Farmer’s Cheese and Asparagus Omelets
Ingredients:
¼ cup chopped asparagus
2 tablespoons of farmer’s cheese (crumbled)
2 to 3 eggs
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
Dusting of paprika
Directions:
- Gently boil the asparagus, making sure not to over cook it. I personally prefer canned asparagus, because it makes this a much easier process.
- Heat and grease the pan, using the butter (or margarine)
- Scramble the eggs with a fork (adding a splash of milk if desired) and then mix in the asparagus, paprika and about ¾ of the cheese, and then pour it into the pan.
- Allow the bottom to cook evenly, gently pulling at the sides of the omelet with a fork or spatula in order to get as much of the egg mixture cooked before you flip the omelet[1]
- Sprinkle the remaining cheese into the center of the omelet. Then fold it in half and flip one last time to make sure the eggs are fully cooked, and the cheese melted. If you want, you can sprinkle a little more paprika over the top for more flavor.
My older brother introduced me to farmer’s cheese. It’s basically dry cottage cheese, but the stuff works great. It’s good for omelets, and blintzes, and other things. Unfortunately, it’s a tad bit bland (hence the paprika) so you don’t want to eat it plain or use it for a toasted cheese sandwich. Be careful when buying the stuff, it sometimes can contain rennet, which is a definite no-no for us vegetarians. Anyway, enough for the lesson. The way I came up with this recipe was pretty simple. I was sitting around a few days ago, thinking about how I was adding omelets as a section to the cook book and trying to come up with a couple of different types. The first thing that popped into my head was a cottage cheese omelet. I didn’t think that it would work right, though. The cottage cheese would be too watery. Before June, I would have been stuck drying out the cottage cheese myself, but now I know better. When making this omelet you might also want to add a little salt and black pepper if you don’t like paprika. Garlic would also work alright, just make sure you don’t use too much.
[1] I prefer to flip omelets using a spatula, rather than throwing it up in the air and hoping it lands correctly.
