“Mostly Plants” Breakfast Squares

We took a little mini-vacation to San Francisco this weekend and my book of choice for the flight was Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. I’ve read parts of this book before, but this was the first time I’ve read it cover to cover. The seven words that he believes are the key to reversing the negative side effects of the Western Diet are these: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

This weekend at the Seattle Area Farmers Markets, we had an abundance of plants. Here’s just a sample of what we were treated to at the markets. Miners lettuce, nettles, chickweed, spinach, salad greens, leeks, sunflower sprouts, and kale. Well, we’ve got plants springing up all over the place! So to ‘plant-ify’ our breakfasts for this week, we switched from the Eggy English Muffin Samiches to these Mostly Plants Breakfast Squares. We’ve still got a good amount of protein, a nice hit of carbs from the English Muffins, and some rich, delicious, and pastured pork sausage. Plus, PLANTS!

Now I know… to truly move away from the Western diet, we’d need to dump the refined white flour that we used in the English muffins. We’re going to try a whole wheat muffin soon and you can always serve these without the muffin. They are easy enough to just cut into squares and carry with you on the go. I really enjoyed the texture of the kale and pea shoots. I used a rather large pan for the amount of egg, so as you can see, the squares are rather thin. If you need more protein or a larger breakfast, double up on the squares. John also added some hot sauce dotted over his egg squares. We wrapped the sandwiches in foil and will reheat them much the same way as the Eggy English Muffin Samiches. 300 for about 10 minutes while we get ready in the morning.

Mostly Plants Breakfast Squares

• 1/2 bunch lacinato raab, chopped
• 1 cup pea shoots, chopped
• 1 cup nettles
• 3 oz bulk sausage
• 5 jumbo eggs (or 7 large eggs)
• 2 oz cheese of your choice, shredded
• Butter and lard
• 8 English Muffins

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Boil or steam the nettles for 5-8 minutes to remove the sting.
3. Drain, cool, and squeeze to remove the excess water. Chop the nettles roughly.
4. Butter a small casserole dish (ours was about 6×8 inches)
5. In a large skillet, heat a bit of lard over medium heat.
6. Cook the sausage until mostly done and crumbly.
7. Add the chopped greens (the pea shoots and lacinato raab) to the skillet and cook for about 5-7 minutes, stirring regularly.
8. Whisk the eggs.
9. Mix the nettles into the eggs.
10. Transfer the chopped greens and sausage to the buttered casserole dish.
11. Pour the eggs and nettles over the chopped greens and sausage.
12. Top with the shredded cheese.
13. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the top is golden.
14. Slice into squares, serve one or two squares in an English Muffin.

Notes: You can use just about any greens in this dish. Spinach would work instead of nettles, or you could use mature kale instead of lacinato raab. Sunflower greens, miners lettuce, purslane, chickweed… really, the sky is the limit. Play around with the meat as well too. Diced bacon, pork sausage, chicken sausage from Stokesberry (try the hot Italian) or ground beef. We seasoned ours with a bit of Secret Stash Salt smoked chipotle salt, but hot sauce, anything from Zane and Zack’s, or a really rich cheese would work as well.

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Tagged as: cheese, eggs, kale, lacinto raab, pea greens, pea shoots, Pork, purslane, stinging nettles