I’m sure you all know how much Sci loves her baked goods. For those who don’t know yet, check out my scone recipe! People who have tried it (n=5 at last count) all say it’s tasty. Go Me!
But of course, you can’t have something sweet for breakfast EVERY day. Well, at least, I can’t. Some mornings, I really want something kind of hearty and filling and delicious. And it’s days like that when I pass those Bruegger’s and Panera signs and SIGH. Delicious bagel with egg and cheese…om nom nom. During grad school, MicroDoc and I used to go every week to Bruegger’s early in the morning, and talk about grad life over bagels and coffee. Definitely one of my fondest memories of the grad school experience.
NOTE: When hanging out with people in grad school, breakfast is the cheapest meal. I’m not kidding. So if you want to hang out on a budget, don’t go out for dinner or lunch, go out for breakfast. Bruegger’s has the bagel with egg and cheese with coffee for under $5. It’s a very good way to be social when you’re strapped for cash.
ANYWAY, after a while of walking by Bruegger’s on the way to my post-doc and sighing and missing MicroDoc, I started thinking “you know, I can do that myself, I bet”.
And yes. I can.
For cheaper. And healthier (which is always nice).
BEHOLD! The poverty stricken student’s breakfast sandwich!
You will need:
English Muffins or Bagels (I like the high fiber Better Start English Muffins from Thomas, but YMMV)
Cheese of your choice (this morning was basic cheddar)
Eggs (or egg whites)
and a microwave.
Take your egg, crack it into a small (SMALL, like dessert sized) microwave safe bowl. Use a fork and puncture the yolk. Microwave on high for 45s-1min. When it comes out, it will be a cooked egg that is ROUND, like the bottom of the bowl! Fits perfectly on your sandwich. If you’d rather use egg whites, use 3 tbs. and do the same thing.
Cut open your bagel or muffin. Cut a piece of cheese (or use the pre-sliced, whatever, the block is cheaper though). Microwave the bagel halves and the cheese for 30 seconds. Nice, melty cheese! And warm bread. Mmmmm.
Put together. Put the egg in the middle, not the outside (if you laugh at the idea that someone might do this, clearly you have never seen Sci when she is sleep deprived).
Eat it. It’s delicious. It’s breakfast. It’s got loads of protein and will keep you going for the long experiment.
Price breakdown for hungry grad students:
Thomas English Muffins or bagels: can get two sleeves of 6 for $3.99 at Costco, otherwise they are usually around $2.49
Eggs: $2.00
Cheese (cheddar in this case): $3.79
Total: $8.28, makes 6 before you run out of muffins, which is $1.38 per sandwich. Not bad.
Calories:
For the English muffin version you’re looking at 291 calories (100 for the english muffin, 78 for the egg, 113 for the cheese).
If you’re concerned, use the egg whites (you can buy these in a box, and they actually aren’t much more expensive than eggs), you can drop another 50 calories off of that for 241, or even go crazy and use less cheese. But everything is better with more cheese.
Using the bagel version is much higher, the bagel itself is 289 calories, so your total will look more like 480. But nothin’ wrong with that.
