Our first-ever BGSK gift guide highlights eight days of presents we know you want to give and receive. To cut through the cluttered shelves of kitchen-oriented goodies, we’re spending eight days showing you the best of the best of the kitchen goodies to wrap up for or unwrap on Hanukkah and Christmas.
Today is Day #2-Breakfast in Bed.
The breakfast-in-bed experience-as-present somehow gets pigeonholed as a mother’s-day-only affair. But why, really? With all the rush-rush-rush of daily city life, a homemade breakfast really is a gift, perfect for those you live with, whether friends, family, or significant others. Make it on Christmas morning before you go out to parties or lunches, or the day after or before; or use it to get into the holiday spirit a week or two early. A New Year’s Day breakfast couldn’t be bad!
This sandwich is better than what you’d get from the corner deli, but it shares some similarities with that delicacy-as well as the McFatty, which was the name of the egg sandwich served in the morning by our high school lunch lady, Liz. It’s got crisp bacon and oozy yolk. It’s also got spicy pepper jack and sweet-meets-sour tomato jam which can be replaced by something as pedestrian as ketchup or as elevated as fig jam.
Pair the plate with a pretty napkin and some reading material: the Times‘ food section, perhaps, or a specially purchased Food and Wine or Savour. If togetherness is a gift, stick around. If peace and quiet are rarer, leave the egg sandwich recipient to savor some alone time, which can be as good as the sandwich itself.
Those who are house guests for the holidays should also seriously consider making this sandwich one morning for their hosts-cook the bacon in the oven, consider scrambling the eggs, and toast the bread under the broiler.
From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,
Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK
**Recipe**
Bacon and Egg Sandwich with Pepper Jack
Makes 1 huge sandwich, easily shared with a loved one
Ingredients
Olive oil
2 slices bacon
1 kaiser roll
3 teaspoons softened butter
1 tablespoon tomato jam
2 eggs
3/4 ounce pepper jack
In a frying pan, heat a drizzle of oil over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and fry until crispy, flipping once.
Toast the roll. Spread 2 teaspoons butter on the bottom, then place the slices of cheese on top of it. Spread the tomato jam on the cut-side of the top half.
Clean out the frying pan you made the bacon in. Melt the remaining 1 teaspoon of butter over medium-low heat, then crack in two eggs. When the whites are nearly cooked, 3-4 minutes, carefully flip the eggs. Cook for 1 more minute, until the eggs are over easy. Place them on top of the cheese and arrange the bacon. Place the top of the roll. Cut in half and eat immediately.
