Slumgoo: The Recipe

Last week, I promised something lighter for my next post.  I figured doing a recipe post would be a good way to go.  I haven’t had much time for cooking in the last few weeks.  I go to school 3 days a week and work 3-4 of the other days.  Which is why I have no pictures to go with this post.  I apologize.  I’ll try to be descriptive of how things should look at each stage.  But this is a pretty simple recipe.  If you can make home fried potatoes and scrambled eggs, you can rock out a pan of slumgoo!

This is the basic recipe that I grew up seeing my great-grandma, grandma, and mother making.  I make it now for my kids for special weekend breakfasts, though we don’t get to do that anywhere near often enough.

This is a scaled recipe making it easy to make the right amount for the number of people you are feeding.  As a note: the scale is generous!  This makes a lot of food for everyone.  No one is going to be hungry and you may well have some leftovers.

Don’t expect it to look pretty!  It’s ugly as sin, but trust me, you won’t care after the first bite.

You start by frying up the potatoes to a nice dark golden brown in the cooking fat of your choice (Go with something with a high smoke point). Then you add chopped or torn bread into the pan.  The bread with soak up the cooking fat and then fry into delicious browned nuggets.  This is a good way to use up somewhat stale bread.  Whole and multigrain breads work great in this too.  After you a good brown on the bread, add the whisked eggs.  Mix it around to make sure everything gets coated in egg.  Then cook until you are sure all the egg is cooked through.

The key with this recipe is getting a good brown on the fried potatoes and the bread.  You want them to be really golden brown all over before proceeding.  Otherwise, you’ll end up with mushy potatoes and gooey bread.  Yuck.

Make sure that you add a little more salt and pepper at each phase.  The potato and bread will absorb a lot of seasoning.

As a footnote: While a healthy lifestyle is very important to me and will be talked about in my blog, not every recipe I post will be ‘health food’.  Because, what would be the fun in that?  You have to live a little.  Please, don’t eat slumgoo everyday.  But, every once in while, let yourself slow down and enjoy something ridiculously delicious.  Whether or not it is healthy.

Slumgoo

• Time: About 30mins
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

A hearty breakfast to warm your belly and heart.

Ingredients

• High smoke point cooking fat
• 2 small-medium potatoes per person, quartered and sliced thin
• 2 slices of bread per person, chopped or torn into bite sized pieces
• 2 eggs per person, whisked in a bowl and set aside
• (Optional) Any breakfast meat you might have on hand, precooked
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat oil in a large, non stick skillet or frying pan over medium-high heat. You need enough oil to put a good 1/8-1/4 inch layer over the bottom of the pan.
2. Add sliced potatoes to the pan and fry, turning with a spatula every few minutes. Add some salt and pepper
3. Once potatoes are dark golden brown, add bread. Turn and mix with spatula until bread has soaked up the cooking oil. Add some salt and pepper
4. Fry bread until the pieces look like golden brown nuggets and potatoes are looking more of a medium-dark brown.
5. If adding meat, add and mix in now.
6. Pour eggs over top and turn with spatula until everything is coated with egg. Add some salt and pepper.
7. Cook, turning and mixing until egg is cooked though. Serve hot.