Italian Style Sausage & Eggs
He works & I cook. That truly is not honestly how it works around here - our usual mojo is that if he works, I work, meaning I really make an effort to join in on the current household project. & today the household chore is installing new flooring, which lord knows is the last thing I thought we'd be DIYing. I met Jordan at Home Depot to pick out a floor that looked good, which equated to 30 minutes of indecisiveness & waffling between two colors that we'd narrowed it down to. But we figured it out, bought about 30 boxes of hardwood floor on the spot, & by the time I got home 3 hours later homeboy had got going on the actual install. He told me it's his 4pm - 8pm project this week, so I've got a whole week to come home & get my hands dirty with this one. But tonight I supervise the job, & cook dinner for my working man.
I love experimenting with a meal that is super new to me and unlike anything I've whipped up in my kitchen before, and it's rare to get inspired to be really different. I mean I am great with finding new taco recipes or new salad recipes or new stir fry recipes & so on, so when I am inspired by something pretty out of the box I find myself excited & ready for the challenge. Usually that only happens when I am faced with a super complicated dish, like a souffle (& who the fuck makes souffles?). But I am a freak who keeps all of my old Martha Stewart mags and pages through them for recipe inspiration, & one particular eggy dish that appeared to be part breakfast for dinner & part cast iron creation got me real excited to experiment in my own kitchen. Martha made a traditional, old school meal called Eggs in Purgatory, which is essentially eggs cooked in a tomato or marinara sauce sauce topped with parmesan cheese and herbs. So it's an Italian egg dish you can easily make for breakfast or brunch, but since I am going for a cozy and comforting dinner at home, I am adding in some of our favorite Italian ingredients. Cue the ciabatta bread & spicy Italian sausage, please! & I am taking it one step further by skipping a store bought marinara sauce and swapping it out for hand crushed san marzanos - a nice and refreshing substitute that keeps this meal even more home-made. & also Martha Stewart using store bought tomato sauce? How could she? Anyways, what I brought to life is my version of Italian Style Sausage and Eggs - an egg dish that is oh so appropriate for a breakfast for dinner kind of night. It is warm, gooey, cheesy, spicy, and all around comforting. & the best part is it so simple and quick to whip up. One pan meal, yo!
This was my first go around, and truly the only good for you ingredients are the onions and tomatoes. But with that said you can totally get creative and beef up the veggies. Squash or cauliflower would be a perfect addition, and something I am already thinking about adding on future go around.
Let me just talk about the tomato soaked ciabatta cubes that really are the highlight of this dish. The breads gets all soggy and juicy as a result of marinating in that tomato and sausage mishmash, but the bread is also interspersed with yummy crispy bits from cooking in the cast iron. Gooey & crispy all at the same time - oh my gawd it is so heavenly. The same textural contrast you get from a good ol' Thanksgiving stuffing, which if I can have anything close to stuffing outside of the holiday itself - well that is a win for me! It honestly reminded me of an Italian stuffing. As we were eating it I told Jordan that this is what I feel like Italian people whip up for Thanksgiving. In response, Jordan told me it is what he wanted to have for Thanksgiving, So there you have it - if it is good enough to be part of your holiday menu than this eggy dish is certainly good enough for a quick and easy weeknight meal
For the Sausage & Eggs
3 tbsp butter
1 onion, diced
1 lb of spicy italian sausage
1 28 ounce can San Marzano tomatoes
2 c. chicken stock
4-5 cups of cubed ciabatta bread
1/4 c. parmesan cheese
2 slices provolone cheese
4 eggs
1-2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
Start by heat the butter over medium heat in the cast iron skillet. Once the butter is melted and bubbly, add in the onion. Stir to coat the onion in the butter, and let cook for 10 minutes while stirring ever 2-3 minutes & watching closely to ensure no burned bits. After that cooking time, remove the sausage from its casing and add it to your pan. Using a spoon or spatula, break up the sausage right after putting it in the pan so it is in small bite size pieces opposed to large links. Let he sausage cook for 7-8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Time to get messy! Pour the can of San Marzanos, juice and all, into a large bowl and crush them by hand to turn them into a sauce. A chunky sauce is what you will get, and you simply want to avoid having whole San Marzanos in your dish. Once the sausage has browned, add the tomatoes, chicken stock, and ciabatta to the skillet. Stire to mix into the sausage and onions, and turn up the heat to medium high. Bring to a simmer, and the let the mixture simmer for 4-5 minutes without stirring. After that time, reduce the heat to low and stir in half of the parmesan cheese.
Now it is time to get those eggs going. With the heat on low, make four little wells. Sprinkle the provolone slices randomly over the top of the dish & add 1 egg to each well. Cover and turn op the heat to medium low. After four minutes, check the eggs. To keep the yoke runny & delicious, you want the egg to just barely cook through, so once the whites of the egg are cooked through its done. If the whites are not cooked after four minutes. Keep the dish covered & check back every minute until they are done.
When the eggs are cooked and you have no runny whites, turn off the heat. Sprinkle the remaining parmesan & parsley over the top of the dish to finish. Serve it up & chow down!
