Sunday Morning

   Sunday mornings to me mean getting up early, having that first cup of coffee in the quiet early morning hours before my family  wakes up and turns the day into a carnival of chaos. Sundays are for French toast with fresh berries, home made breakfast tacos, or simple bacon and eggs....yeah, right. Let's be honest, who really wants to get up at the butt crack of dawn and start cooking? Well, sometimes I do, but more often, breakfast around here is a catch as catch can sort of affair. Cereal, frozen waffles and those little frozen pastry things are most likely what you are going to get in the morning. In case you can't tell...I'm not really a morning person.

   I do however, make breakfast on occasion, and when I do, I like to make a production out of it. I wasn't really kidding about the French Toast with fresh berries, or breakfast tacos. These things are not difficult, simply time consuming. As with all time consuming chores, there are ways to trim time here and there. For example, when you want to have breakfast tacos in the morning, but don't want to get up super early to do all of the chopping, peeling and whatnot, you can peel and dice the potatoes and onions the night before....for that matter, you can even cook the whole thing the night before, and simply warm it up the next morning! Just add a little chopped fresh cilantro and some salsa, et voila! Breakfast for the starving masses and YOU got to sleep in! So, now I will impart my recipe and technique for awesome breakfast tacos that you can prepare the night before, or first thing in the morning.

  I start off with  a half dozen or so eggs, 3 or 4 medium sized potatoes, a package of fairly fatty bacon, 1 medium onion, 1 bunch of cilantro, 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, ground cumin (or comino, what ever you want to call it), salt, pepper and a dash of chipotle powder.

The first thing to do is to peel and dice the potatoes, and chop the garlic and onion. Set the potatoes in a bowl of cold salted water (that helps leech out the starch), and get the bacon out. I personally prefer using scissors to cut the bacon strips down the middle and then into pieces, but you can cut it into whatever size you prefer. Put the bacon, onion and garlic in a skillet ( I prefer an electric skillet, because it has higher sides, and so less of a spillage issue!) and set it to fry, stirring occasionally. While the bacon is cooking, go ahead and scramble the eggs in a separate bowl and set them aside for later.  Add the potatoes to the skillet when there is enough bacon grease in the pan to get the potatoes crispy. At this time, add the cumin, salt, pepper and chipotle powder to taste. Stir in the seasonings, and the beaten eggs, lower the temp slightly, and get another skillet out to warm up tortillas. I prefer using corn tortillas, but another fun and healthy alternative is to use green leaf lettuce as a wrap.
  If you are going to make corn tortillas, it's best to use  a cooking spray. Just give each tortilla a quick spritz on each side and warm up until the tortillas until they are nice and "floppy". When the tacos are ready, top with cilantro and salsa, and enjoy!

If you are making them the night before, let the taco mixture cool down before putting it in a bowl with a lid. I do NOT recommend making the tortillas the night before, however. They tend to get nasty in the refrigerator.

Bon Apetit!