It all started with the sweet potato. And not wanting to cut the large starchy football into tiny squares, and not wanting to wait for the hard cubes to soften in the skillet.  The cheese grater, or sponge shredded, depending on what you call it, became my very good friend and did the work pretty much for me.  No, no, do not bother to peel the brown wrapping, leave it be and grate away.

Hash brown style cook those shoe string sized starch nuggets in a cast iron pan, over moderate heat, in a good amount of fat.  I prefer olive oil (not extra virgin, that is not good for high heat cooking), add a dollop of butter or bacon fat if you have it lying around.  Place the shreds of orange potato in the hot skillet, spread evenly covering the whole surface of the pan.  Sprinkle with salt, and let fry for 10 minutes.  Move the pan around and see if the disk of congruent strings moves easily and together, like a raft on an ocean.  If so, time to invert.  Place a large dinner plate over the circle of sweet potato, and carefully turn  the skillet upside down, landing the potato Frisbee on the plate,  like a flipping a cake out of its pan.  Grease the hot skillet once again, and slide the hash brown disc back into the hot pool of fat, raw side down.  Finish cooking for 10 minutes more, over low to medium heat.  The sweet potato hash with start to smell charred and sweet.  Finish with a dusting of salt.

Proceed to top the golden deliciousness with more examples of fine ingredients found on the countertop and in the nearby fridge.  For this particular meal I added avocado, arugula, tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, 2 sunshine eggs.  This is a simple meal, one that you can tailor depending on what is in the house.  Don’t go to the store with a list of ingredients to make up a nice breakfast for yourself, use what you have and experiment with your favorite toppings.

To think that for a long time I never ate breakfast, and wasn’t all that nuts about eggs.  I guess that I was a fool then. Man, I can’t wait to have some breakfast tomorrow.