Munchy Monday #29: Haricot bean omelette

Back in the good old days, when I could eat everything, this was one of my favourites. Maybe it isn't the first item which might occur to you use when you decide on omelettes for supper, but I can guarantee that you will enjoy it and that you will feel full having eaten it. I serve it with a light soup, salad and tomato bread. Serves 1 or 2, depending on individual appetites!

You will need:

2 medium sized eggs
3/4 cup cooked haricot beans
Salt
A little oil to fry

Method:

Warm the beans in a non-stick frying pan using a little oil.

Warming...

Lightly beat the two eggs together, adding a little salt. Add a little more oil to the pan, turn the heat up and when hot throw the egg over the beans, making sure that both egg and beans stay evenly distributed over the whole pan base.

Ready to be covered...

Almost immediately, turn the heat to low, cover the pan and let the egg gently solidify, about 2 minutes. Loosen the omelette from the sides of the pan and carefully flip it over using a flat saucepan lid or a plate. Gently brown the other side for a minute or so.

Flipped!

I like to serve it beans side up.

Ready to eat!

This is a typical supper from the past, when the farmers of Catalonia came in tired and hungry from the wintry fields, they needed something warm and filling to satisfy their appetites! It also had to be easy to eat and economical and this omelette was everything in one! Enjoy!

A dozen things you might want to know about eggs

1. When preparing eggs for an omelette, beat the eggs together with a pinch of salt. This helps to mix the egg yolk and white quicker so that you don't have to beat the egg as much. The less you beat, the lighter the omelette will be.
2. Ideally, use a separate non - stick pan only for your egg recipes.
3. When scrambling, beat the eggs together with a drop of milk.  This will make the end result light, fluffy and moist. Do not stir too much.
4. Always use your eggs at room temperature. 
5. Eat vitamin C, preferably citric fruits, at the same meal. The vitamin C favours iron absorption and the citric acid helps to absorb calcium.
6. Add lemon juice or vinegar to the water when hard boiling eggs to prevent the shells from cracking. To hard boil eggs, bring water to boil, turn off heat, cover and let eggs sit for 20 minutes. Peel and enjoy.
7. In Columbia and other S. American countries, where there might be a shortage of other calcium sources, eggs are soaked for some days in vinegar to dissolve the shell and then the vinegar is drunk.
8. Egg white is also known as albumen or glair
9. An egg white is made mainly of protein and also contains niacin (vitamin B3), riboflavin (vitamin B2), chlorine, magnesium, potassium, sodium and sulphur. The yolk is a favourable source of iron, calcium, sodium and potassium.
10. A double yolk egg is longer and thinner than other eggs. To determine a double yolk, the farmer will shine a bright light behind the egg and, almost like an x-ray, he sees through the shell and it's content. This process is called "candling" because, before the invention of powerful electric bulbs,  farmers used a candle.
11. The only difference between brown and white eggs is the price. The colour of the hen indicates the colour of the egg it will lay.  There is no nutritional difference whatsoever.
12. Eggs take 24 - 26 hours to form. The hen lays the egg large end first and within 30 minutes the whole process starts anew.

O.K. Just some info. I have picked up on my way through life, speckled with one or two things I have found interesting in internet.

Sunday breakfast

Sunday breakfast is a special time for us. It is the only time in the whole week that we get to eat a meal all of us together. There is almost always something a little special to eat, prepared either by myself or A., and we tend to stretch the time we have to the limit.

Yesterday was no exception and this is a photo of what I prepared.

Delicious served with black chocolate and fresh orange juice!

It is prepared using a milk and egg batter and you also need bread which is neither fresh nor hard or stale. The bread is dipped into the batter and fried both sides, then laid out on kitchen paper and sprinkled with sugar.

I would be interested to know what it is called in other parts of the world, as I know that it is a pretty international food. Here it has as many names as people who prepare it!

Toasties, French toast...what else?

Munchy Monday #6: Wild asparagus omelette

Wild asparagus

Serves 4

You will need:

A handful of wild asparagus, found in woodlands and hedgerows in the springtime ( we found about 25, maybe 30 )
4 lightly beaten eggs
Salt

Method:

To prepare the asparagus all you have to do is snap each one into pieces from the head down the stalk until they bend, usually between 10 to 15 cm. Discard what does not snap easily.

Place the pieces of asparagus in a small, non-stick frying pan and fry gently with a little sunflower oil, until the stalks have turned to a darker green and the plant feels tender and soft. Sprinkle with a little salt.

Add the beaten egg, also lightly salted, to the pan and stir a little. Make sure the asparagus is spread equally over the pan, cover and cook the egg very gently. When solid, flip the omelette and brown slightly on the other side.

This is what mine looked like!

I served this with a bowl of hot meat and vegetable soup with pasta, tomato bread and a plate of lettuce, fresh from the garden.

Our supper table. The blue plate is one of my recent birthday presents.

Thanks to my camera girlie for the last two photos. I took the top one.