Spinach, mushroom, and goat cheese scramble

One of the best things to come out of grad school has been the fact that my brother also goes to the same university. Very very different graduate programs, but we still get to see each other a lot.

My brother is five years younger than me and we are almost polar opposites. We share a common core though, one that values family, loyalty, and trust above most everything else. Ha, "Family, Loyalty, Trust" . . . that makes it sound like we're a family on Game of Thrones . . . I wonder what our sigil would be? . . . wastes half an hour looking at Game of Thrones house sigils and [spoilers?] wishing Jason Momoa had played someone with a longer life span on the TV show. What was I saying? Oh, yes, it's been so great to be able to spend a lot of time with my baby bro and realize how glad I am that we're friends. 

Anyway, sentiment aside, another benefit to having him nearby is that he's available to grab a meal with me pretty frequently. I like to cook, but it's a bummer to have lots of leftovers. A 23-year-old brother takes care of that handily! Example: this past weekend, I had him over for brunch and we had no leftovers, even though I made a six-egg scramble and two giant breakfast sausages.

I intended to make omelettes, but I forgot to add oil to the pan and my beautifully-set omelette turned into a messy, delicious scramble.

Rookie mistake! ROOKIE MISTAKE! Always oil the pan!

Le sigh. Someday, perfect-looking food. Some. Day.


This was a meal I made using a lot of leftovers from the Galentine's Day meal I'd made the night before and other odd bits I had lying around. I started by rinsing some sad-looking mushrooms I'd neglected for too long. You know how you buy amazing-looking produce with the best of intentions? Yeah, I think you do. 

Hi, Sad Mushrooms. Thanks for hanging on so I could use you!

I also rinsed and dried two very large handfuls of very fresh spinach and some dill.

 After all the vegetables were washed and dried, I chopped up the mushrooms and threw them into a large saute pan (this saute pan covers two burners on my stove!) that had warmed to medium-high with a little olive oil. I cooked the mushrooms until they'd given up most of their water, just a few minutes, then added three chopped cloves of garlic. In my family, garlic is ubiquitous. If it's not in the savory food we cook, we miss it.

If you want less garlic, use less garlic. But you ain't no kin of mine.

Let the garlic cook for about one minute, until it's fragrant, then add all of your lovely (or not so lovely, I'm not one to judge) spinach.

It cooks down really quickly, just a couple minutes or so. When it looks like the picture below, turn off the stove and put the spinach-garlic mixture into a bowl to save for later. The important thing is that most of the moisture has been cooked out of the vegetables, because you don't want them to make your omelette/scramble soggy. You're going to need the saute pan to cook the eggs, so you don't have to rinse it just yet.

Time for the eggs! I used six extra-large eggs, because of the aforementioned hungry younger brother with an appetite and metabolism I would kill for. To the eggs, I mixed in about three tablespoons of finely chopped dill, half a cup of milk, salt, and pepper.

I poured the eggs into the saute pan after heating it to medium-high, stupidly forgetting to add some olive oil. Don't YOU forget the olive oil.

After the eggs begin to set, I dotted the pan with goat cheese and added the spinach and mushrooms. You can tell by the picture below that I'd intended to flip half the pan of eggs and thus achieve omelette perfection. 

So much promise. So much omelettey promise.

Just a minute later, I turned the omelette into a scramble.

While all of my silly omelette/scramble drama was going on, what do you suppose my brother did? He played with the dogs and made coffee.

They love their uncle.

Two mugs for two nerds. I'm not saying my nerdy mugs are why I'm still single,
but they could be a contributing factor.

While the mushrooms, spinach, and scramble were cooking, I'd put two sausages from a Dutch Country market (Amish market?) in a separate pan to cook. They both split, I think because my pan was too hot. Thoughts, Internet? Why do sausages split? We ended up with plates like this:

Creamy eggs, rich goat cheese, silky spinach, and garlicky mushrooms. The scramble was actually pretty perfect.

Spinach, mushroom, and goat cheese scramble

Ingredients
(This is a very flexible recipe. Substitutions and additions are welcome. You can use any kind of mushrooms or greens you have lying around. Parsley or tarragon instead of dill works. Feta or even cream cheese can be subbed for goat cheese too. If it was just me [and not my carnivorous brother] I think some roasted tomatoes would make an excellent accompaniment to this breakfast instead of sausage.)

10-12 white button mushrooms, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 large handfuls of fresh spinach
6 extra-large eggs (or 7 large ones)
1/2 cup milk
2-3oz goat cheese (eyeball it--if you want more, add more; less, then add less)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Heat large pan with a little olive oil to medium-high on the stove.

Add mushrooms to the pan, cooking for three minutes (until most of the moisture has been cooked out). Add a little salt and pepper. Next, add garlic and cook until fragrant, about one minute. Add spinach to the pan, cooking until wilted. Turn off the heat and remove spinach-mushroom mixture from pan. Reserve pan for later. 

In a medium-sized bowl, thoroughly mix eggs, dill, milk, salt, and pepper.

Heat pan to medium-high, adding enough olive oil, cooking spray, or butter to coat the bottom of your pan (no sticking!). Add egg mixture and cook for two minutes or until eggs begin to set.

Dot the egg mixture with goat cheese and place spinach-mushroom mixture on the eggs. If making an omelette: fold one side of the eggs onto the other when eggs are mostly set. If making a scramble, mix everything together until eggs are set. 

Serve immediately.