A Pleasant Food Experiment

You might not believe it but I am actually posting something that I did today!  This might be a first - even other posts that are dated properly were probably post dated weeks after.

Anyway, I'm fresh off of some great experiences with new foods.  In China I ate so many new things that I couldn't even remember all of them, and I still don't know what noises some of them made before I ate them.  That used to be a loose guideline on what I would eat, by the way.  I also got lucky at home making pasta.  It is not quite, but almost as easy as buying it.  Its actually faster for me to make it than to go to the store from home and buy it.


Oh yes, back to our current matter... Tonight I made egg toast on a nice fluffy roll topped with black beans and mozzarella (pronounced moots-uh-rella in CT and NY, possibly the proper way to say it - I don't know).  How did I know these things would go well together?  Well I can't really explain that, just bear with me.

This should be pretty easy to recreate if you are interested.  Just beat some eggs with a little milk as you would for an omelet or french toast and add few leaves of fresh basil, half a clove of garlic (if you dare), and a pinch of cumin.  Let that sit and be merry while you prep the beans.

I used canned black beans, but rinsed them well first.  I added a little more milk, the other half of that garlic clove, more cumin, and a few more basil leaves.  You can smash up some of the beans for texture as they are heating.  This by the way is a great way to make black beans for anything else.  You could also try oregano or thyme or any combination of two or three of those.  If I were going to eat these beans with rice or meat I would add a little citrus, mostly just for fun.

Back to the egg bit: heat up a skillet with a little release (olive oil, butter, spray, fre-kote, etc).  Soak one side of the bread/roll in the egg mixture and drop it egg down on the skillet.

While the eggs and beans are cooking slice up some mozzarella, trying not to eat all of it - the fancy stuff is good!

Then assemble.  The country charm rooster motif plate isn't totally necessary, but I admit it makes eggs more appealing to me.

Now, how do I eat this you might ask? It does look like a mess at this point - even with the cheesy (ha) garnish I put in there for you (yes, you).  I started with my hands but I brought a fork and a napkin, both of which were essential.  If I were not sitting alone in sweat pants at the table concerned about how I looked eating this I would do it a little differently.  I would cook the eggs like an omelet and combine with the same beans and cheese in a big, hot tortilla.

Enjoy!  Please let me know if you try some crazy modification (I call this freestyle when vendors do it to me at work - my design goes in and it's anyone's guess what will come out some times)

There are some other goodies and photos coming up soon.  I just have to wait until they are good and outdated before I share - its a style thing here.