Earlier in the week a Facebook friend {funny how we have actual friends and ‘Facebook friends’ right?? Such an interesting classification. Like she and I aren’t friends in that we hang out being that we’ve never seen each other outside of a certain environment, but we definitely have a relationship of sorts. Her daughter was in my class last year when I was a preschool teacher. My co-teacher/friend [she’s my husband’s best friend’s now wife] and I always thought she was really cool for several reasons so it’s cool being fb friends now.} tagged me in a BuzzFeed post: 17 Paleo Breakfasts That Are Actually Delicious (like, what paleo breakfast isn’t delicious? Just because it’s not cereal, oatmeal, bagels or toast it’s going to suck? lol) and I gravitated toward the egg dishes because scrambled eggs and fried eggs get boring real quick. Shakshuka looked particularly intriguing. I am not familiar with Middle Eastern food so this dish is completely new to me. When I went grocery shopping this week I made sure to grab whatever extra ingredients we needed for shakshuka. We basically had everything except we were out of paprika and we do not always have bell peppers on hand (we usually have those little sweet peppers for salads). So here’s how it went this morning::
I gathered the necessary ingredients and chopped up what needed to be chopped (onions not pictured here).
I sauteed the onion and garlic.
I realized that I should’ve added the ‘shrooms with the onions because I liked them thoroughly cooked and they take as long as onions to get where I need them to be for my personal preference. After the onions and mushrooms softened enough I added the green pepper.
Next are the tomatoes!! For any recipe requiring diced tomatoes, I will forever use canned diced tomatoes. Depending on the recipe I will often go for fire roasted tomatoes because they have such an awesome flavor.
The tomato paste is supposed to thicken up the sauce but the canned tomatoes had so much liquid that I let the mixture reduce a bit before I added the paste.
I threw in the eggs!! Let’s take a moment to mourn the yolk that broke =(
Finished!!
I realized that I need to sprinkle some green stuff on it to make it look nice for photos…..
Added in some bacon for extra protein and BAM! A perfect breakfast. I didn’t even realize it until my husband pointed it out, but this meal was the perfect prerequisite for a beach day being that it is loaded with lycopene, which helps protect your skin from sun damage! Check out this post called 8 Natural Ways to Prevent a Sunburn (and Sunscreen’s Not One of Them).
*** I started cooking bacon first to get some grease going to use as the cooking oil instead of olive oil. I needed to add something heavy to handle the mimosas that will follow breakfast 😀