Food for Thought Friday: 🌷spring on a plate! 🍓

1. Cheesy spring garlic + onion eggs

Ingredients: spring garlic, spring onion, thinly sliced greens, butter, eggs, white cheddar

Scramble eggs ahead in a bowl if you like. Chop cheese into small pieces (I used white cheddar but you could use any melting-cheese you like). Lightly sauté thinly sliced spring onions/garlic in butter in a non-stick pan. Add thinly sliced greens and a spoonful of water to help the greens steam quickly. When bright green and just wilted, add a little more butter, then add eggs and scramble into the greens on low heat to keep them soft and custardy. When almost done, fold in the chunks of cheese; as the eggs finish cooking, the cheese should melt. Top with salt and pepper at the end!

2. Springy salad with strawberries, snap peas, and fresh mint

Ingredients: romaine or bibb lettuce, snap peas, strawberries, fresh mint, feta/goat/mozzarella cheese, balsamic vinegar and/or lemon juice, olive oil

Chop strawberries and snap peas into bite-size pieces, removing the small spriggy/tough ends of the snap peas as you chop. Chop mint into ribbons. Add them all on top of your cleaned lettuce. I did feta and lemon juice/olive oil on mine but I think I should have done balsamic and mozzarella and that would have been even better!

3. Spring sauté with green eggs, feta, and fried bread (I saved the best one for last!)

Ingredients: spring onions, spring garlic, asparagus, fresh dill, greens, feta cheese, eggs, butter, lemon, high-heat oil (I used avocado)

Sauté chopped asparagus, spring onion and spring garlic lightly in butter and/or oil until just bright green. In a separate, non-stick pan, sauté greens (I had some pea shoots and dandelion greens) lightly in butter, then scramble eggs in. Serve side by side with the veggies and top it all with fresh dill, salt + pepper, feta cheese, and a squeeze of lemon. (If you don't eat eggs, this would also be great as one big sauté bowl with any leftover protein added, or not! If not eating cheese, you could replace the feta with avocado!).

Fried bread is kinda like grilled cheese but without the cheese. We had some at the famous Tartine last weekend and it was a revelation! You wanna use fresh (crusty) bread for this - it needs to be still soft on the inside. To make it: Heat up a small (preferably cast iron) pan, just big enough to fit the bread. Put in a little oil. Then place the bread down, pressing it into the pan. Drizzle the top of the bread with more oil and then flip, making sure it’s well-coated on both sides. Allow it to toast/sizzle in the pan, pressing down occasionally with a spatula. Check periodically until it’s nicely browned, then flip and repeat, turning down the heat as needed until it’s crispy on both sides but still soft in the middle. YUMMMMMMM!

Timing all 3 of these at once is a little tricky… start with the saute, prep the bread + eggs, then start the eggs first, followed by the bread if you can manage cooking those two at the same time. If not - pick which one you’d rather be a little cold and cook that one first. (Or you could also do saute, then bread, then eggs, and keep the bread warm in the oven while you cook the eggs.)

Happy spring-cooking-inspiration and if you make any of these, I hope you enjoy!

Cheers,
Jess