A Vegetarian Dinner: Eggs with Swiss chard, mushrooms, potatoes and a few other things on toast

Vegetarian dinner – so lame right? You can’t be that person ordering the vegetarian main course. Portobello mushroom burger? Get ‘er outta here. Spinach and mushroom burrito? Get ‘er a taxi 'ome.

Actually… so not lame. Prove it? I will. I am about to bring you into the world of filling and delicious vegetarian dinners. You might not even realize it’s vegetarian. Needless to say, your tummy is in for quite a surprise.

Vegetarian Dinner 

4 eggs

2 garlic cloves minced

2 cups new potatoes cut in halves

1 bunch swiss chard

½ yellow onion

1 leek chopped up (leave off the top really tough parts)

1 cup mushrooms sliced

2 handfuls spinach

paprika

grated parmesan

rustic bread (for lack of better terminology -- don't cringe too much)

Wash the vegetables very carefully. Nothing puts you off your dinner like gritty veggies. The leek retains tons of dirt and grit, so what I do is chop it up and then fill a bowl with very cold water and place a strainer down in the bowl. Put the leeks in the strainer and let the dirt soak off. Then rewash. Same goes for the chard.

Swizzle some oil around in a pan on low-ish heat. Add the leek and cook for about 4 mins. Then slice the chard very thinly and dump that in. Add in the potatoes. Cook for like 14 mins or so stirring a LOT. Then add the garlic, mushrooms and onions. Keep stirring. Onions will get soft and translucent. Stir in some salt and pepper and a couple of shakes of paprika. Stir in the spinach and cover the pan for about 4 mins, letting the spinach wilt. Check and make sure that potatoes are getting soft in the middle and crispy outside.

Slice your bread, drizzle with olive oil and pop them in the oven for about 6-8 mins. When they are crispy you can rub them down with a raw garlic clove if you’re feeling wild.

Crank up the pan to about medium heat. Make four little holes in the veggies and carefully crack your eggs in to them. Sprinkle with a handful of parmesan, a shake of paprika and some s and p. Then cover the pan for about 2 mins for the eggs to cook through – about 3 ½ mins if you like your yolks hard. This is sort of a combination of frying and poaching the eggs. Froaching sounds gross though.

Using a spatula scoop up the egg and vegetables and carefully place them on your toast. If you're like me, whack on a couple of dashes of Cholula and dig in.

Try it on a guy and see if he even realizes it’s vegetarian. Better yet, try it on your vegetarian friend and as she gobbles it up let her tell you why the vegetarian path is the right one. Neither way is better – but this dinner is totally delish.