Trial & Error | Spiral Slicer | 15 Minute Breakfast

I threw out my back a few days ago. Why? Because I’m old. And my body is about 20 years older than I am. It’s a good feeling to be only 39 but have all the aches, pains, and physical ailments of someone approaching retirement.

What that means is for the past three days I’ve been pretty worthless as a Dad. Priya’s had to do most of the work for Anaiya; I can sit and feed her, maybe change her, but really, I’m worthless.

I woke up this morning feeling a little better but still worthless. Priya was scrambling to get ready for a family event and I could do so little to help. Except try and make her breakfast. In her scramble to get through the morning she wasn’t going to eat. She wasn’t going to have time for it. I had to do what I could to help on this front. I looked at the new veggie spiral slicer I bought, saw one remaining potato, was inspired.

In 15 minutes I whipped up a solid breakfast and actually redeemed myself a little bit. A tad. The moral of this story? Buy a veggie spiral slicer. It’s amazing.

Eggs Over Easy, on Nested Hashbrowns

Ingredients

• Potato (1)
• Egg (1)
• Salty Cheese (Feta, Parmesan, Asiago)
• Olive Oil
• Salt
• Pepper

Directions

• Prep your potato. If you have a spiral slicer, you’re talking about a minute of screwing the potato into the slicer. If you have a grater, you’re talking a little more time. I rinsed and scrubbed the potato, left the skin on, and got after it. In a minute, I had a pile of beautifully spiral shredded potato.
• Get ready to cook. Get your frying pan out and get it cooking. No oil. Just heat the pan. Medium/high. When you get the pan on the heat take the potato in your hand and squeeze the crap out of it. Remove excess water. Best done in a cheese cloth or a light kitchen towel; but for one potato, hands are fine. Do it over the sink. Squeeze. Check the pan as it should now be hot. Add a Tbsp of olive oil, maybe less (with a hot pan, you need less oil since it thins and spreads more evenly more quickly due to the heat.)
• Cook the potato. Lay the potato around the pan evenly. Make sure everything’s interconnected, like a bird’s nest. Cover. Reduce to medium heat. Let cook for about 5 minutes. Remove the cover. Turn the potato (it should flip all together at this point.) Add a little oil if you want and then cook open on medium heat for another 5 minutes.
• Remove the potato and cook the egg. Slide the potato onto a plate and crack a little salt and pepper on it. Layer on the cheese. It should be a crispy nest at this point and the cheese will lightly melt but maintain it’s shape. Maintain the heat on the pan; no need to further oil it since you did a good job of that with the potato. I like the egg sunny side up; Priya likes it over easy. I split the difference. 🙂
• Prep the plate. The egg should cook in about 2-3 minutes. Slide it onto the potato nest, crack a little more sea salt and pepper on top, and serve. It’s beautiful. Healthy. Simple. Filling. And it made Priya happy. Win. Win.