Transcript: Omelets

Budget Health Nut
Episode “Omelets”

Joe Dias: Hi and welcome to Budget health Nut, I am your host Joe Dias. The focus of our program is preparing meals for you under $25 while serving anywhere between 2 to 8 people, depending on our dish. In other word I am bringing you 5 star flavors on a 2 star budget.
Now here at Budget Health Nut we like to offer some smart choices for some tasty cooking while also reducing calories compared to eating out at restraints all the time. Now keep in mind, moderation is the key here and focusing on your portion sizes.
Today’s is a breakfast special, it is the day after. We are going to do a Greek omelet, as well as a vegetarian omelet. And then we are going to do some shredded hash browns and keep it healthy with some rye toast, and some turkey sausage. So come join us in the kitchen will flip some omelets with you and we'll see how they turn out. I will see you there.
It is the breakfast time, and I hope you had a good night last night because today we are going to blow up a couple of omelets for you Greek style. And a little bit of a Spanish veggie style. Most of the action is really happening over at the stove top. So right now I'm going to go ahead and start off with some shaved hash browns. Why not? So we're going to go ahead and crisp these up in some butter. I know it is a kind of dirty word. But you really can't substitute much with a hash brown, when you're going to go ahead and fry it.
We are just going to go ahead and coarse chop this, and graded out, one full potato, half a potato per person. It can't be that bad right? We are also going to do some rye toast, and a little bit of turkey sausage. So I think you'll be happy with how the omelet’s turn out. Real easy, we have got some spinach and some feta in their. And the other omelet I'm going to do uh, some red pepper and green pepper, and red onion and a little bit of cheddar. So it should be good.
Let's see how this turned out here, oh that is quite a bit. Alright so let's go ahead and put that in a bowl. And go ahead and put some allspice in their. Toss around, a little bit of parsley. Just for some color, a little bit of flavor. Let us go ahead and add some cracked pepper. Not much to it really. Let's go ahead and grab these pans and cracking a few eggs. I will see you at the oven.
And we don't need that much for the hash browns. We are going to wait for that to heat up a little bit. At the same time we can go ahead and heat this one up for the omelet. Not too much now, just a tablespoon. Just do not keep the eggs loose in the pan. Now sometimes at the hash browns you might want to even think about using a white onion. Or maybe even a little bit of green onion to put in there. It is not a bad thing to do. Spread them out flat so they cook evenly and what they are going to do this kind of make the circular little paddy that you can cut in half and serve it to whomever you spent the night with.
Okay those are going to take a good, about four minutes per side. About four or five minutes per side should do it. All right let's start this omelet up. What I'm going to do is I'm going to do the onion first. This is going to be a Greek style. Red onion and a little bit of spinach, the spinach is going to wilt very fast. And you are going to see it reduce really quickly. Stir around their. See it there it goes it happens really fast. All right let's turn down the heat a little bit on that one and get these eggs whipped up.
I was eating out at the restaurant eating an omelet and one of the shells had gotten to the omelet actually got lodged into my gum, man, and another reason for you to cook at home, because you never know what you are getting. And that way you can control everything that you do in your own kitchen. Another thing you can do to this is add a tablespoon of cream and that will really fluff it up a bit.
Make sure you spread the egg around evenly because you are trying to make an omelet. Turn the heat up a little bit. Oh yeah, looking nice. Get it to the edge and flip it over, there you go. Let's go ahead and add the feta into this. Again if you want to add some garlic not a problem either. You can get really creative with omelet’s I will tell you what. It is an awesome dish to get, and not even just for the morning. You can have them for supper. That butter really more than just for cooking helps it lubricate a bit. So I can move it around the pan see, without breaking it.
Fold this up, boom. And then what I'm going to do is flip it over. Look at that. And I think that these hash browns are about done. Those are done. Now the other side of the egg because the egg gets really thin, cooks faster than the first side, so this one is done too.
Let's move on to the next omelet, so a little bit more butter. We will go ahead and add our onion, our red pepper, and the green pepper. Now these are harder vegetables, with a very high water base. So you are going to want to cook these down a little bit until they reduce, and for my money the more veggies the better. These will start to turn translucent and when they lose their firmness they're ready to add the egg.
Once the cheese is melted on top, you know it's ready to really flip over. Let's check the underside of this. Yeah see, the egg is still really loose there. Don't be afraid if the egg is a thinner on one side to just go ahead and folded over and wait for the other side to catch up. There is your veggie omelet right there with some cheddar cheese and red pepper. That is a money omelet, turn down the heat; I will post up some rye toast. And I think we are ready to go on this one,
All right here we go plating up our omelet’s, I am really excited again because it has been a long night. And I think that breakfast is one of the best parts of doing the show to be honest with you. I'm also joined by Andra Milian, and thank you for joining us.
Andra: Thanks Joe, I have been saving up my tummy all morning for this.
Joe Dias: Go ahead and tell the audience at little bit about what you do.
Andra: Well I am a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and I am a licensed herbalist. And in our tradition good nutrition is a big, big part of the, so hopefully I can give you some interesting tips.
Joe Dias: As far as may be some nutritional value, what do you think we can do here to make it better?
Andra: So what I love about it is that this whole meal is a very high in calcium meal. It has got the feta cheese, a nice water act cheese, which is actually the best type of cheese that you can get. It is the least creamy and rich and fattening for you. The spinach and the eggs and the orange are all very high in calcium. It has got some high concentrated protein, which would be the turkey and the egg. And it also has some great whole-grain, which is great in this rye toast that you chose, instead of the white. And I like that you the left the skins on.
Joe Dias: I did, I shredded them with the skins.
Andra: You could do egg whites, and you could do one egg yoke for the flavor, to two to three egg whites. Or just do plain egg whites.
Joe Dias: Now as far as calories go, we are looking at about between 500 and 600 cal for each plate. But the good thing about cooking at home is you are not using any of the vegetable oil. I am really in control of using my butter, so I think that helped and the dry toast to. Now I am not doing too badly there.
Andra: Dry toast is great, the fact that you are doing whole fruit I like that a lot instead of concentrated juice. If you are juicing orange juice you are drinking about, at least three or four oranges in a little glass of orange juice. So that is a lot of sugar that is a lot of concentrated sugar.
Joe Dias: So maybe if you water that down if you're going to use a juice.
Andra: Exactly.
Joe Dias: Ok, as far as price goes this plate only really comes out to a $1.50 each, so compared to eating out at breakfast, even if it is a mom-and-pop place. I know, I will tell you what; breakfast is one of the hardest dishes to stomach when I get the bill, because you're looking at $5.99 minimum sometimes $6.99, for two eggs with a piece of ham and the toast, plus tax and tip.
Andra: And you know what it costs at home.
Joe Dias: I know exactly a $1.50. Or two dollars may be tops, so looking at us feeding maybe six people if they all crash that night or maybe 12 bones, really not that big of a deal, and no tax no tip, just clean up my kitchen for me. Well let's dig and let's try it. Let's go ahead and see what it is all about.
Andra: I want some of yours so save me a piece.
Joe Dias: Alright I will save you a piece. We will go ahead and we will swap, all right here we go. Ooh that is hot.
Andra: Mmm, great flavor, yummy.
Joe Dias: Thank you.
Andra: Yummy, I love that feta in there.
Joe Dias: Did it get creamy on you?
Andra: It is really good. Okay let me try some of his turkey sausage. I like it, I like turkey sausage. You know really it's as good as pork sausage, there is no, the flavor the texture is really nice.
Joe Dias: We are going to close out the show again the breakfast special it is really easy to make omelets. I hope that you can follow along in the kitchen. I can't wait to have you next time and we will see what we can blow up. Thanks for coming on take it easy. Oh yeah I love it.