Remember how I mentioned earlier that I just had a crazy week? Well, when Sunday finally rolled around – the first day in awhile where I had no deadlines or commitments – I crashed. The whole day was all about books, naps, making a dent in my long-neglected blog reading list, and watching TV (can’t miss my weekly fix of The Walking Dead and Talking Dead now, can I?!).
In other words, I didn’t research recipes or plan much of anything for this week’s Meatless Monday experiment.
We still had a Meatless Monday, though, thanks to an abundance of eggs, fresh veggies, some Grana Padano from last Monday’s dinner, odds and ends from the fridge and pantry, and a couple of last-minute meat-free purchases.
Time for a Veggie Scramble!
A Veggie Scramble is similar to an Everything Salad in that neither requires any measurement, both are flexible and may be made with whatever suitable ingredients you happen to have in the house, and in either case you never end up with exactly the same result twice.
For today’s scramble I started by chopping some fresh veggies into fairly small pieces…
· mushrooms
· tomatoes (I also removed the seeds)
· orange pepper
· green onion
· garlic (1 clove)
…then did the same with some of my favourite preserved veggies…
· Pilaros roasted red peppers
· Kirkland Signature Artichoke Hearts
…and an Italian-style tofu sausage….
…then tossed everything into a non-stick pan and sautéed them together with a couple of teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil (for flavour and richness) and a sprinkle of sweet basil.
Once everything had blended, browned, and softened, it was time to add the eggs.
While I love the flavour of whole eggs, egg yolks are high in cholesterol and also bump up the calorie count of a dish, so it’s probably a good idea to limit them. The idea of a scramble made only with egg whites doesn’t particularly appeal to me; however, I think reducing the amount of whole eggs and replacing them with egg whites (even adding extra whites) is a good compromise. I find that in a scramble even one yolk per person gives the dish enough richness, and the addition of extra whites adds volume without increasing the overall calories significantly.
Rather than separate eggs at home and waste the yolks, I prefer to buy cartons of egg whites only to supplement my scrambles.
(Now that I think of it, I REALLY hope the factories that produce such things actually USE the separated yolks for something so that I’m not just deceiving myself into thinking that they’re not being wasted! Yikes – food for thought…)
This dish is particularly easy as it’s a scramble and not an omelette (because I’m not sure something quite this loaded with veggies could have stayed together as an omelette!). I poured the egg mixture – in this case, for the two of us, three whole eggs and ½ cup egg whites lightly beaten together with a couple of dashes of the joy that is Sriracha hot sauce (which we only just discovered this year, as apparently we’re a little slow on the culinary uptake) – over the veggies and let everything cook, stirring occasionally. Once the eggs started to set I added some grated Grana Padano on top (probably far too much, but it was SO good), and while it melted I popped a couple of slices of bread in the toaster, then voilà… today’s Meatless Monday Veggie Scramble was ready to go!
The end result wasn’t quite like my beloved breakfast for dinner, but it was in the same (albeit meatless) spirit of the thing, so everyone was happy. It was really, really good (better than I even thought it would be!) and very filling – we couldn’t even finish the whole dish, so there’s lunch for tomorrow.
Success!
Are you participating in Meatless Monday?
What did you make for dinner tonight?
