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Eat Yo Greens: Brioche Grilled Cheese with Braised Dandelion and Farm Eggs

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This was my breakfast…

Yup, grilled cheese for breakfast.

But it’s like bacon and eggs except there’s greens and cheese…you know, basically health food.  Aaand, it’s really health food if you pick your own greens from your garden!

The beauty of throwing some plants in the ground in the summer is that you reap the benefits of eating fresh produce…whether you like it or not.

A bumper crop of anything makes you feel this need to use it all up (I don’t know why, but if I pay for something at the store, I feel less guilty if I’ve forgotten about it at the back of the fridge and have to throw it away…if the same happens with something I’ve grown, I feel sick!).  Take my cultivated dandelion for example.  It is growing like a weed – no pun intended.  I picked some and made my breakfast (and even had some leftover to have with our steak for dinner).  Total yum!

Try this quick meal for breakfast, lunch or dinner…use any green you have on hand.  And, if you don’t have a waffle iron, you can use a pannini press, a George Forman grill or even the old fashioned way in a pan (just spread some butter on the outside of the sandwich before placing in the pan).

Eat yo’ greens, indeed!

Ingredients:

1 large bunch of greens*(chopped should give you about 6-8 cups)

3 large onions diced

2 glugs (about 3 tbsp) olive oil

1 tbsp chopped jalapenos (optional but yummy)

salt and pepper to taste

2 slices bread (I used brioche but you can use any kind, or even a bagel, pita, or tortilla)

2 slices cheese (I used Friulano cheese but any mild cheese will do)

1 egg

olive oil

* I used dandelion greens, but you can even use Swiss chard, kale, collard greens, mustard greens, spinach…it’s endless

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1.  Wash your greens and chop them (keep the hard stems separate…see this post about freezing your greens to find out why).

2.  In a hot pan, pour in your oil and saute your diced onions, jalapenos if you’re using them and stems from your greens if you have them; cook until soft.

3.  Add you greens and cook for a few more minutes.

4.  Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

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5.  Plug your waffle iron in and let it heat up; open up your bread and spread it with a few tablespoons of you cooked greens mixture.

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6.  Next, top the greens with a couple of slices of cheese; close the sandwich.

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7.  Place in your waffle iron and cook for a few minutes until the outside begins to brown and the cheese begins to melt.

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8.  You can totally chow down right here or you can add a fried egg and enjoy a well rounded meal.

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A beautiful stack of garden goodness.  And if you don’t have your own garden, make sure you are buying local.  In the dead of summer, we have no excuse to not support our local farmers!!