Just spent the weekend at the Meadowlands Festival, volunteering with the Radio Reverb team. I did a couple of stage managing shifts and helped out in the crew kitchen. We cooked up some delicious dishes working with minimal supplies and cooking facilities.
The most surprising dish I prepared was on Monday morning. While the crew finished taking down and packing up the gear, I turned on the stove and prepared breakfast.
We had some leftovers from Saturday’s bean pots, which Sue and I had collectively prepared, so those were heated up and served with the main dish: Scrambled Eggie Bread with Mushrooms.
When I started out making this dish, I had no idea it was going to turn out like scrambled eggs, but due to the facilities that’s what we ended up with and I realized it’s a good way to feed lots of people with limited resources.
I had 8 eggs and a loaf of thinly sliced, very squishy, baker’s whole wheat bread and about 1.5 kilo of fresh mushrooms. I sauteed the mushrooms whole, cooking them down until they were soft. While they cooked I beat the eggs and added about 1/4 cup of milk, then slice by slice, dipped the bread and set it aside in a stack.
The only non-stick pan I had was a wok, and I had no idea at all how I was going make French toast, or eggie bread as the Brits call it, in a wok. Figuring the pieces needed to be smaller to be woked, I cut the slices of soaked bread into quarters, then layered them in the wok.
It quickly became apparent that a wok is not suitable for cooking a stack of French toast! As I started turning the quartered bread slices they started falling apart. After turning for a while, I saw that the slices of bread were looking more like scrambled eggs than the French toast I’d envisioned
…so I decided to go with it, constantly turning, as one does when cooking in a wok, and cutting up the more resilient pieces of bread with the edge of the slotted spoon. When it was cooked, I added the mushrooms, and voila, Scrambled Eggy Bread with Mushrooms.
On the taste end of things, I thought it was a bit bland and dry. Not sure what kind of spices would have helped. Whenever I tasted it as it was cooking, the Canadian in me kept thinking it really needed maple syrup. On the savory side – fresh tomatoes, onions, chives, garlic, basil, coriander, freshly ground pepper, more salt – all might have resolved the blandness of the eggie bread. As we had none of that, nor any maple syrup, I served it with optional left over bean dishes, which were spicy and a bit runny, so one offset the other.
I think if one were making scrambled egg and mushrooms for a gang of people and wanted to stretch the eggs, this is a good solution, yet it needs spicing up a little and needs to be served with something like beans with tomato sauce.
Related articles
- Eggy Bread (thefatsausage.wordpress.com)
- Fabulous French Toast (cooking4klutzes.wordpress.com)
- From us to you (lauraqueen.wordpress.com)
- Cooking Issues Mushrooms (cookingstorm.wordpress.com)
- Comfort Your Spirit (brandiz2002.wordpress.com)
- french toast dinner night (hanasaurusrex.wordpress.com)
- Balsamic Braised Mushrooms (l2ee2l.wordpress.com)
Alison Amazed 
My favorite food blog posts are the experiments or the ones that don’t turn out how you expected, but the cook/blogger eats it anyway! I have tom., onion, parsley I need to use up. Maybe I’ll throw them in. I’ll let you know how it turns out! Thanks for the great idea!!
That sounds like a great addition to this recipe. Let me know how it turns out. You’re right the best ones are the accidents – that’s how the spinach and mushroom was invented. Have a potage on the stove right now that I think might turn out great! Will share the recipe if it’s a winner..
I’ll be looking for it!
Guess what? I made the Eggy Bread. It was one of the yummiest meals I’ve ever eaten!! Matt and I diced up tomato, onion, fresh mushrooms and parsley and he cooked it in a skillet with olive oil while I did the eggy bread. It was homemade whole wheat bread we’d made a few days earlier. I remember you said you needed more egg so I used four. Matt told me it was way too much, so after I dipped the bread in, I also poured a little over the top. It made it nice and eggy. We poured the veggies over the bread and ate it up for dinner, and then breakfast the following morning. I would never, ever have thought to make eggy bread. French toast always made me think of sugar and butter and syrup. All the things I don’t eat. But healthifying it up was the way to go. Great idea! AND it was vegetarian! 🙂
Also, I wrote up a post about the lentil soup you taught me how to make. I wanted to put it up this week or next under my category, “Experiments gone awry.” I explained how I did it wrong and how you told me to fix it, making the paste and using red lentils, etc. I write about your colorful, artsy/food blog and tell everyone to visit it. I thought I should ask permission first. I dont’ know how blog etiquette goes….? So, may I please talk about you and your colorful blog and how you taught me to make lentil soup? I added your link in. It should bring you traffic! Just let me know…
Next, I’m going to try your lasagna!
Hey Jen, That’s great! Sounds like you had a great meal with all those veggies. Did you scramble the eggy bread or did it stay in one piece?
Did you try the lentil soup again and did it work? Yes, you may talk about my blog 🙂 You must be pretty busy getting ready for the move. Alison
The bread stayed in one piece….well sort of. 🙂
I haven’t retried the soup again but that’s only because I’ve made so many beans and soups lately, Matt’s a little “beaned” and “souped” out. You know the crock pot and all…
But I will!
Good, I’ll let you know when I post it.
Yes, we’re started to pack up electronics and get rid of things we haven’t used since we’ve been here. I’m starting to get excited about the southern manners, southern food, southern weather for gardening….it’s going to be good.
Southern food mmmm. yum.