Bekka's Favorite Breakfast

I’m glad someone important said breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It is my favorite meal by a long shot. When people say they skip breakfast or forget to eat it, I have to make sure my face isn’t saying rude or demeaning things. This thing, forgetting to eat breakfast, has literally never happened to me. I tend to have a larger breakfast and then taper down thru the day. Someone also said this is healthy – I just think it makes sense. If it’s healthy, that’s a bonus.

Breakfast is also very personal. Like so many other culinary norms, I think breakfast habits are influenced by how we grew up. I know this is definitely true for me, to a large degree. In high school, breakfast was the only time all the members of my family were in the house at the same time. My mom didn’t let that opportunity escape and instead of family dinners, we did family breakfasts. Eggs and bacon or oatmeal were pretty standard, but the occasional pancake or waffle snuck in from time to time. These days, I roll largely the same way except I love to add a few veggies into the mix. Sweet potato is this magic little vegetable that does amazing things for your blood sugar – which is the little culprit that makes you feel hungry at all the wrong times if you don’t pay attention to it. When I eat this breakfast, I am rarely hungry before 1pm. This makes it really easy to do a light lunch just by eating before that hunger really sets in. The timing works perfectly.

At first glance, this breakfast seems very time consuming. I assure you, it’s not. I can do the whole thing and be eating in 20 minutes if I’m organized and do just a few simple prep steps. I like to dice up my sweet potato during my weekly meal prep and just stick it in a larger container in the fridge that I grab from each morning. For cooking, you can either boil the sweet potato while your bacon is cooking or steam it. I prefer steaming. Just start the water on the stove and put the potato in the steamer basket before you put your bacon on and it will be perfect by the time that bacon finishes. The same timing holds for boiling – this is a personal preference.

I am picky about my bacon. My opinion is: if I’m going to eat two slices of this as part of the highlight of my morning, it’s going to be good and good for me. I buy uncured, local bacon from my co-op and with every bite, I thank myself for paying the extra $2/lb. It’s worth it. Cook your bacon and drain off the fat into a glass jar…you’re going to use more of this for the meal so keep it handy. Stash those slices on a paper towel to drain and then put your cooked sweet potato in the bacon skillet. You’re looking to get all the bacon goodness stuck to those potatoes. I hit them with a little sea salt and fresh ground pepper here – magic. They’re already cooked so you don’t need more than a minute or two on each side here. Slide them off onto the plate with the bacon. Add about a tablespoon of bacon fat back into your pan and put 2 cups of baby spinach in there to wilt. This doesn’t take long. Just wilt it down and put it over the sweet potato. A little more bacon fat in the pan for your two eggs and you’re good to go. I like to lazy scramble my eggs here with a little salt and pepper but cook them however you like eggs. My plate ends up looking like a big scramble anyway because I like to eat one of everything in each bite. After eating this at the start of your day, you’re ready for anything. Cheers!