Weeknight Dinner: Breakfast for Dinner

Weeknight Dinner has been a keystone of Urban Home Blog since its beginning. As with many of us, I figured out weeknight dinner as part of early homekeeping, when the reality hit that someone was going to have to get something to eat on the table. When I started writing Urban Home Blog, I had been a homekeeper and therefore a dinner-fixer for years. I had a library of recipes, techniques, and dishes to share in service to getting a good meal on the table during busy school- and work weeks. The elements of weeknight dinner include being good to eat and relatively simple to prepare, while navigating the fault line between being just another plate of same ole same ole but not being so novel that it's worthless.

In our urban home, the library of weeknight dinners is the result of learning to cook, both technique and cuisine. Dinnertime is Home Ec 101, but the practice is ongoing, as the realities of the household intercede while the skills and interests of the home cook evolve. I learned early that weeknight dinner is best made from pantry ingredients. A well-stocked pantry is vital to every household; even in households where no one cooks, there will at least need to be coffee, cereal, and milk. I learned to plan for the week before doing the weekend grocery shopping, augmented by a quick grocery stop midweek. I learned to keep fresh lettuces for simple side salads so that however rushed it is, the weeknight table doesn't exclude fresh vegetables. I learned to always have staples, such as eggs and cheese for omelets, on hand for nights when the energy, the errands, or the evening gets away from us. Our go-to meal for those nights is pasta puttanesca, which takes very little time or effort to prepare but, truly in the spirit of the dish, is even more satisfying when one's energy is drained.

Weeknight dinner emerges from Grandma's Kitchen as a bowl of New England Clam Chowder served with cream cheese biscuits, or as a big gloppy serve of chicken rice casserole. Weeknight dinner encompasses light and easy teriyaki, autumnal cider chicken or apples and roast pork, lively chicken soup with pickled jalapenos. Weeknight dinner is burger night whether turkey or green chile and steak night whether Diane or London. It is a savory salmon dinner served with baby potatoes and olive relish or a quick chicken stir fry tumbled over white rice. It is a towering California omelet, a succulent Cobb Salad, an earthy risotto with mushrooms. There is plenty of pasta and pizza, usually there are cocktails or wine, and often there is dessert.

In this February of Weeknight Dinners, here is one of the simplest, most satisfying, dinners of them all: breakfast.

Some nights we are so tired. Whether it was the commute, work, or the daily duties of appointments and errands, there are evenings when the endurance of daily living leaves little left when we get home. On these nights, we may stop by the local diner for a burger, pick up a pizza, order Chinese food for delivery. We may forage for leftovers, explode cereal into a bowl, pop a box into the microwave. But on nights when energy is low because the day has been long, the best weeknight dinner isn't dinner at all: it's breakfast.

John and I developed the habit of eating breakfast for dinner in response to the topsy-turvy schedule of my daytime job in an office along with his nighttime schedule in medicine. Just like the old Carol Burnett sketch, I would get home just as John was awakening. We had about an hour together. For him, it was breakfast time, so we shared that hour of togetherness over eggs and coffee. In its way, it presaged the life change of living bicoastally, also topsy-turvy, managing not just the juxtapositions of day and night but east coast and west coast. We each always knew where we were -- location, time, work, and marriage - but it was a world of polarities working in compliment. Like the great Sabbats, we were on opposite sides but part of a greater whole, our marriage the fixed spoke on a wheel always turning whether train, plane, automobile, or yule. As with those Sabbats, each pair contains the reflection of its compliment from across the circle.

Watching John go to work at night taught me many things, not the least of which is the selflessness of those who work when the rest of us rest, the doctors and nurses and medics, the cleaning staff and the security guards, cooks and wait staff and dish washers, police and fire and EMT, pilots and porters and cabbies. They miss parties and holidays and daylight. That nightly hour with John taught me the importance of caring not just for those we love but of the special attention due those who are caring for others.

The first meal of the day grounds us. Whether your breakfast is granola, waffles, eggs and bacon, or salmon and rice, it is replenishing your energy both physically after sleep and emotionally as you head wherever the day takes you. Sharing breakfast in work clothes at sunset bonded John and me just as surely as if we were eating it in our bathrobes at dawn. Our schedules are concurrent now, but the work week is just as busy. The time challenge isn't opposing schedules but that grand LA tradition the commute. We still often have breakfast for dinner, and it still makes the day as right as it can be made when the day was long and night hours together are few.

From the bistro to the home table, omelets are a mainstay of breakfast for supper. Click here to make a towering California omelet and click here for a sexy French rolled omelette with goat cheese and fines herbes. As part of our February of weeknight dinners, here are four ways to prepare eggs: a soft tumble of scrambled eggs with or without cheese, snazzy fried eggs with chives, and elegant poached eggs over creamed spinach, each made from pantry ingredients. Serve your eggs with bacon or sausage and your toast with tomato jam made from the original recipe below. Make the quick, fresh jam over the weekend, so that it is always waiting in the fridge. Scoop tomato jam onto crackers alongside a wedge of cheese, and place it on the table along with orange juice to crown the weeknight dinner that is both the greatest of indulgences and the most grounding of meals: breakfast for dinner.

Breakfast for Dinner

Eggs, butter, cream, and cheese should be refrigerator staples, but they are easy to pick up on the way home. Coarse gray or sea salt provides a lovely crunch for eggs, but regular table salt works fine. The tomato jam is a fresh jam, not suitable for hot water bath or pressure canning. We cook eggs in a ceramic-lined skillet; click here to learn our favorite.

For the eggs

Large Grade A eggs

Unsalted butter or extra-virgin olive oil

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper
Heavy cream, see below
Ground cayenne, see below

Fresh or dried snipped chives, see below

Cream, see below

Grated cheese, such as sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack, or mozzarella, see below
1 teaspoon white vinegar, see below

For creamed spinach

1 10-ounce box frozen spinach

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons flour

Heavy cream

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoons salt

Freshly ground black pepper

For tomato jam

1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 cup diced white or yellow onion
2 medium cloves garlic, peeled, pithed, and pressed
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 - 2 fresh basil leaves

Make the jam

Up to two weeks ahead

1. Measure all of the ingredients except the lemon juice, olive oil, and basil into a medium saucepan. 
2. Turn the heat to medium and stir the mixture until it begins to thicken, approximately 3 minutes.
3. Place the lid on the pan slightly off-center, so that an opening remains. Turn the heat to low and cook the jam, partially covered, until thick, approximately 20 minutes. Stir the jam periodically to prevent scorching.
4. Once the jam has thickened, turn off the heat and remove the pan from the burner. 
5. Stir the lemon juice into the jam.
6. Place the fresh basil in the bottom of glass jar with a tightly fitting lid. Drizzle the basil with a 5-count of extra virgin olive oil. Tilt and turn the jar to coat the inside with oil.
7. Carefully transfer the tomato jam into the oiled jar. Tighten the lid on the jar and store the jam in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Make the creamed spinach

1/2 hour before serving

1. Measure the butter and flour into a heavy saucepan. 
2. Turn the burner to low. Use a whisk to stir the butter and to incorporate the flour into the butter as it melts. Whisk constantly to avoid scorching. Safely remove the pan from the heat once the roux begins to smell toasty. 
3. Off heat, measure 1/2 cup cream into the roux, stirring constantly to incorporate the roux into the cream. Season the cream mixture with the salt, the nutmeg, and several grindings of fresh pepper.
4. Place the frozen spinach into the seasoned cream mixture. Use the whisk or a wooden spoon to break the whisk into the seasoned cream mixture. Add more cream if necessary; the mixture should be silken and a bit wet; that will stabilize as the spinach cooks.
5. Return the pan to the burner and place the lid on the pan. Cook until the mixture is cooked through and creamy, approximately 10 minutes on low. Check the pan often to stir the mixture to prevent scorching. Add cream, tablespoon by tablespoon, if the pan runs dry.
6. Once the spinach is cooked through and creamy, taste a bit and adjust for seasoning as warranted. 
7. Serve immediately.

Make the eggs

Fried 

1. Measure a 3-count of extra virgin olive oil onto the cooking surface of a ceramic-lined skillet. Turn the skillet to coat the cooking surface with oil.
2. Turn the burner to medium-low.
3. Once the oil starts to shimmer, crack 2 or 3 eggs depending on appetite into the skillet, being careful to avoid splashing hot oil.
4. Gently jiggle the skillet to loosen the eggs. If desired, prick each yolk so that it runs across the surface of the eggs.
5. Sprinkle the eggs with salt and several grindings of fresh black pepper. 
6. Cook the eggs until the yolks are just slightly runny and the albumen sack is absorbed into the whites, approximately 3 minutes on medium-low.
7. Once the eggs are cooked, turn off the burner. Slide the cooked eggs onto a plate and sprinkle with chopped chives.
8. Serve immediately.

Scrambled

1. Crack 2 or 3 eggs depending on appetite into a medium mixing bowl. Add a pinch of salt, several grinds of fresh black pepper or a sprinkling of ground cayenne pepper, and 1 teaspoon cream to the eggs.
2. Whisk the egg mixture until it is thick and foamy.
3. Place a pat of butter onto the cooking surface of a ceramic-lined skillet. 
4. Turn the burner to medium-low.
5. Safely turn the skillet over the heat to coat the cooking surface with melting butter.
6. Once the butter is melted, use a silicon spatula to pour the egg mixture into the skillet.
7. Working from the outside in, use the spatula to push the eggs first toward the center in a swirling motion and then from the center outwards in a swirling motion. Continue until the eggs build a nice volume and are scrambled to taste: soft (somewhat runny), medium (wet but not runny), or hard (dry).
8. Turn off the burner. Slide the eggs onto a plate and sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper, chopped chives, or both.

Scrambled with Cheese

• Follow the instructions above for scrambled eggs but during step 7, sprinkle 1/4 cup grated cheddar, Monterey Jack, or mozzarella onto the eggs, so that the cheese melts into the eggs as you scramble them.

Poached

1. Fill a small saucepan 1/2 with water. Add 1/2 teaspoon vinegar to the water.
2. Bring the water to a boil.
3. Once the water is boiling, turn the heat to low.
4. Break an egg into a saucer and gently swirl the egg to break the albumen sack. 
5. Hold a large heatproof metal spoon over the gently boiling water. Hold the saucer containing the egg over the spoon. Slide the egg onto the spoon, and gently dunk the spoon just under the surface of the boiling water until the egg slides free.
6. Repeat steps 3 -5 above. You can poach up to 3 eggs at one time, depending upon the size of the pan.
7. Cover the saucepan with its lid and poach the eggs until they are cooked through and silken, approximately 3 minutes. Use a heatproof slotted spoon to remove the eggs from the poaching liquid, holding the eggs over the pan for a couple of seconds to express excess water if any.
8. Serve immediately.  

Serve

• Serve poached eggs over creamed spinach or on toast with Canadian Bacon
• Serve fried, scrambled, or cheese eggs with bacon, sausage, or ham and toast with tomato jam

Resources

Pancakes

Beef Hash

Japanese Breakfast