Recipes for a breakfast in bed

Vegetable eggs Benedict

By Sara Forte of Sprouted Kitchen

The sauce recipe is written using jarred roasted peppers. The yellow ones make a sauce that most resembles hollandaise. When bell peppers are sweet and in season near you, I am sure the flavour would be exceptional if you roasted them yourself (though jarred will save you time regardless of the season). If you don’t care for goat cheese, you could use cream cheese instead.

Ingredients

• 2 whole grain English muffins

• 4 large eggs

• 5 cups fresh spinach leaves

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• Zest of one lemon

• 12 spears of asparagus

• 1 teaspoon garlic salt

• Fresh ground pepper

• Fresh parsley for garnish

Bell Pepper Sauce

• 1-1/4 cup roasted bell pepper pieces, drained

• 3 to 4 oz. Chevre/Goat Cheese (richness to taste)

• 1/4 cup milk

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

• Splash of hot sauce

• Salt/pepper

Directions
1 Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

2 Start with the sauce. Warm the milk in the microwave for about 30 seconds. In a blender or food processor, combine the warm milk, goat cheese, mustard, lemon juice and the drained roasted bell peppers. Blend until smooth. Cover and set aside.

3 Warm the olive oil in the pan, add the fresh spinach and lemon zest and saute until just wilted. Turn off the heat and let it sit -- it will stay warm enough while you finish everything else.

4 Toss the asparagus with a bit of olive oil, garlic salt and some fresh ground pepper. Put in the upper third of the oven for 8 minutes (this all depends on the thickness of your asparagus; alter your timing to get tender but not soggy spears).

5 Bring one quart water and 1 tablespoon vinegar to a boil, then down to a simmer. This is your egg poaching liquid. If you are doing them one at a time, you can keep them in a bowl with some of the warm poaching liquid until ready to use.

6 Toast the English muffins and get ready to go. Toasted muffin, spoonful of sauce, sauteed spinach, asparagus spears, halved and poached egg, another spoonful of sauce and maybe a lovely fruit salad on the side -- perfection.

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Sara Forte takes delight in food in it's purest form and creates delicious meals using the healthiest of ingredients. Her blog, Sprouted Kitchen, is a labour of love with mouthwatering recipes photographed by her husband, Hugh.