The Art of Omelette Making!

So, lately I have been a little omelette crazy. It's just so easy and fast to make, great source of protein and frankly, anytime I can eat breakfast - I will. I often have them for dinner because I just want to cook something that is REAL food (not out of the freezer), but I am too darn tired after work to think that hard.

Anyway, this got me thinking to all of the people I hear saying, "I can't make an omelette", which is reasonable because you have to follow three simple rules to not ruin an omelette and end up with scrambled eggs (been there, done that, been disappointed every time), and how many people do you know that can be follow rules while they are hungry? Not I. It takes will power for this to work, which takes a little time to develop, unless you want this:

Sadness..

So.. since I THINK you all can handle cracking eggs/pouring Egg Beaters into a bowl and stirring it up with some salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic salt, whatever else you might like in your omelette.. I'll start after that.

Rule #1 - Start with a pan big enough to make a solid omelette. If your egg is not at least 1/8" of an inch thick in the bottom of the pan, the pan is too big. The thicker you can get your egg mixture in the pan, the easier it will be to flip in the end. I think about 1/4" is good. I use a 10" skillet. About 3 eggs for an omelette will work here (I use 2 eggs and one Egg Beater serving to lower the cholesterol a bit). Now you have your base.

Rule #2 - Use PAM like it's going out of style.

Yup, I used the PAM word. I want you to go out and buy some Olive Oil PAM spray. Good fats in that... omegas.. and we're gonna use that spray like it was intended - coat the HECK out of that pan!! To be safe, I get every single edge of that pan, especially the bottom middle and where the edges start turning up. You never know when you're going to have a crazy egg incident that will land it semi on the side of the pan and YOU WANT TO BE COVERED. Omelettes are not a perfect science.. be safe or be sad (see above).

Side Note - Turn the stove on to MEDIUM heat and heat the pan up before pouring in the egg.. This will help to set it faster.

Rule #3 - STOP TOUCHING YOUR OMELETTE! For the love of all things delicious, STOP poking it. STOP checking under it like a grilled cheese to see if it's done. STOP TOUCHING IT COMPLETELY. Okay.. you can swish around the wet stuff around the edges to make a slightly larger but only if you're careful and only if you can control yourself. You leave it be. You clean up your mess, wash your dishes, twiddle your thumbs and you WAIT until there is no more wet, mooky egg on the top of your omelette. This means the heat of your stove should be at medium, no higher, so you don't burn your egg while waiting for the magic of disappearing egg goo to happen.

So, now you know the very basic three rules not to break while making omelettes. Now, all you have to do is take your spatula (wide and thin is best, but really.. any spatula will work) and work it carefully around the edge, and shake the pan bake and forth to work it loose from the center. This is where the good ol' PAM comes in handy because it shouldn't take much if you used it right. Once you can get your spatula completely under the middle of the omelette, it is a quick 180° turn. This is where it's possible to get a little egg incident, but because we coated our pan with enough PAM to make an egg Slip N Slide we DON'T WORRY!! because now we can just gently push our omelette back into place and now it's beautiful and perfect and ready for cheese. The magic of the disappearing goo has helped us here because by the time you've got the cheese (whatever your preference) onto one half of the omelette, the bottom has cooked what little it needed to and you can fold it in half and leave in the pan for a minute or two, HEAT OFF, to help melt the deliciousness.

And now you know how to make an omelette =] I want to hear success stories!! Here are some delicious additions to omelettes. Big things are added at the beginning, while leafy things are added towards the end.

• Bells Peppers of any kind, diced - Add at beginning mixed in with egg mixture
• Mushrooms if you like them - Same
• Bacon, bits or real fried bacon torn up (or really any other meat source you like that you either cooked up previously [leftover chicken anyone?] or comes precooked - Same
• Avocado - Can be diced and added at the beginning or used in place of cheese to make it super healthy =] I slice it thin and add it at the end, personally
• Spinach - the perfect thing to add to increase nutrition value and it doesn't add a ton of taste. I hand shred and add right towards the end before flipping so it can stick to the omelette and cook on the other side shortly.
• Herbs like Chives, Rosemary, Cilantro. I add these at the end like the spinach (leafy, remember?)
• Garlic - minced - Add at very beginning when you're heating up the pan or mix a little in with the egg mixture. If you heat it up with the pan, mix it up real fast with the egg mixture once you pour it in to spread out the garlic. Be very careful.. I suggest not heating it up in the pan until you are pretty good with the omelette first.