The theme for this week for I Heart Cooking Clubs is Up & At 'Em! (Do you like something sweet for breakfast, or are savory dishes your favorite way to start the day?).
Breakfast? Hmmm...most days breakfast isn't much...a husband who does not really care to eat breakfast and has eaten cookies for breakfast on his drive to work for our entire married life, one son who refuses to eat breakfast at all, the other son who, as a competitive swimmer heading out to swim practice in the wee hours of the morning for the past 15 years, grabs only an occasional banana or yogurt, and myself who definitely does not want to face anything sweet to break any kind of fast, breakfast, per se is not high on our list of priorities. That said, breakfast for lunch or dinner is always a happy occasion as we do it so rarely. The theme this week was a good excuse to make breakfast for dinner. (We do occasionally have what is known as Big Sunday Breakfast around here late morning of a Sunday where pancakes make a regular appearance.)
Staying with my Donna Hay Simple Dinners cookbook, I found many choices for this theme, one just as delicious-looking as the next, but finally settled on page 18, Spicy Chickpea and Chorizo Fried Eggs.
The ingredient list: chorizo, red onion, brown sugar, red wine vinegar, oregano, chickpeas, eggs, smoked paprika, sea salt flakes, shredded lemon zest, flat- leaf parsley, and hot buttered toast to serve.
Seems like a lot of ingredients when you first read through it but the process is extremely easy and it all goes together in about 20 minutes. The combination of flavors is fabulous. I was very impressed with the glazed onions (red onion, a tiny bit of brown sugar, red wine vinegar) and I think I could have sampled that until there was none left to serve if I hadn't diligently told myself to get on with the recipe. Chickpeas and oregano just go well together in no matter what you put them in, so enough said on that. The most surprising discovery was the inclusion of lemon zest...lemon zest with eggs, are you serious? I am the biggest fan of lemon in anything, but I have never put lemon with fried eggs before...and I will say this is just the beginning with that combination, it was so good! Definitely worthy of a repeat. (And, really, for the recipe, just buy the book, I've made three recipes from it so far, and each one worthy of the purchase price.)
Please visit the I Heart Cooking Clubs site to see what the others made, you just click on their photo entry and it links you to their post/recipe.