Breakfast, Cooking In, Quick PostKerry Alaric CheeseboroMay 12, 2010baguette, basil, bread, Breakfast, cheese, Cooking In, dried, egg, eggs, fresh, herbs, leaves, mozzarella, oil, olive, paprika, Parmesan, pesto, pork, proscuitto, Quick Post, salty, sauce, spread, toast, tomato, tomatoesComment

Quick Post | Assorted Italian Chicks

Breakfast Bruschetta Duet| Egg, Proscuitto di Parma, Pesto, Parmesan | Egg, Tomato & Basil Salad, Fresh Mozzarella, Wild Arugula

I HAVE MANY RECIPE OBSESSIONS, one of the most active being coming up with new breakfast dishes. I've always felt that breakfast menu variety has always been extremely limited, never straying beyond cereal, pancakes, French toast, and eggs.

And more so, eggs have yet to develop any more popular form than scrambled, fried, hard-boiled, and omeletted(?!), and then only being accessorized with default bacon, ham, or sausage.

I have tried my hand—successfully, in my opinion—and some (re)inventing some interesting dishes, including a butter-poached egg, a personalization on eggs benedict with dill cream cheese and orange-truffle hollandaise, deep-fried over broccoli cream grits, and sunny side up and served either over sea bass and Brussel sprout purée or over Mexican chili paste with fried smelts and soy sauce on olive rye toast.

I was likewise inspired this morning (with a hangover nonetheless—or maybe because of it!) as I hit Food Emporium to pick up ingredients for a (possibly dream-inspired) breakfast bruschetta. Wanting to keep it Italian at heart and simple, I picked up stuff for two different versions of the bruschetta. One version would get fresh mozzarella, a tomato and basil salad, and be topped with a sunny side up egg, the other would get proscuitto, pesto, parmesan cheese.

Which meant that once I got home, the only real cooking I would have to do would be to fry the eggs. I cut a baguette into four slices and toasted them, taking them out early to let them cool and dry out a little (so they would be crispy). I spread some store bought pesto on two of the slices, layered some Proscuitto di Parma on top (only 3 bucks and change for a 1/4 pound, and still have half left over), topped that with one fried egg (with half the yolk pre-separated, to make it smaller), shredded parmesan (also prepackaged), and a couple shakes of paprika.

The other two toast slices got topped with a slice of fresh mozzarella, the tomato and basil salad (canned diced tomatoes tossed with olive oil, dried basil leaves, salt,and fresh-cracked pepper),and egg each and a leaf of wild arugula (I always keep a container of dressing greens, like baby arugula or mâche).

Soon enough, once I started digging in, my morning got a lot better...!