Gastromomica

St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine monastic order and father of much spiritual wisdom and practice wrote, “always we begin again.”  After having not eaten very well for the past couple of weeks I am especially eager to begin again, and the best place to start is with breakfast.  Breakfast is like the opening music for a movie–it sets the tone for everything that will come after it.  If you want to be healthy you have to eat a healthy breakfast.

I’m not just eager to eat better, I’m fed up with eating poorly.  I don’t feel as good as I should, I can’t think as clearly, and I’m putting on weight that just doesn’t belong.  Luckily for Eli, when I get healthy, he gets healthy too!  Thus, in addition to planning a week’s worth of healthy and delicious meals, we have also begun a new exercise routine–running.

To be fair, running isn’t exactly what we’re doing.  Even calling it jogging would be generous.  Nevertheless, we laced up our running shoes, stuck the baby in the jogging stroller, and set out for 45 minutes of fresh air and heavy breathing.  Following the advice of running coaches like Jeff Galloway and John Bingham, we did a walk/run combination, which is a good way to ease an out-of-shape body into running, and a great way to burn some extra fat.  I like to think of it as interval training.  Our aim is to get out three times a week for about 40 minutes each time.  In my more ambitious moments I will intersperse these running days with hour and a half long Bikram yoga sessions at 6 o’clock in the morning, but that hasn’t happened yet…

In any case, a healthy breakfast is key and this is one of my very favorites.  Since you are probably reading this mid-day, you should make up your rice tonight  for an even quicker breakfast tomorrow.

Ingredients

1/2 cup cooked brown rice (the nutty flavor of the brown rice and it’s firmer texture make this far better than if you use white rice, not to mention it is much healthier for you)

1 – 2 whole eggs

olive oil

soy sauce (I use Bragg’s liquid aminos, which is even better than ordinary soy sauce)

salt and pepper

Directions 

Cook your brown rice according to the instructions.  If you have already cooked your rice, heat about 1/2 – 1 cup of it up in the microwave and keep hot while you cook your eggs.

To fry your eggs, heat a small frying pan over medium heat.  Spray the hot pan with cooking spray or coat with a little bit of olive oil.  When the oil is hot, pour your cracked egg(s) into the pan and let set up for about a minute.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Once the whites have just begun to set, pour about a teaspoon of water into your pan and quickly cover the pan with a tight-fitting lid so the top of the egg(s) is(are) cooked by the steam.  This only takes a couple of minutes, so stay close to the stove so you don’t overcook the yolks–unless you like them firm.  I like my yolks as runny as possible so they cover the rice when broken by the fork, but I hate runny egg whites.

Drizzle some soy sauce and olive oil over your hot rice and give it a generous grind of fresh black pepper.  With the fried egg atop the rice, cut the egg up with a knife or even just the side of a fork to break it up and spread the yolk over the rice.  Best served piping hot, so if you are serving more than one person, cook all the eggs at once in a larger frying pan.

Enjoy as a