarella meltdown that was truly delicious and much more enjoyable than my sputtering, sniffling "I'LL NEVER BE FUN AGAIN" debacle. 

Excuse my poor photography and paper plate (ugh) but I hope you can see this for the glory that it very much was. I love asparagus SO much and sauteed with a little EVOO, salt and pepper, I can eat it for days. It's crunchy and salty, and the head of it always absorbs all these yummy flavors that make for the perfect side-or star-of a meal. While in Italy, we found the best pizza in the fucking world in Bologna. I'm not joking. Every single item on the menu was outrageously good and we got in the genius unfortunate habit of eating entire pizzas at once there because you just simply could not leave any on the table. My absolute favorite was a glorious creation that had a thin layer of tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella, thin and crispy asparagus, spicy salami, and a fried egg on top. When I was trying to find pizza inspiration last night in the sad vegetable aisle at Giant, this pizza in all its beautiful, comforting joy came to me in a vision.

This creation did not nearly do its inspiration justice, but it definitely did the trick. The flavors on this cannot be beaten. Salty prosciutto (which I subbed for salami because I couldn't find anything spicy enough at Giant...and it was actually a perfect alternative!), crispy asparagus, a little bit of egg in each bite, and a thin layer of sweet tomato sauce with chewy, melty mozzarella. So good. I also drank roughly a bottle of wine on the side which probably caused this shoddy photography. I wish I knew a better way to cook the fried egg on top-I just fried it separately and then placed it on top. Let me know if you have a better method! 

Ingredients

-1 Pizza crust (snaps for you if you have time to make dough yourself, I just use Boboli because it's so quick.

-4 tbsp. sweet tomato sauce (go light on this! otherwise the other flavors will be outdone)

-4 slices prosciutto

-8-10 asparagus stalks, halved lengthwise and brushed with olive oil, salt, and pepper

-8-10 slices of mozzarella, as thin as you can get them

-1 egg

Instructions

-Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

-Brush the pizza crust with EVOO, spread a thin layer of tomato sauce.

-Spread out mozzarella slices over the crust, do not double-layer them.

-Interweave the asparagus: some under the cheese, some over.

-Lay the slices of prosciutto over the asparagus and cheese.

-Add some more asparagus.

-Put the pizza in the oven for 10-15 minutes, depending upon how crispy you like it.

-Fry an egg on the side.

-Take the pizza out and put the egg in the middle. Tastes GREAT if it's still a bit runny, mine wasn't and I wished it was!

Enjoy!

Caprese Egg Sandwich.

While studying in Italy, my friends and I noticed that eggs were rarely on the menu. Other than spaghetti carbonara, which I can't exactly condone as breakfast food in the interest of health, we rarely encountered egg dishes. This, of course, was a big problem for our American hungover selves, who all should have been gifted one of these Kate Spade bags as we walked around Bologna on weekend mornings:

We finally found an adorable restaurant, Ca'Pelletti, that served eggs in all their glorious forms, from omlettes to hard-boiled to poached and beyond. Annoyingly, we didn't realize there was an English menu until the fourth month of our stay, so many a headache was worsened by our desperate attempts to translate words on our phones as we sat in front of an impatient waitress who was probably confused as to why we didn't just order pasta and get on with our days.

Since being back in America, I have whined and griped about missing all things Italian except the lack of breakfast eggs. Even in that department, though, I have missed Italian flavors. Thus, I decided to experiment with the classic BEC (bacon egg and cheese) that Americans are so obsessed with, and even add some healthy twists. Say buongiorno to the Caprese Egg Sandwich!

This bad boy is easy and delicious, and a welcome break from the boring BEC's so common in college life. The spicy red pepper jam adds a depth of flavor, while the cool tomatoes and salty pesto get nice and cozy with a blankie of melted provolone. As chewy and delicious as everything bagels are, the bread can drown out the other flavors and make the sandwich bland. A toasted, whole wheat English muffin has the perfect amount of crunch without making you too full or taking away from the taste-bud extravaganza taking place between the muff. Additionally, swapping a half of a grapefruit in as a side instead of fries or chips lightens the calorie load and leaves you feeling refreshed instead of entering into a sodium-and-grease coma which becomes a food hangover in its own right.
Ingredients
-1 Egg, over easy (a little runny yolk never hurt nobody)
-1 Whole Wheat English Muffin, toasted and halved.
-1 Slice Provolone Cheese
-1/2 Grapefruit
-1 tbsp. Red Pepper Jelly (I used this)
-1 tbsp. Pesto
-2 Cherry Tomatoes, Halved
Instructions
-Fry an egg over easy on a small frying pan.
-While the egg fries, halve your cherry tomatoes and the grapefruit, and toast the English Muffin.
-Once the egg looks about ready, place the cheese on top for a little under a minute.
-While the cheese melts, spread the red pepper jelly on the bottom half of the English Muffin.
-Remove the egg and cheese from the pan carefully with a spatula, and place on the bottom half of the English Muffin.
-Place the pesto in the middle of the egg, and arrange your tomatoes around it.
-Add some salt and pepper to taste!

What other non-traditional egg sandwiches have you come across??

Egg in a Hole: Avocado Breakfast Bowl

There's something so incredibly satisfying about avocados. Maybe it's the color, or the smoothness, or the way they can be turned into something as amazing and near holiness as guac. I love them in nearly everything, particularly anything with bacon, like this salad from one of my favorite food blogs, and I would love to try it on something a little more dressed up for dinnertime, like this amazing looking pizza (adobe...? cilantro...? shredded roasted chicken...? greek yogurt...? HI). Although it's filling and somewhat of a dominating texture on foods, avocado also makes a great accent in that it's flavor is not overwhelming, and it compliments other stronger tastes like citrus, smoky, salty...you name it. Since the versatility of this fun little guy can work at almost any meal, I decided to try it for breakfast. Here at college, I am probably malnourished most of the time (do cheezits and Franzia have protein...?) so working healthy foods into my diet is imperative. I made this all the time while I was abroad in our tiny third world-esque kitchen in Bologna, and I'm dying to try it here too. It's the perfect mix of warm runny egg and cool, refreshing avocado, and I put a bunch of black pepper on it and a bit of sea salt to spice it up. You could also try red pepper flakes, or throw in some chunks of toasted bread. My sad, limp, cold cinnamon raisin bagel from this morning is green with envy.

Ingredients

• 1 egg fried over easy (still runny but with a golden brown crust)
• 1 whole avocado, halved. Keep one of the halves intact and place the egg directly over it, and chop the other half up for extra bite sized chunks on the side.
• salt, pepper, red pepper flakes to taste.