I’ve recently gotten the Date Night Cookbook by the Try Guys’ Ned Fulmer and his wife Ariel for Christmas and I decided I would try my hand and one of their recipes. The appeal of this cookbook for me was that Ned and Ariel are just normal people, aka not professional chefs. So, a book of their favorite things to make feels much more doable than someone who cooks food for a living. These recipes feel easier to take on and honestly, i was hopeful that they would be appealing enough to Caleb that I would have ideas for what to cook us for dinner. This isn’t totally the case seeing as Caleb is quite picky but it’s given me a few more things to add to the rotation and some fun desserts I’d like to try and make to get back into cooking.
First up this fine morning, I decided to take on the Italian Shakshuka. I’ve made a Shakshuka before and thought it was fine. I used to see a café on campus in Chicago sold it around breakfast time and I was always intrigued but never got it. So here is my second brush at making a shakshuka and also my second taste at it.
A little unconventional for our breakfasts but I’m down to experiment. Everything in this was in Caleb’s realm too so I did manage to get him to share it with me as well. Score.
The great part of Ned and Ariel’s recipes are that they’re easy and quick. Throw some things together and boom, you’re ready to eat. In this case, you heat some garlic, onion, and chili flakes in a vessel and once it’s fragrant you add 26oz of crushed tomatoes and let simmer. They say to add basil, crack some eggs on top and season with salt. The Fulmers top it with feta and cover it to let the eggs steak for 5mins and it’s ready to go. Easy peasy. We also happened to have some tuscan garlic bread from Wegmans leftover so that was much better than regular white bread to dip in it. The eggs were a little over for us so our stove must run a little hot or I left it on a little too long (I do get a little nervous with baked eggs because they look raw up top but I have to live a little more free here for a better outcome.)
In the end, it was good, but not good enough to crave. It’s an easy dish to make and cooks fast with one dish quickly so I’m a fan of all of that but we’re not huge breakfast people so throwing this into the mix doesn’t seem very likely for us. I would recommend it though, I’m sure for some people, it would fit right into a regular breakfast routine.