A Lightened Up Breakfast Poutine

One of my absolute favourite brunch places in Toronto is Fire on the East Side. They do this artery clogging but totally delicious breakfast poutine that features pulled pork, poached eggs, chipotle hollondaise sauce and mountains of home fries.

It's insane. And totally delicious. And a luxury, because eating that much egg and butter isn't good for anyone.

Around lunch time today I found myself thinking about that poutine. I really, really wanted a poached egg and more sweet potato fries. But, I also didn't want mountains of calories. We had kale in the crisper, Ewenity Sheep's Milk Feta and a ton of cremini mushrooms.

Slowly, a recipe began brewing in my head. I'd nix the sauce (hollondaise or otherwise) and top a bowl of sweet potato fries with some sautéed mushrooms and kale. In order to keep the flavour of luxury though, I made the sweet potato fries with white truffle oil and some truffle salt. This added a great depth of flavour.

Truffled Sweet Potato Fries topped with Kale, Mushrooms, Feta & Poached Eggs

Ingredients

1 tbsp canola oil, divided
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 small bunch kale, tough stems removed and leaves coarsely chopped
10 cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 large eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white vinegar
1 oz feta, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste

1 batch sweet potato fries, made with truffle oil (if possible)

Directions

1. Heat ½ tbsp oil in a large skillet set over medium heat. Sauté garlic for 30 seconds, or until fragrant. Add in kale and 1/3 cup of water, and let kale steam just until the water evaporates. Season with salt and pepper to taste, remove from pan and set aside somewhere to keep warm.

2. Wipe out frying pan, return to heat and pour in remaining oil. Sauté mushrooms for 5-10 minutes, or until liquid is complete evaporated and mushrooms are golden brown. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.

3. While the mushrooms are frying, heat 1" water in a small saucepan. Stir in 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp vinegar. Bring to a gentle simmer. A small stream of bubbles should just be breaking the surface. If you have an instant read thermometer, it should read about 200ºF. Crack egg into a small dish and gently slide egg from dish into simmering water. Cook, for approximately 3-5 minutes or until the white outside the yolk is just set. Remove carefully with a slotted spoon and set aside while you cook the next egg.

4. To assemble the poutine,  layer potatoes in two shallow bowls, sprinkling each bowl with a quarter of the feta. Top with kale and mushrooms, one poached egg on each dish and sprinkle with remaining feta.

An easy, lightened up breakfast luxury!

Asparagus with Satuéed GrapeTomatoes

The first asparagus of spring are always exciting to get on the table. In my last trip to the grocery store, I walked out with two pounds worth, and, in the end, they all went into making the same recipe (on two different nights).

This is one that will go into regular rotation here. And, over the next few weeks, I rather suspect a few more bunches of asparagus will find themselves going into this dish too.

The key here is to get some great, super sweet cherry or grape tomatoes. They'll play off the balsamic vinegar in the dish.

Also, if you can, get your hands on some sheep's milk feta. The original calls for goat's cheese, but I think the bright saltiness of a sheep's milk feta is far tastier than the earthy creaminess of soft goat's cheese. If you're in southern Ontario, I recommend getting your hands on some stuff from Ewenity. They're an awesome farm cooperative that produces all sorts of sheep's milk products.

Asparagus with Sautéed Tomatoes

(adapted from Cooking Light)

Ingredients

1 pound asparagus, woody ends trimmed off
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups halved grape tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar (you can use regular balsamic if that's what you have)
¼ cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Cook asparagus in a pot of boiling water for about 2 minutes. You want the colour to be bright and the asparagus to be no more than tender-crisp.

2. Heat olive oil in a medium skillet. Add in tomatoes and garlic and sauté for 5 minutes. Add in balsamic vinegar and cook for an additional 3 minutes

3. Arrange asparagus on serving platter, and top with tomato mixture. Sprinkle with cheese and black pepper. Serve immediately.

It's supposed to serve 4. Phil and I may (or may not) have eaten it all.

....
....

We ate it all.