Huevos Rancheros

This is probably my favorite breakfast.  If I'm out to brunch and it's on the menu it's hard for me to order anything else, well, unless there's eggs benedict - then its a toss up!  I make a quick and easy version of huevos rancheros at home.

I brush a corn tortilla with olive oil, sprinkle it with salt then toast it in the toaster oven until its crispy.  I make my "refried" beans buy heating up a can of drained and rinsed pinto beans with some chicken stock and diced tomatoes (this time I used the kind with green chiles) then mashing them up with salt, pepper and cumin.  The tortilla is topped with the beans, one or two over easy eggs, some more of the diced tomatoes with chiles and chopped lettuce.  Sour cream would have put these over the top but I didn't have any in the fridge!

This past weekend I had brunch with a good friend at The Tortilla Press in Collingswood, NJ.  They have a $5 menu from 11am - 12pm that they call an "early bird" menu.   I don't think I've ever gotten an early bird anything on a weekend!  The menu is pretty great and I ordered, you guessed it, huevos rancheros.  My friend and I both ordered off the $5 menu (she had a quiche that came with fruit salad, my huevos came with rice and beans) and had bottomless cups of coffee and our bill was $16.  They weren't the best huevos rancheros I've had but I think that huevos rancheros are sort of like pizza - when it's great, it's REALLY great and when it's bad, well, it's still pretty good.  I'll be back to The Tortilla Press to try their dinner menu.  If you're into the meat free thing like I sometimes am May 19th and 20th they're doing a 4 course vegetarian meal for $30 and the menu looks great.