This past Saturday afforded me such luxury, and I took a few selfish minutes to cook up a four-egg omelet for one.  I had a busy day ahead and needed my strength (plus, grilled onions, bacon, and cheddar cheese–I get selfish when faced with pure deliciousness).

Ingredients (serves one, two, if you have a side item)
2 strips of bacon, diced
1/4 medium onion, diced
1/4 red bell pepper, diced
4 eggs, beaten
grated cheddar cheese (to taste, but you’re probably going to want a quarter-cup)
kosher salt
ground black pepper

Note: you’ll also want a good non-stick pan (trust me on this one.  Non-stick pans are perfect for cooking eggs, and this is no exception)

Technique
dice

Method
low heat

First, set out four eggs. Let them warm a bit. Eggs closer to room temperature cook more evenly and more predictably than cold ones. So set out the eggs and brew your coffee. Then place the bacon in a cold skillet and set the skillet on a burner, medium heat.  Let the pan come to temperature.  When the bacon begins to sizzle, let it go for about a minute, then add the diced onion.  Stir occasionally for three minutes or so, then add the bell pepper.  Stir occasionally for another five minutes. You can also use this time to beat the eggs. Once the onion has gone translucent and browned a bit, the bacon has crisped some and the peppers are soft, remove all the ingredients to a bowl.

Place the pan back on the heat and add the eggs.  Leave them be.  If you need to, swirl the pan gently so the eggs cover the bottom completely, then let them cook a while, approximately four minutes.

What to look for: the gentle heat should prevent the bottom from burning.  The omelet will be ready to fill and fold when the eggs on the top achieve a jelly-like consistency in just a thin layer above a pale, custardy layer.  Now it’s time to fill the omelet.

Place 1/3 the filling ingredients near the center of the omelet, but slightly off center and top with half the cheese.  With a rubber spatula, fold over the right third of the omelet, then the left third (or vice-versa, depending).  Working quickly, slide the omelet to a plate and top with the remaining bacon, onion, pepper and cheese.  If you let it stand for another 30 seconds, the eggs inside will heat through and firm up, and you’ll be able to enjoy your perfect omelet with the sun streaming in through the living room windows and the sounds of a house waking into itself around you.

In my house we sit down together for dinner nearly every evening, even weekends. In fact, Sunday dinners are one of my favorites; I have time enough in the kitchen to really cook. But lunch is often a solitary affair, each of us cobbling together nourishment from a hodge-podge of ingredients and scarfing it down between morning laundry and afternoon errands.

I think it might be time to stop the rush, to pause a moment and enjoy the mid-day meal. To make something worth eating. Worth enjoying. It doesn’t have to be complicated or fancy, and it doesn’t have to take forever. Indeed, it can’t. It just has to be good. Sunday’s lunch fit the bill nicely, based on a Rocco recipe (I know, right?).

Grilled cheese and roasted red pepper sandwich with fennel salad

Ingredients (serves 4):
8 slices of delicious bread
2 red peppers, roasted and peeled
Provolone cheese, sliced thin

2 medium fennel bulbs, shaved
Fennel greens, plucked and sorted
2.5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
kosher salt
ground black pepper

Techniques
shave
slice

Method
grill

The mid-day break was fantastic. Home from grocery shopping I sat in the living room with my son perched in his bouncy chair on the coffee table. He watched me eat and drink and I watched him laugh and play with a plastic bee. Would that all weekends could contain such pause.