As part of Freedom Friday, let me introduce to you my favorite dish I make on a hurried Wednesday night. I’ve been making this for years. Sometimes I add to it, sometimes I take away from it. But most of the time, it remains the same: eggs and hash browns.
Wednesday is Costco night for us. This means a night where I head over to the consumer warehouse and buy everything in bulk. It’s amazing how far my dollar stretches when the product comes bundled in boxes. By the time I get home, I’m too tired for anything else. That’s when the routine developed of cooking eggs on Wednesday night. They’re quick, easy, and it takes me twenty minutes tops from idea to plate.
Fried Eggs—This is the easiest recipe. Crack a couple of eggs in a frying pan and away you go. It may seem easy, however if the pan isn’t greased properly, sunny side up eggs will become scrambled in no time. I use an extra large chrome skillet and prep it with olive oil, allowing the oil to cover the entire bottom of the pan. Not a lot—just enough to coat. Then I turn on the burner to medium heat. How do you know if the oil’s hot enough? Dip your finger in water and allow a drop to fall into the pan. If it pops, it’s ready.
Start cooking the eggs (you don’t need me to tell you to crack them and place them into the pan, do you?) When the egg white turns white, drop the heat to a minimum temperature, this will prevent the bottom of the eggs from burning. To know if the eggs are ready, I touch the top of the yolk with the pad of my finger. Do this until the eggs feel room temperature (I don’t know what to tell you if your eggs didn’t come out of a fridge). Also, as it cooks, use the spatula to lift carefully the edges. Once it’s done, the eggs should naturally slide off the pan into the plate.
Scrambled Eggs—There’s a trick to making good scrambled eggs: never allow them to cook long. They have to remain fluffy and moist. Not like rubber, where you chew it and it tastes like the inside of a boot (not that I know what that tastes like, nor do I want to know). Attaining fluffiness is easy. Crack a couple of eggs in a bowl and beat senseless. Well, at least until they have a creamy texture to them. If you like, you can add a touch of cream or milk to them, but I usually don’t bother.
Now, prepare the pan just as I’d described in the fried egg paragraph. There’s a difference though. Once the eggs hit the pan, turn off the burner and continually fluff them with a spatula. Keep doing this until the eggs look loose but not soggy. When you get them to that consistency, you’ve got yourself a fluffy scrambled egg.
By the way, a few things you can do with scrambled eggs to make them interesting is while they’re cooking, add some spices to the mixture. I do this in the bowl where I beat them. I like paprika, cumin, and garlic and onion powder. I’ll then season it with little salt and pepper.
I have an omelet recipe, but I think I’ll save it for another time.
As for the sides, I’ll make hash browns, which take about twenty minutes to cook. I tend to time my eggs so everything pops from the stove all at the same time. Depending on my mood, I’ll add baby carrots or celery as another side dish. Cucumbers are cool, but I find the taste less desirable—I don’t think it makes a good combination. Maybe I’m wrong. Oh, and during the summer, I eat salads, so that’s something to consider when making any of the egg dishes I described.
Do you have any egg recipes you’d like to share? What would be your choice of sides?
Looking to God 
Great post, I love hash browns. Glad to see I’m not alone in frying my eggs in olive oil. Scrambled eggs is a staple weekend breakfast in our household and my girlfriend is very particular about keeping them creamy and fluffy and not overcooking. Personally I like them with a spicy brown sauce on the side.
Thank you for popping by and liking my post! Your blog is cute!
Dang, here I was all ready to start brushing my teeth and settling in to bed and now you’ve got me craving scrambled eggs. We don’t have any hash browns handy but plenty of bread to make some yummy toast with. Midnight breakfast time! 😀
I love fried eggs. It’s my favorite breakfast. Fried eggs, bacon and lightly toasted toast, well buttered. I’m not a fan of potatoes with my breakfast. I miss going out to breakfast on the weekends. Going out to breakfast doesn’t mesh well with my eating plan to help me lose weight. I do love a good omelet, ham and cheese to be exact, but I prefer the fried eggs. Over medium please.
I have a long day tomorrow so I’ll be boiling eggs tomorrow night to make an egg salad for sunday lunch. thanks for the inspiration 🙂
Ha, I hope you had an enjoyable weekend, and that your egg salad worked out well!
I was too tired lol… I had French toast with scrambled eggs and cheese for brunch. It was great!!!
ok, I’m going to harass you for one of your omelette recipes. this is too good of a post. I’m starving now!
I have a incredibly large smile on my face knowing I’ve stirred the appetite of another one of my readers. Mission accomplished!
mmmm. i just had some of this for breakfast 🙂
I’m hooked on soft boiled eggs! Still perfecting the cook time…
Yummy! I love hash browns although I don’t eat them a lot. I usually make eggs for whatever meals I want to keep simple. Add some leftovers or some cooked veggies and always some toast with jam or peanut butter and it works for breakfast, brunch or lunch 🙂 If I have sausages handy, I’ll also make a sausage omelet instead of just scrambled eggs! This talk is making me hungry..haha!
I’m not a big Costco’s or Sam Club shopper. I have friends that love to go to those places. I don’t even like to grocery shop that much. The other day I went to the grocery story to buy some things. I needed some chicken breasts. I sat in the aisle for a minute trying to figure out where to find the meat. LOL!! That tells you I don’t shop often. I don’t have any egg recipes. One thing that I like to put on my eggs is ketchup. Whenever I go out to a restaurant and get an omelet, I smother and I mean smother it with ketchup. Its really good. You should try it Jack.
Is it weird that I love omelettes but hate scrambled eggs. I’ve never heard that water trick before I might try it. Though knowing me I’ll spill too much on or something. Now this post really makes me hungry.
I learned that trick on the Food Network Canada when watching one of those Italian meal shows. I think it was with Giada, but not sure 🙂
Love Costco! We have Sam’s Club here–almost the same but not quite. My husband commented once that buying in bulk helped him feel prepared. Prepared for what? I asked. ANYTHING. Prepared for anything.
Thank you, bulk stores, for outfitting us with 50 rolls of toilet paper, 150 granola bars, and 30 razors. You just never know what the future will bring.
So true, Kaela! One time we had 160 rolls of toilet paper stored in the upstairs bathroom, 4 packs of chicken legs and drumsticks in the freezer, 24 boxes of non-GMO soy milk and, and, and a partridge in a pear tree!
I don’t know what anyone else is preparing for, but I surely am getting ready for that zombie apocalypse everyone’s talking about!
The Patient Husband does the egg-cooking in my house, mainly because he wants sunny side up and is better at it. He makes them with Spam, very thinly sliced and fried crisp, with tomatoes on the side. The Spam is surprisingly awesome.
I like tomatoes with my eggs. They can be sliced tomatoes or the little cherry or grape tomatoes. I’m not picky. On Costco night, which happens to be tonight for me, I make sure there are leftovers for everyone else and I usually eat out. I do all my shopping one night a week so it’s not just Costco and it can get to be kinda late sometimes.
I forget where I read it but it said something along the lines of, that you can tell someone knows how to cook just by watching them make eggs. (Those sunny-side up fried eggs look beautiful.)
Thank you! They’re equally tasty as well!
I love that y’all have Costco Night. We have Market Night every other week and that means Chick Fil A, for us. (Mama doesn’t have to cook on Market Night, lol.)
Eggs. Hm. My mom always used to baste her eggs and that’s how I grew up eating eggs. She would spray the pan with Pam or something, put water in a lid and after cracking the eggs into the pan, would pour the water in and cover it with the lid. Runny eggs were the norm. That’s what toast was for, right? 🙂
I prefer eggs scrambled, myself. My favorite is to warm leftover basmati rice in a pan, add a few minced green onions and then add the eggs to cook. Over this I often sprinkle sesame seeds. It’s a nice breakfast once in a while, when I take the time to actually *cook* breakfast.
Have a terrific weekend!
It’s exciting, isn’t it? I love Wednesday nights, knowing I get to cook one of my favorite dishes. And it’s so cool that you have Market Night!
BTW, I prefer adding cheese to my scrambled eggs. Makes for a fuller meal! 🙂