Quick Eggs & Asparagus Breakfast

Ingredients

We all have those busy weekday mornings, where breakfast is either skipped, picked up on the go, or scarfed down on the way out the door. While these meals (or invisible ones) are also probably delicious, let's be honest, a nice warm breakfast to start the day is always a nice treat. Here is a quick healthy treat of a breakfast that is a great way to kick start your morning.

Cut asparagus in diagonal strips and sprinkle seasoning on top

This recipe comes to me from one of my mother's cousins, and it is a meal we generally eat when we visit her for Easter. Eggs and Asparagus is a delicious and quick way to get some protein and vegetables into your morning diet. This meal takes me about 12 minutes to prep and make.

What you'll need:
- Egg(s) (I do one, but you can do as many as you want)
- Asparagus (Generally I try and keep a 1:1 ratio, so 1 egg = 1 asparagus, 2 eggs = 2 asparagus, etc.)
- Salt, Pepper, and Garlic Powder
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Bread (For some grains in the meal, I prefer wheat but any bread will work. I also tend to do the same 1:1 ratio for bread to eggs.)


How to Make it:

Cook eggs to your preference

1. Put the bread in the toaster and set to your level of preference (if you prefer a lighter toasting do this step after you pull together the ingredients), and start the toaster.
2. Pull the ingredients together and cut the asparagus into diagonal strips, and scramble the egg(s). At this point you'll want to preheat the pan on a low to medium low heat. 



Add a fruit side to get as many food groups in the meal. 

3. Put a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil in your heated pan and add in the asparagus. Once it starts turning a bright green after a few minutes you'll want to sprinkle on the salt, pepper and garlic powder. Personally I take the caps off the salt and garlic powder and sprinkle it with my fingers so as not to over season. Then use your spatula to stir around the asparagus and spread the seasoning around the pan.
4. The toast might be done by now, personally I butter it and then cut it diagonally and place on the plate.
5. Add in the scrambled eggs and cook to your liking, then enjoy.

MMM Enjoy!

I also like to pair it with a fruit, generally bananas as those can be taken on the go and are a nice fruit to add for a more balanced meal. You can also eat the eggs and toast separately; my preference is putting the eggs on the toast for a little crunch and medley of the flavors. 

 I hope you enjoy this delicious breakfast!

Practice Makes Perfect

Fresh on the griddle

Post Flip

This morning my dad made Pumpkin French Toast, and when he cooks french toast it comes out perfect. His french toast has always been my favorite, so naturally, being an adult I'd have to learn how to make it before I move out. Now I have made french toast before, but I've never been the flipper, and after today there is a good reason for it. My dad told me to only barely dip the bread in the batter. Which I thought I did, but the bread was really soft and the batter soaked through very quickly. Next thing I know I'm trying to flip the bread over to coat the other side and the bread is falling apart on me! The second piece was even more of a disaster when an actual chunk of the bread broke off. Oh well, onto the griddle with the two of them, for 3 minutes on each side. Which is what I've always been told and did. When I go to flip it the flip was fine, but then I noticed that the backside never got fully covered in the batter, of course. After 3 minutes on the second side I take my french toast off the griddle and my dad checks it out. "You didn't cook it long enough," he says. Well I guess I still have more to learn but you know what they say, practice makes perfect!

Things to do differently: 1) Don't let the bread soak in the batter; 2) Fully coat the other side; 3) Maybe 3minutes and 30 seconds max on each side if it needs the extra time.

I hope your Sunday breakfasts were more successful than mine!

My First Cookbook

This is my first post since well, the first post! The reason? Well I was finishing up my B.A. in Anthropology, as well as working at my favorite place in the world, and then just relaxing for the first time in years, while job hunting. That never stopped me from cooking though and trying out new recipes so I have a lot to catch you up on.

Although I started cooking when I was on my study abroad term in Italy, I never made the decision to own a cookbook until I moved into an apartment my senior year of college. I purchased this cookbook when I was still a shedding my picky eater skin, so I went for a nice and safe cookbook. Taste of Home: Ultimate Comfort Food is not just a cookbook for picky eaters, but it's a great cookbook all around. Owning a cookbook, especially growing up as a picky eater has been a godsend. It is opened my eyes to new recipes with all of the ingredients I already love and have learned to love (like scallions, I love scallions). One of the first things I did after buying this cookbook was just go through it and put a sticky note on the recipes that looked interesting. Then I made myself have more work by going through and writing those recipes on the sticky notes (if you can't tell - just do this step as you go through), so that it'd be easier to find them. Quite a few recipes that I'll be catch-up posting about are out of this book.

Personally I purchased the book at Books-A-Million in the store however it can also be found online. You can also buy it at Barnes & Nobles or off of Amazon (of course). Happy Cooking!

Introduction

Hello!

My Nonna and I - Thanksgiving 2012

Welcome to Cooking Like Nonna, a blog about all the different recipes that I will ever make and remember to upload. I will always credit the original location of my recipes to the book or person who gave it to me. A few I might create myself along the way because of prior knowledge and experience. If I find a cookbook I like then I'll also post about that so that other may reap its benefits.

The reason I have named this Cooking Like Nonna is because A lot of my recipes will be homemade or mainly homemade because I am a traditional person in some rights. When I think of homemade meals I think of visiting my Nonna (which means Grandmother in Italian) for Thanksgiving and her making these big elaborate lunches of roast beef, vegetables and soups. She also always has homemade chocolate chip cookies, always, it's fantastic. My Nonna loves to cook for others, feed others, and make sure others around her are always happy and well off.

When I think of cooking, everything above is what I think of. I think of being a Nonna myself in the far future, and cooking for everyone; making them feel at home. I hope these recipes help make those you feed, feel at home too, and I can't wait to share them with you.

Thank you,
Bri