Eggs Florentine with a twist

I had this for breakfast today, makes a great Saturday/Sunday treat.  Now before you start questioning the amount of spinach recipes that are on this blog, hey, when you buy one of those king size pillow bags of spinach at Costco, you are going to have a lot of spinach recipes to get through!

You will need two pieces of bread
1/4 cup spinach
1 egg
1 tablespoon feta cheese
1/4 avocado
2 slices of tomato (optional)

Tried and true Toad-in-the-hole Egg dish

This is a tweaked version of the ever tried and true toad-in-the-hole recipe.  Cut a hole in the middle of a piece of bread, put in a fry pan coated with non-stick pan spray  (or ghee or butter) then add an egg into the hole, cook to the level of cooked egg you like.  I do not like my egg to move after it has been fried so I eat mine ........hmm...well done I guess. Over-hard maybe?  Definitely not sunny side up or over-easy or anything that makes me think of slime.  Anyways I digress.
So make one toad-in-the-hole, with one egg and one piece of toast.

Now after you have cooked that part of the dish, put it on a plate to the side and grab another piece of bread with a hole in the middle, put in the hot fry pan (on medium heat) and fill the hole with spinach. 

Bread with a hole

fill hole with spinach

Next put cheese on top of the spinach.  I use feta, because that is my food fetish for the moment.

cheese on the spinach

 Use whatever cheese you want, Swiss is a good one, also Monterrey Jack, or Gouda.  Put a lid on the frypan for about a minute so the cheese can start to melt.  Take lid off.





At this point I add two slivers of avocado, basically 1/8 cup.

avocado, cheese and spinach with egg

Then take the toad-in-the-hole you had previously made and put on top of bread with spinach.  Put onto plate, garnish with the rest of the avocado and optional tomato.
That's it.  and it looks great!

Spinach side of Eggs Florentine Sandwich

If you are gluten intolerant, use gluten-free bread, you also can just use egg whites if you prefer.  Once again I am going to give a shout out to goat's milk feta cheese.  Give it a try!

Finished product. YUM!

Papaya and Lemon Balm

papaya and lemon balm

Last year I really got hooked on fresh lemon balm, it is a great tasting herb that hides in the herb section of Lowe's, Home Depot, or any other nursery. It's disguise is it looks like mint, doesn't taste the same. Actually it really doesn't taste like lemon any more than lemon grass does, but hey it tastes great in so many dishes, who cares!
Take a ripe papaya and cut it up into bite size cubes. I use about 1 1/2 cups worth. I love the big papaya's that I can buy at the Rancho Markets and the more orange/yellow with almost spots on it the sweeter. Next I grab some lemon balm leaves, rinsed and patted dry, I would say about 2 tablespoons worth. Cut them up or just tear with your hands, I like big leaves of it with my fruit. Sprinkle lemon balm over the papaya.

add some lemon zest

Then I grate some lemon peel over the the fruit and herb mixture. It is about 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest. Now I just take it from here and eat, however, if you have a lime hanging around bored and with nothing to do, squeeze some lime juice onto the whole mix. Not too much, lime is like any party crasher, it can take over the whole event if you add too much. So go with about a teaspoon worth.
This makes a great breakfast, or even dessert if you so choose.

add lime juice if so desired and enjoy!

Short story on my luck with limes and papayas. When I was living in the dorms at University of Alaska, Fairbanks with my girlfriend Mimi, my dad used to give us fresh fruit to keep in our room for snacks. We kept it cold by sticking it out our window for a few minutes in a bag and then had to bring it in so it wouldn't freeze. However, ice cream was always perfect until break-up happened (Alaskan Spring)

 . Then it would get soupy, but that's a different story.
So we had a lime and a papaya out our window, and we were goofing off one day when we saw a friend down in the parking lot below our room. We thought it would be fun to get his attention by dropping the lime in his direction. Now in my defense may I just state we were college freshman and had not yet taken physics. That's my excuse for what happened next. We were laughing so we didn't really see the full accident, however I do remember hearing a thoop sound. Only way to describe it. We looked out the window and saw a perfect hole in his front windshield right above the steering wheel. The lime went through the glass. Okay maybe this is where I should mention I dropped it from our room which is five stories above where he was parked. Yea about that lack of physics.... Good news is it went through the windshield, which I still feel bad about. Bad news is I was aiming at him. No wait reverse that. I never can get good/bad news right.
So see limes can be real party crashers, you have to watch out for them!
Enjoy!