Breakfast + Dinner = Brinner!

The Florida summer heat has been making it really hard to get motivated to turn the oven on. I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want is a sweltering kitchen to go along with my 90+ degree afternoon. Speaking of the heat, check out this sweet tan line I have from our day at Sea World.

Impressive, huh?

The heat combined with the fact that Mike wasn’t feeling well had me looking for something quick and easy to make for dinner. The inevitable dinner conversation went a bit like this:

Me: What do you want for dinner?

Mike: What do we have?

Me: Not much. Nothing that I want anyway.

Mike: What do we have?

Me: Leftover pizza or breakfast for dinner.

Mike: BREAKFAST FOR DINNER!

Let me tell you, I am SO glad that we went with brinner. For someone who didn’t want anything that we had in the house, I sure outdid myself with this one. After taking a look through the fridge I decided on an open-faced egg white omelet, sweet and baked potato hash browns, and a fruit salad. This may not be a fancy meal, but I assure you, it was delicious. Fun fact:  when I was a kid, I hated it when my mom made brinner. Now, I love it. It’s usually cheap and it can be customized in so many ways. This is a fun family meal that picky eaters of all kinds can enjoy.

To start, I heated a couple teaspoons of olive oil with a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan. To that, I added a loose cup of diced onions. This was the base for my hash browns. While those were cooking, I microwaved two fairly large potatoes (we like leftovers in this house), one sweet and one white. Once they were mostly cooked I burnt my fingers trying to cut them because I am impatient diced them into large, one-inch cubes. I then added them to the pan of cooked onions and sprinkled the whole shebang with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes. The potatoes and onions caramelized a little bit from the oil and the butter. Once all sides were to my liking, I transferred the batch to an oven-safe pan and placed them in the oven to stay warm while I worked on the eggs.

For the omelet I sauteed half a thinly sliced onion with olive oil. Once the onions were soft, I added one large diced tomato and half a bag (maybe one cup — very precise) of frozen chopped green beans. I let them cook until all veggies were soft and seasoned them with salt and pepper. In a small dish, I separated six egg whites and whisked them together with hot sauce and capers. I then poured the eggs over the cooked veggies and let it set. I topped it with an obscene amount a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese and popped the whole pan under the broiler. After the cheese melted it was ready to eat!

The fruit salad was a combination of fresh blueberries, mango, and watermelon with sliced almonds and a drizzle of honey. This was the PERFECT summer fruit salad and the perfect accompaniment to our brinner. I could eat this all day long!

After we ate I finally took a shower (yes, from this morning after the gym) and Mike cleaned up the kitchen and then ran to the store to get some ice cream. He is such a saint. I’m a lucky lady. I think I’ll spend the rest of the evening killing him letting him beat me in gin rummy and backgammon.

What did you all eat for dinner?

What is your favorite thing to have for breakfast?

Thanks for reading!

R