Cottage Cheese Omelettes — Not So Nice

As I often do, I made myself an omelette this morning. And, for the past couple omelettes, I’ve been making use of some crumbled Amish blue cheese that I picked up at Sam's Club last week. Formerly, I would use shredded sharp cheddar cheese, but that always felt like a stop-gap solution to me. And the blue cheese just makes such such a more flavorful omelette.

So, the blue cheese has been going well. And I remembered reading about an another omelette addition as well: cottage cheese. Apparently, the cottage cheese could add protein along with a pleasant creaminess to the omelette. So, I thought I’d give it a try.

After beating the eggs and adding them to the skillet, I soon added a few spoonfuls of cottage cheese along with a sprinkling of blue cheese. Soon enough, the omelette set up and I folded it onto my plate. Those first few bites were actually rather nice. The cottage cheese — still cold from just having come from the fridge — provided a sensation a bit like an eggy baked-Alaska.

However, it soon went downhill from there. The cottage cheese, still cold, began to assert the laws of thermodynamics as it sucked the rest of the heat out of the omelette. So, after those first intriging bites, the omelette soon became soggy and chilly. The omelette went from “Hmm, this isn’t too bad” to “Yikes, this isn't so tasty anymore.&rdquo.

Perhaps if I prewarmed the cottage cheese or even added it to the omelette earlier in the cooking process, it would be able to warm to the temperature of the rest of the omelette and the resulting dish wouldn’t have the omelette-stuffed-with-ice-cubes effect. In any case, I’m not so sure I’ll try cottage cheese in an omelette again anytime soon.

Apple-Cheese Omelette

I had Tilapia & green beans earmarked for dinner this evening, but I just didn’t quite feel like it after I got back from the gym. So, through process of elimination, I looked around the kitchen to see what else I could make. Well, I had plenty of apples, some eggs and some cheese — voila, I could make a cheese-apple omellete. I had no idea if it would taste good, but it seemed like a good idea in my head ;).

Realizing that the heat of cooking eggs isn’t enough to cook an omelette’s ingredients, I decided to pre-cook the apples beforehand (I learned that part from Good Eats). So, I chose one of the smaller apples from the bag and proceeded to dice it (I figured that a too-big apple wouldn’t fit inside the omelette).

After dicing the apple, I preheated the pan and added about a half-inch slice of butter (yeah, real butter). Once the butter melted, which happened fairly quickly, I tossed in the apples. From here, I just played it by ear — I added a dash of cinnamon along with a good heap of Splenda.

At this point, I wasn’t sure how long to cook the apples. But, I aimed for the softness and texture of a baked apple. And, it actually took about ten minutes or so for the apples to soften and reduce. When the apples were ready, I set them aside in a bowl and realized that I could reuse the pan without rinsing it — no sense in losing the yummy apple sludge from the bottom of the pan.

From here, the omelette process was fairly conventional. I cooked the omelette about three-fourths through and then added the apples and the shredded cheddar. Of course, the apples were already cooked, but I also wanted to allow the cheese to melt.

The cheese only took a few seconds to start melting and I soon plated the omelette. It wasn’t a pretty omelette — the diced apple wedges made it a bit of a lumpy beast — but I was anxious to try it.

I wasn’t sure what to expect as I dug in to that first bite, but it turned out all right. In particular, I wasn’t sure how well the sugar/cinnamon of the apples would work with the eggs, but it was much better than I thought it would be. Would I make an apple-cheese omelette again? Yeah, I think I would.

Slashdot Meetup – December

This evening, I’ll be going to the Slashdot Meetup for Dallas. Like last month, it’s at Cafe Brazil this evening (the venues are chosen through voting, and it so happened that Cafe Brazil won both times).

I often order a make-your-own omelette, and I’m tempted to do so again. My favorite combination is sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese, and chorizo sausage. The problem I run into — every time — is that I’m never sure how to pronounce “chorizo” ;). Is it SHOR-zio? CHORE-zio? SHOR-see-oh? shor-SEE-oh?

I’m also looking forward to the dessert options available. With a dessert menu like theirs, I don’t think I could resist ;). I’m a big fan of chocolate-enhanced baked goods (chocolate cake, brownies, and so on) so I decided last time that I would have chocolate cake.

Of course, Cafe Brazil has about half a dozen varieties of chocolate cake, so I asked our waitress, “Which of your cakes is the most chocolaty?“ I could almost visualize the gears slowly turning in her head as she attempted to deduce the correct answer. After a moment, she replied “Well, I think triple-chocolate layer cake would be.“ (apparently using the line of reasoning that, if “one-chocolate” is a baseline, then “triple-chocolate” must be super-chocolaty indeed).

The cake was delicious — don’t get me wrong — but it was a bit of a chocolate disappointment. The icing was chocolate-flavored, but not intensely so. And, the cake-portion of the slice was almost sponge-like instead of a more preferable soft-and-moist texture.

So, this time around, I may still venture for a slice of chocolaty goodness. But, I’ll either decide on my own or decide after consulting with my dining companions (though not with the wait staff, natch).

Omelette Success

I made an omelette on Sunday morning and, unlike my last attempt, this one turned out much better. I used four eggs (well, two whole eggs and two egg whites) and they were very fresh as I had bought them only a day or two before (last time, the eggs may have been a couple weeks old).

To start, I placed a small amount of butter in the pan and then turned up the heat (instead of turning up the heat and then putting in the butter, which only resulted in a fizzled brown mess last time). The butter didn’t seem to coat evenly, so I added a touch of olive oil for good measure.

Just as the directions had said, I had previously mixed the eggs and I was careful not to overmix. I also added about a handful of shredded cheese that I found in the fridge (don’t worry, Jason, I’ve bought some more shredded cheese).

The pan may have been a bit on the small side, so the egg-mix filled it easily. I resisted the urge to stir the eggs — which would have made scrambled eggs instead — and I just lifted the edges of the omelette with a spoon to allow the liquid portion to run to the center.

As it became more firm, I added some freshly diced tomatoes. And, once it was done, I folded the omelette over with a spatula and slid it onto my plate. Quite unlike last time, this was rather tasty. It was very eggy, of course, but moist and almost spongey.

The cheese that I had added earlier wasn’t very prominent, and it was tough to recognize the cheese taste through the overall egginess. Next time, I may just have to add extra cheese. Or maybe I’ll add the cheese into the fold at the end (like the tomatoes) instead of pre-blending the cheese into the egg-mix.

Overall, this omelette experience was a pleasant one. Still, I may have to give the edge to pancakes in terms of general breakfast deliciousness ;).

Omelette Disaster

As planned, I made an omelette this morning. However, it didn’t quite turn out as planned.

Re-reading the directions, I’ve already realized one of my errors. I thought that they said to make the pan as hot as possible (‘As hot as you dare’), then add the butter, then add the eggs. However, they actually say to heat the pan, add the butter, then to turn up the heat really high.

What happened with me is that, because the pan was on full-heat, the butter boiled off and became brown almost instantly :(. So, I turned down the heat (but only a little), and added some more butter. That lasted a bit longer, but was becoming brown very quickly. So, I poured in the eggs that I had pre-mixed, and they cooked almost instantly. Well, actually, the bottom of the eggs cooked almost instatly (almost to the point of burning) while the top remained runny.

So, I quickly added the filling (tomotoes and cheese). I let the omelette cook just a bit more, in an attempt to halfway-cook the top side of the eggs. I remembered from the directions that “an omelette will go on cooking even on the plate&rdquo, so I transferred the omelette to the plate before the eggs were completely cooked.

But, I may have had too much filling in there — four tomato-slices diced, plus cheese — so I ended up with a crumbled omelette. And, it was nearly burnt on the bottom-side, but a touch raw on the top side.

Next time, I’ll be sure to only turn up the heat after the butter has melted. And, I’ll also use more eggs (I used just two eggs this time around, which underwhelmed the filling).