A Spanish Breakfast Treat
Last post I told you about my Breakfast with Monica. This post includes the recipes for her Scrambled Eggs with Bacon, Queso Frito (fried cheese) and Spanish potatoes as sent to me from Monica. Here is how Monica introduced her recipes:
It is always a challenge to have The Reluctant Gourmet over to your house for any kind of food preparation, so I relied on old family recipes. I grew up in a ranch in Venezuela, both of my parents were born is Spain but they had lived in Venezuela since they were about 10 years old.
You can imagine that my cooking nowadays is a combination of Spanish and Venezuela flavors with good old American convenience. I have been in the United States for 34 years, this is my country (also my grandmother was from Texas) and there is nothing that you can't find here. As a matter of fact, the quality of the ingredients is many times better that the ones that you find in South America and you also don't run into the problem of scarcity that sometimes you have in countries like Venezuela.
I love to share my passion for cooking, but I have to be very honest, I do not have time to be a gourmet cook, I just try to reproduce what I have learned along the way with what I have at home at the time, I try to bring the old breakfasts at the ranch home to my kids now.
Here are the recipes for the Breakfast with Monica
Que Aprovechen
Monica
Scrambled Eggs and Bacon:
In the case of breakfast with the Reluctant Gourmet he got stuck with turkey bacon, but you can make it with ham, or soppressata, turkey ham or whatever deli meats you have in your refrigerator. The amount depends on the amount of people you have. I would use about three slices of ham for 4 people or about 5 strips of bacon.
You do not want to have too much meat, it's just used for flavoring. Cut the meat into small pieces, saute with a bit of olive oil and when done just set aside.
Calculate about an egg per person, beat the eggs, I do not add salt if I am using deli meats because they are already packed with salt, even when the packaging says its low in salt but I do add pepper to taste. Add mixture to a previously heated pan in which a bit of olive oil has been added and cook to taste.
Queso Frito:
I use the type that you can buy at Costco. Just cut it up and fry with a small amount of olive oil or canola oil. The kids just love it!!!! It's filling and packed with calcium for their growing bones. I calculate about a slice and a half per person. This dish is typically from Venezuela, I used to eat it with bread as a snack when I came back from school. My mom also used to make it for breakfast on Sundays.
Spanish potatoes
Calculate about 2 medium potatoes per person, one medium onion per 6 potatoes. Slice them either by hand or in a food processor.
Place them in a pre-heated large pan previously oiled with olive oil, about 2 tablespoons, you will need to add more oil if you see that they begin to dry up too much. I do not like non stick pans, but I have to admit it is the best way to cook these potatoes because you want to be a bit crispy and cleaning a non stick pan is not fun!!
Add salt and pepper, and if you want some rosemary. It is delicious!!!!
This is also the basis for my Spanish potato omelet but just don't add the rosemary.
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