I had an open can of SPAM in the fridge, but I didn't want to just keep making Hawaiian omelettes, so I decided to give this hearty ham-and-potato omelette a try.

It's really meant to be made with ham and cubed cooked potatoes. But, since we had the SPAM in the fridge and some hashbrowns in the freezer, I decided to just chop those up and use them for the filling. Since the SPAM and the hashbrowns are already pretty fatty, I omitted the butter called for in the filling. If you're just using regular potatoes, then I'd recommend adding a little bit of butter to the pan.

Lumberman's Special Omelette

Slightly adapted from The Breakfast Bible by Maryana Vollstedt

Ingredients

• 2-3 tsp. butter (optional)
• 1/2 c. chopped SPAM or ham
• 1/2 c. cubed cooked potato (or hashbrowns)
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 3 large eggs
• 1-2 Tbsp. water
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 3 Tbsp. grated cheddar

Directions

1. Melt the butter over medium heat (if using).
2. Add the ham, potato, and green onions and cook until lightly browned (~10 minutes).
3. Remove from pan and set aside.
4. Melt a tiny bit more butter in the pan.
5. Beat the eggs with the water, salt and pepper.
6. Pour the egg mixture into the pan, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until almost set. Lift up the edges and allow the uncooked egg to run underneath periodically to help with even cooking if desired.
7. Srpinkle ~1/2 c. of the filling over half of the omelette.
8. Add the cheese on top and then fold the omelette over.
9. Cook until cheese is melted and egg is set.
10. Either serve the remaining filling on the side or use it to make another omelette.

This is a weird one: An omelette without cheese and with fruit.

I have to admit, I haven't been impressed with sweet/fruit omelettes when I've tried them before. That said, I've tried it precisely once before today. So I figured I shouldn't write them off completely yet. And this one is going for a savoury-sweet Hawaiian pizza type deal. So I figured it might have a better chance of working out than a purely sweet omelette. And, you know what? It did!

Is it my favourite omelette? No. But is it something I'd have again? Absolutely! This combo worked. Even the coconut was excellent in it. (Honestly, I feel like the coconut is what made it.) And the "tocino" SPAM that I had in the pantry worked fabulously in place of chopped ham. So... great success all 'round.

Don't mind the structural integrity issues. It was a tasty omelette despite its ragged appearance.

Hawaiian Omelette

Slightly adapted from The Big Book of Breakfast by Maryana Vollstedt

Ingredients

• 1/2 tsp. butter
• 3 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. water
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/3 c. diced ham or SPAM
• 2 Tbsp. minced pineapple
• 1 Tbsp. unsweetened shredded coconut
• 2-3 slices papaya (optional)
• 1-3 fresh mint leaves (optional)

Directions

1. Melt the butter in a medium-size pan over medium-low heat.
2. Beat the eggs with the water, salt, and pepper.
3. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook gently until almost completely set.
4. Sprinkle half the omelette with the ham, pineapple, and coconut.
5. Fold the plain side of the omelette over the topped one and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes.
6. Carefully flip the omelette and cook for 2-3 minutes longer (or until eggs are completely set.
7. Transfer to a plate, top with papaya and mint (if using) and serve.

Zucchini finally went on sale at the grocery store and I had ~100mL of diced tomatoes in the fridge that needed using, so this omelette seemed like a natural choice. The herbs and Parmesan worked very well with the veggies and produced a satisfying breakfast.

Zucchini, Tomato, and Green Onion Omelette

Slightly adapted from The Big Book of Breakfast by Maryana Vollstedt

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• ~1/2 c. chopped zucchini
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ~100mL diced tomatoes
• 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary (or 1/4 tsp. dried)
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh basil (or 1/2 tsp. dried)
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 5 large eggs
• 1 Tbsp. water
• 1-2 Tbsp. milk
• 1 tsp. butter
• 1 handful baby spinach (optional)
• 1/4 c. grated Parmesan

Directions

1. Heat the oil over medium heat.
2. Add the zucchini, green onions, and garlic, and sauté for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the tomatoes, rosemary, basil, and salt and pepper to taste and cook for another minute or two.
4. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl and set aside.
5. Beat the eggs with the eggs, water, and a bit more salt and pepper.
6. Melt the butter over medium-low heat.
7. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook for a minute or so.
8. Carefully lift the edges of the egg to allow the uncooked egg to run underneath and cook for another minute or so.
9. Add the baby spinach (if using) to one half of the egg.
10. Top with vegetable mixture and cheese.
11. Once eggs are almost completely set, fold the omelette over.
12. Carefully flip the omelette and cook until heated through (~1 minute longer).
13. Serve with toast and/or buttermilk biscuits.

I've been staring at this omelette recipe for a while. I looked tasty. But it also involved a lot of ingredients that I don't normally keep on hand: pico de gallo, avocado, bacon, alfalfa sprouts, Monterey jack cheese... So, as much as it looked like an appealing breakfast option, it kept getting pushed because I haven't been organized enough to get all the bits. But, I had some leftover pepper jack from another recipe and I figured I could just quickly swing through the grocery store and get the rest of the components a day or two before making it.

In the end, the pepper jack ended up getting eaten before I got around to making the omelette, so I had to use all cheddar, rather than I mix of cheddar and jack. The ready-made pico de gallo at the grocery store was way over-priced and didn't look very good, so I ended up making my own from scratch. I couldn't find any sprouts, so I ended up tossing in a small handful of spring mix instead. And I forgot to get the bacon, so I fried up some thinly sliced smoked tofu and used that instead.

So, in the end, quite a few changes from the original recipe. But it was still very good. Probably not something I'll revisit often due to the ingredient list. But I would definitely consider it as either a special occasion thing or if I somehow ended up with pico, bacon, and avocado sitting around needing to be used.

California Omelette

Adapted from The Breakfast Bible by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. milk
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 tsp. unsalted butter, divided
• 1/4 c. grated cheddar, divided
• 1/4 c. grated Monterey jack (or pepper jack), divided
• 4 slices bacon (or 8 short slices smoked tofu), cooked until crisp and chopped and divided
• 1/2 avocado, chopped and divided
• 1/4 c. pico de gallo, divided
• 2 small handfulls spring mix or baby spinach, divided

Directions

1. Beat the eggs with the milk and salt and pepper to taste.
2. Melt 1 tsp. of the butter over medium heat.
3. Pour in half the egg mixture and cook until bottom is just set.
4. Lift up edges and let raw egg flow underneath. Keep cooking until eggs are nearly fully set and just slightly wet on top.
5. Sprinkle half of the cheese over the omelette.
6. Add half of the bacon to one side of the omelette along with half of the avocado, pico de gallo, and greens.
7. Fold the omelette over and cook for another 30-60 seconds.
8. Transfer omelette to a plate and repeat cooking process with remaining ingredients to make a second omelette.

Soufflé Omelette (Breakfast Bible Version)

I've made soufflé omelettes before. This one takes a slightly simpler approach than the previous one that I tried. For this one, you simply separate your eggs, add a little salt and pepper to the yolks, beat the whites, and then fold them into the yolks. The omelette is topped with soft goat cheese and fresh chives and baked. It doesn't get folded or filled with anything more than that.

It was nice. I appreciate the ease of preparation. And the flavour was fine. Personally, I think it could've done with a bit more cheese. And I do think some mushrooms or other toppings would have been nice. It doesn't need them, but I do think they would have added to the experience. Still, this is nice if you just want a quick and simple fluffy omelette.

Soufflé Omelette

Slightly adapted from The Breakfast Bible by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 6 large eggs, separated
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1/8 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 60-70g fresh goat cheese (chère), crumbled
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease an oven-proof frying pan.
2. Combine the egg yolks, salt, and pepper and mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
4. Mix ~1/4 of the egg whites into the yolks to loosen them.
5. Add the remaining egg whites and fold in until just combined.
6. Pour the eggs into the prepared pan.
7. Sprinkle with goat cheese and chives and bake until just set (10-15 minutes).

Ideally this omelette would be made with Stilton, but Danish blue was on sale this week, so I just got myself a wedge of that instead. This was good, but I do feel like the cheese overpowered everything else. I would be curious to try it with a fruity white Stilton sometime. I think that would give it a very different character.

Bacon, Apple, and Blue Cheese Omelette

Slightly adapted from The Good Egg by Marie Simmons

Ingredients

• 1 tsp. bacon grease or butter
• 1 apple, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 4-6 eggs
• 2-4 Tbsp. milk
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/8 tsp. Italian seasoning (optional)
• 4 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped
• 1/4 c. crumbled blue cheese

Directions

1. Melt bacon grease over medium heat.
2. Add apple and sugar and cook until tender (~3 minutes).
3. Remove from pan and set aside.
4. Beat eggs with milk, salt, and pepper and pour into pan.
5. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 2-4 minutes.
6. Lift edges of egg and allow the raw egg to flow under. Continue cooking, covered, until eggs are mostly set.
7. Sprinkle Italian seaoning over eggs (if using).
8. Add bacon, apple, and blue cheese and fold omelette over filling. Continue cooking until egg is fully set and cheese is warmed through.
9. Cut in half and serve.

As I've mentioned several times by now, I have been working my way through a lot of recipes in the egg book this summer. I appreciate what a variety of preparations it presents. I've been mostly leaning into the scrambled eggs, frittatas, and omelettes because they are relatively easy and familiar, but it's been fun to try some of the others as well.

Among the many different forms of eggs that appear in the book is a small selection of sweet omelette recipes. I found the idea of a sweet omelette quite bizarre, but there have been plenty of other bizarre-sounding recipes that turned out to be great once I gave them a chance. And we had some lovely fresh peaches that needed to be eaten. So I figured I might as well give it a go.

Sadly, this was not one of those sounds-weird-but-actually-great recipes. It wasn't awful, it just wasn't great either. And we all agreed that while it was okay, it would have been much better if the filling was used in crêpes rather than in an omelette.

Still... if you're game and want to give a sweet omelette a try, have at it!

Peach, Honey, and Toasted Almond Omelette

Slightly adapted from The Good Egg by Marie Simmons

Ingredients

• ~1/2 c. thinly sliced peeled peaches
• 1 tsp. honey
• ~1/16 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. water
• 1 tsp. unsalted butter
• 1 Tbsp. sliced almonds, toasted
• icing (confectioners'/powdered) sugar, to serve

Directions

1. Toss the peaches with the honey and vanilla and set aside.
2. Beat the eggs with the water.
3. Melt the butter over medium-low heat.
4. Pour in the egg mixture and cook, covered, until nearly set.
5. Add the peaches over half the omelette, reserving any juice.
6. Fold the omelette over and cook for another 2-3 minutes on each side to ensure the middle is fully set and the peaches are warmed through.
7. Transfer to plate and top with toasted almonds and a dusting of icing sugar.

My original plan had been to make a sour cream and chutney omelette this morning. I knew we still had a little bit of sour cream left and it was already past its expiry, so I figured that'd be a good way to use it up. Unfortunately, I was a bit too late with my clever plan and the sour cream had already gone off. This left me scrambling for an alternate breakfast plan.

I would have tried one of the sweet omelette recipes in the book except I had already added salt and pepper to the eggs and I didn't think that would be very harmonious with, for example, jam and toasted almonds. So, at that point I was pretty much locked in to doing a savoury omelette. And I had to make it with ingredients that I had on hand.

I ended up going with the caramelized onion, ham, and gruyère omelette recipe and making a few substitutions. I know that tocino SPAM and extra old cheddar may not exactly lend the same flavour to the final dish as some nice ham and guryère would, but it was still a nice omelette and, importantly, it was ready in time for the Kidlet to have breakfast before heading off to camp for the day!

Caramelized Onion, SPAM, and Cheddar Omelette

Adapted from The Good Egg by Marie Simmons

Ingredients

• 4 tsp. unsalted butter, divided
• 1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 6 large eggs
• 1/4 c. water
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/4 c. diced SPAM
• 2 Tbsp. grated Cheddar

Directions

1. Melt 1 Tbsp. of the butter in a medium pan over medium heat.
2. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and brown (~30 minutes).¹
3. Meanwhile, beat the eggs with the water, salt, and pepper.
4. Melt the remaining 1 tsp. of butter in a large pan over medium-low heat.
5. Pour in the egg and cook until bottom and edges just begin to set (~2 minutes).
6. Push the cooked bits into the centre and let the raw egg flow to the edges of the pan. Try to smooth it out so that you have one even layer of egg again.
7. Cover and continue to cook over medium-low heat while onions caramelize and SPAM crisps.
8. Remove the onions from the pan and set aside.
9. Add the SPAM and cook until crispy.
10. Remove from pan and set aside. (You can combine it with the onions if you like.)
11. At this point the surface of the egg should be set or nearly so. Add the onion, SPAM, and cheese to one half of the omelette.
12. Fold the bare half of the omelette over to cover the topped half and cook until the cheese starts to melt.
13. Flip and cook for a minute or two more if the egg isn't quite set yet.
14. Transfer to a plate and serve.

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¹ If you have time, try turning the heat down a hair and cooking the onions for an hour or more. This should yield even better results, but requires more time and patience than I had available this morning. ^Back

Ideally this omelette would be made with fresh spinach and tomatoes, but I had an open can of diced tomatoes that needed to be used up, so I went with that plus some frozen spinach. I probably went a bit heavy on the spinach -- there was too much filling for the omelette to properly roll up around it -- but it was delicious. And having a bit of extra spinach is probably better nutritionally anyway!

Feta, Spinach, and Tomato Omelette

Slightly adapted from The Good Egg by Marie Simmons

Ingredients

• 1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 c. diced tomato
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, divided
• 3/4 c. lightly packed torn fresh spinach leaves (or 1/4-1/2 c. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed/drained)
• 1 Tbsp. minced fresh dill
• 2-3 Tbsp. crumbled feta
• 3 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. water
• black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Heat half of the olive oil over medium-low heat.
2. Add the garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the tomatoes and half of the salt and cook for another minute or two.
4. Add the spinach and cook until heated through (2-3 minutes).
5. Remove from pan and set aside.
6. Add remaining oil to pan and warm over medium heat.
7. While the oil is heating up, beat the eggs with the water, remaining salt, and pepper to taste.
8. Once the pan is hot, pour in the egg mixture and reduce heat to medium-low.
9. Cook until the edges are just set (~30 seconds) and then pull the cooked edges into the centre and let the raw egg flow out to the sides.
10. Cook, covered, until eggs are almost completely set and just slightly wet on top.
11. Add filling to the omelette, covering the third closest to the handle.
12. Sprinkle with feta and dill.
13. Now fold the third nearest the handle (where the filling is) over the middle third.
14. Tilt the pan and roll the omelette out onto a plate.

I'm not normally this bad at omelettes, I swear! But, for whatever reason, today was just a flop. I don't know if it's because I tried to follow the instructions in the book rather than doing my usual method or if I just needed a little more butter in the pan or if it was just a little too thin or what. But, whatever the reason, it just was not working out for me today.

The omelette itself was still tasty. It just looked like a bit of a disaster.

So, because I'm feeling kind of tired and bummed today and because I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, I'm going to cop out on writing proper instructions for this and just give the ingredients and leave it up to individual preference how you want to cook and assemble it.

Avocado and Tomato Omelette

Slightly adapted from The Good Egg by Marie Simmons

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. water
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/8 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. butter
• 1-2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 Tbsp. chopped garlic chives (optional)
• 2 Tbsp. chopped avocado
• 2 Tbsp. chopped tomato
• 1 tsp. minced jalapeño or other chili of your choice
• 2 Tbsp. grated Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese

Directions

1. Whisk the eggs with the water, salt, pepper, and garlic powder and set aside.
2. Melt the butter over medium heat.
3. Pour in the eggs and cook according to your preferred omelette method, adding filling ingredients as is appropriate for your method.