Green Eggs and Ham

While I’m pretty indifferent about brunch, I love breakfast. Why? It’s the first meal of the day. It often includes lots of delicious carbohydrates. It has the most accoutrements – jams and jellies, preserves, butter, syrups and other sauces. It’s the only meal of the day I can eat something with “cake” in the name and call it a meal. My husband and I will occasionally have breakfast for dinner, which we find especially indulgent.

Last weekend, I bought a dozen of Dickey Farm’s coveted “green eggs” from the Winter Farmers Market – they taste just like ordinary eggs, but have a beautiful greenish-turquoise shell, especially on the inside. I also picked up some Arkansas bacon from the Ozark Mountain Smokehouse. I was unfamiliar with Arkansas bacon, but after one bite I was hooked. It’s a boneless pork shoulder cut, which has been dry cured and smoked, and thinly sliced. Arkansas bacon resembles Canadian bacon, but with way more flavor.

Sunday morning came around with an empty schedule and a hankering for a satisfying breakfast. We decided to have our all-time favorite – soft boiled eggs and bacon on croissants. This breakfast takes us back to our lazy mornings in our apartment in Munich, when we had no jobs, little stress and only enough money to afford eggs and bread from the discount grocery store down the street. We had plenty of time to perfect our method for soft-boiling eggs, which we still use today. One tool we can’t live (…OK, boil eggs) without is an egg picker. It’s a little contraption that pokes a tiny hole in the bottom of an egg, allowing just enough water to flow between the shell and the membrane, making peeling a cinch.

Once we got the eggs boiling, we fried up the Arkansas bacon and got our croissants toasting. Timing is key when it comes to perfecting this breakfast – you want to toast your croissants and keep them warm, cook your bacon but not burn it, cook your egg and peel it, then assemble your meal all within about a two minute timeframe to ensure your breakfast is hot! Because of croissants’ high butter content, they are notorious for burning the minute you turn your back on the toaster, so it’s important to keep a close eye on them.

I’m a traditionalist when it comes to my bacon and egg croissant. I only like butter on my croissant and salt and pepper on my egg. I also like how the egg yolk serves as a type of “sauce” on top. My husband, however, prefers the salty-n’-sweet version, adding jam or jelly to his croissant (jam and bacon?! OK, to each his own…) and mashing up the egg. So grab the Sunday paper, a hot cup of coffee and enjoy!

Green Eggs and Ham

(for two)

Ingredients
2 all butter croissants
4 slices Arkansas bacon, fried and drained
4 soft boiled eggs, peeled
salt & pepper
butter
jam or jelly (optional)

In a medium pot, add enough cold water to cover the raw eggs and bring to a boil. Once at a rolling boil, set a timer for 3 minutes 15 seconds for soft boiled eggs or 3 minutes 45 seconds for semi-soft boiled eggs. Drain, peel under cold water and set aside.

Fry the Arkansas bacon over medium-low heat until browned. Drain on a paper towel. Meanwhile, halve and toast the croissants, keeping an eye on them to prevent burning.

Butter the croissants and assemble the bacon and egg on top. Serve immediately.

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