cook: chilaquiles

I had just run 4 miles and was ready for breakfast! During the school year, I only run and eat breakfast on Sunday. But if I'm on summer break, then I'll feel like I've the leisure to cook and break fast. On this summer morning though, I wasn't feeling the bodega sandwich for the pork and chipotle sausage in my freezer. It'd been a while since I cooked chilaquiles. And so I basically set out all the Mexican food items from fridge and pantry: the frozen patties of pork and chipotle, cilantro, Monterey Jack cheese, leftover arroz y frijoles, the fresh salsa I bought just after my run and a stop at Safeway, shrimp pipian, and lastly tortilla chips.

First thing, cook and crumble the Mexican breakfast sausage.

My shrimp pipian was too saucy, and so some of that sauce would go into breakfast. Into that pipian, I put the fresh salsa. This is my American cheat. Instead of grilling the onions, tomato and chilies and then pureeing all into a sauce, use the sauces on hand including store-bought salsa.

  

No frying up stale corn tortillas, just the chips from the bag. No queso fresco in the fridge, just what I had on hand: pepper jack.

On to a shallow bowl went the browned ground pork, sauce and chips, and then cheese to melt under a low broil. In the meantime, I was frying an egg until the white was crispy but still the yolk was runny.

And I had forgotten to add the refried beans, and so the frijoles went on top and then back into the oven to heat.

Place that fried egg on top of the whole shebang and breakfast is ready! But wait. I try to incorporate vegetables into every meal including breakfast, and so generous toppings of cilantro, avocado and jalapeno peppers are sprinkled on top.

Too lazy to chop a fresh tomato, I instead added drops of Valentina sauce for pops of red. On reflection, I'm missing my favorite Mexican salsa verde, and so am adding tomatillos and more avocados to the grocery list.