On No! What's For Dinner?

     August flew by.  I really cannot believe how quickly the summer went, despite my continued resolve to take advantage of every minute.  Cooking meals was one of the hardest parts.  I would stand at my kitchen sink, washing lettuce leaf after lettuce leaf and say to myself "I should really be outside right now".  With GAPS there is so much cooking.  When you have to make all your food from scratch, it is time consuming.  Time is priceless during the summer, at least up North.

     Many days this past summer I would glance up at the clock and literally gasp.  I try to be in the kitchen by 3:30 PM as a general rule.  I find this gives me plenty of time to get food ready by a reasonable time.  A lot of times I will start dinner (usually baking) and then be able to walk away until dinner time, but that takes planning ahead.  When I glance up and it is four or even five o'clock what do I do?  I make scrambled eggs.

     I actually like to call it "egg scramble" when I write it down on the menu board I keep on the fridge.  It sounds a little more substantial, and really it is more substantial.  In the above picture I am using my awesome cast iron skillet.  I have cracklins (actually called "crackLINGs", apparently), diced onion and shredded kale frying.  Basically I put butter (or lard) in the skillet and cook whatever vegetables I have on hand, or that sound good.  A lot of times I will use left over salad toppings.  Last night we had salad with shredded carrot, diced onion and chopped broccoli.  This morning I put lard in the skillet, added the onion and broccoli, and when it was cooked I added eggs and scrambled them.  If things are already chopped up it takes maybe fifteen minutes total.  If you have to chop things it will take additional time.

     With the above picture I added a dozen and a half eggs.  That is about what my family of six will eat.  The more vegetables I use the more food their is, but the less "eggy" it is.  If you have sausage or even hamburger on hand, you can cook that instead of cracklings.  Fry the vegetables and eggs in the fat from the meat.

     It is really nice to have a meal I do not have to spend so much time making.  I think we have consumed more eggs this summer than we have in the fall and winter months previously.  Thankfully my kids are not sick of it yet.  Harvest time is here, and with all the apple sauce making, kale freezing, green bean freezing, blueberry freezing, apple dehydrating and picking and gathering (in general) of food, we will probably be taking advantage of this simple meal for a few more weeks.