I Break the Yolks and Make a Smiley Face

I remember hearing on the news that the town where I live has the distinction of buying the most fast food breakfasts of any city in the U.S.  I don’t think I contribute too much to that statistic, except that for the past year, I’ve met with my small group girls every Sunday morning at McDonald’s.  The McDonald’s Southern chicken biscuit was my favorite meal for a while, but calorie counting made it necessary for me to explore another option.  The Egg McMuffin.

Ah, the Egg McMuffin.  Canadian bacon, not obnoxious ham.  A delightful slice of cheese.  A buttery English muffin.  A protein-packed egg.  And 300 calories.  Rapture!

Since I love the Egg McMuffin and since I have more time in the summer for things like making breakfast (and blogging), I have perfected my at-home Egg McMuffin.  And since I also enjoy a good food blog, I will here attempt to tell you about my at-home Egg McMuffin.

First, I begin with Taylor Pork Roll.  Taylor Pork Roll is from Trenton, NJ.  This is what I know about Trenton, NJ.  It’s where you change trains when going from Philadelphia to New York City.  It’s where I once saw Jars of Clay and Caedmon’s Call and my friend Josh caught Matt Odmark’s pick, after feeling around on the arena floor and picking up a gummi bear by mistake.  Trenton is the capital of New Jersey.  And they make pork roll and they ship it to my grocery store and if they ever stop, I will stand and cry in the refrigerated meats section.  Earlier this year I learned that if you cut the pork roll it won’t get all convex on you while you’re cooking it.

While the pork roll is cooking on the stove, I scramble my egg and toast my English muffin.  The “secret” to my scrambled eggs is a touch of milk.  I started doing this because in college my friend’s mom gave me a cookbook called “The Starving Student’s Cookbook” and I actually had to look in it for a recipe for scrambled eggs.  So that’s how I’ve been scrambling eggs since 1997.  

I play it pretty fast and loose with English muffins.  They’re kind of expensive and sometimes it’s cheaper to get those little sandwich thins that only have 100 calories.  This week I am using the nice, refrigerated English muffins.  They’re cheaper than the non-refrigerated ones and they have sunflower seeds in them.  Winning.

Usually the muffin is toasted about when the pork roll is heated, so I let them get acquainted on a plate while I put the egg into the frying pan and let it cook in the pork roll grease.  When the egg is done, I assemble my sandwich, give the frying pan a soak and enjoy!

The at-home Egg McMuffin made this way has 275 calories.  When I go back to work I won’t have time to prepare them in the morning, but not to worry—they make a fine dinner too.