Saturday, November 27, 2004

jimbo's omelet: a bon vivant's guide

Today's cooking lesson is primarily directed to all the men in the audience. The women who are reading (and we love all of you) probably already have a multiplicity of recipes. Those in same sex relationships are probably already sophisticated enough that they don't need Jimbo's helpful hints.

Guys, when you wake up in the morning after a good night's sleep that was proceeded by several hours of intense lovemaking, do you ever think the microwave popcorn you make for your favorite gal makes you a one-trick pony. Do you feel that the one thing you can cook for her doesn't show enough imagination? Plus that, what self-respecting woman wants to wake up to a breakfast of microwave popcorn? You need to make your woman Jimbo's special omelet. Here's the list of ingredients and assembly instructions.

two eggs
two ounces of milk
two peppers (your choice of one each, green, red, yellow or orange)
ten small mushrooms
a yellow onion
5 pieces of canadian bacon (bacon or ham may substitute)
a bag of shreaded cheddar cheese

Wash your mushrooms and peppers, then get a cutting board and a sharp knife. Be careful when you do the cutting not to cut yourself. If you play basketball like Jimbo does, hold the knife in your shooting hand so if you do cut yourself, it will be your non-shooting hand. Slice the mushrooms into pieces 1/16" thick and put the pieces in a bowl. Cut the top and bottom off the peppers and core the peppers making sure all of the seeds are removed and discarded. Cut out the stems and discard. Now, slice the peppers into 1/4" sections and then cut the sections into 1/4" X 1/2" pieces. Put the pepper pieces into the container with the mushrooms. If you are only making two omelets, consider only cutting up only half of your two peppers and saving the remaining halves for another time or to put in salads. Peel all the brown crap off the onion and slice it in half. Then slice half of it into several discs about a quarter of an inch thick. I usually put the remaining half of the onion back into the refrigerator, but you might as well throw it away, because I always do, eventually. Take your discs of onion and cut them into 1/4" pieces by slicing them every quarter inch along one axis and then rotating them 90 degrees and slicing them again every quarter inch. Put your onion pieces in the container with the peppers and mushrooms.

Now take your canadian bacon and put it in a 12" skillet at medium heat until crispy. After it is crispy, put it on a plate and put your container of mushrooms, peppers and onion into the skillet and cook for about five minutes, stirring frequently. As the veggies cook, crumble the canadian bacon into small 1/4" square pieces. You can substitite bacon or ham for the canadian bacon to your personal tastes. Take the veggies off the stove and pour them back into the container you had them in to begin with and get another skillet about 8" in diameter and spray some cooking oil in it. Put it on the stove at medium-low temperature. Crack two eggs into a bowl and puncture the yokes with a wire whisk. Add one ounce of milk. Stir them briskly with the whisk until mixed well. Pour this mixture into the 8" pan. Cook until the eggs are no longer runny and sprinkle your canadian bacon on the right hand side of the eggs in the pan. Add a half cup of your mushroom/pepper/onion mixture on top of the bacon. Then sprinkle some cheese on top of that, to your personal taste. Put a spatula under the left hand side of the egg in the skillet and fold it over the top of the ingredients you just added. At this point your egg should be in a half-moon shape with all of the added ingredients inside of it. Cook it for an additional thirty seconds and put it on a plate and sprinkle some additional cheese on top of it.

At this point you are probably thinking to yourself, "that was easy enough, but I have a bunch of veggies, canadian bacon and cheese left over. Jimbo, you dork, why did you have me make all this extra stuff?"

The answer, of course, is that you're going to make at least one more omelet. The first one was for your woman and so you'll want one or more for yourself. Hence, the extra stuff. You start again at the point where you crack two eggs into a bowl and add milk and repeat the process. There is probably enough stuff for four omelets.

Fellas, your woman will appreciate this. She'll realize you're not the boob she thought you were. Good luck and good eating. And for those of you who don't think you are ready to try this yet, I'll give you the recipe for the microwave popcorn in tomorrow's edition.

Because we are sophisticated here in Jimbo's world.

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