Sharon's Guide to Making Life Simple

How to Make a Simple Fried Breakfast in One Pan

This idea was originally Jamie Oliver's as far as I know. Due to necessity I've put in some of my own twists to it.

Get a pan or skillet, preferably non-stick.

Fire up the stove, warm the pan on the fire til its dry. This lessens the scary crackling when water from the food hits the hot oil.

Put some fatty lubricant in the pan. Oil (I use olive), butter, animal fat, ghee...whatever you fancy. A non-stick pan doesn't need so much. Make sure the whole bottom of the pan is lubricated. LUBRICATION is important!

In the meantime if you are a meat-eater, pre-cook your assorted meats (sausage, bacon, ham, gizzards eeew...) in the microwave for a couple of minutes until they are almost fully cooked and toss them in the pan. Turn the fire to low. The meat wil flavour the oil. YUM! Meat-flavoured breakfast.

If you are a vegie or omnivore toss in some mushrooms, thick-cut tomatoes or whatever else takes your fancy. Make sure you use fairly fast cooking vegetables. Hard vegetables like carrots and potatoes are generally not a good idea unless you want to spend more time at the stove. Remember, we are trying to keep things simple and FAST.

When you figure the meat is almost cooked turn up the heat to the highest, wait until you think the heat in the pan has gone to the max and break one, two or a dozen (if you are a sumo wrestler) eggs into the pan, making sure you immediately tip the pan so the egg goes everywhere. You will get a circular flat structure of egg encompassing the rest of your ingredients. When the egg has cooked to your liking (raw, runny or rubbery) flip the whole concoction onto a plate. If you have LUBRICATED the pan properly everything should slide off properly. if you want to make things evn simpler eat off the pan. One less thing to wash up afterwards.

Eat one-pan breakfast with your choice of sauces and condiments. I find Worchestershire sauce quite nice. Or you can go with tomato sauce, tabasco for some zing or the quintessential Aussie "sweet chili", something that should be a dessert rather than a condiment. To be even more Aussie eat with a big dollop of Vegemite.(Apparently only 50% of Aussies can actually stomach the stuff. Oh well.)

Washing up instructions: in between cooking wash up things here and there, like the chopping board, knife, and life will be much simpler after that with the washing up. If you have used enough cooking LUBRICANT and you had good control of the fire, the pan should be fairly easy to wash with a lot of soapy water. on the other hand if you have a lot of black encrusted stuff in your pan try using a scourer. WARNING DO NOT USE SCOURERS ON NON-STICK PANS (or your mum will hit the roof if you ruin her favourite Teflon pan). If the black encrusted stuff is not coming off no matter how much elbow-grease you are using, pop it back on the stove with water and boil the whole thing. This should soften everything. Watch it or your entire pot will turn black. If you really don't have time to wash up just leave it soaking with water in the sink and wash it later.

And that is how you make a simple one-pan breakfast.