Good Morning and Welcome to The Craine’s Nest!

This year I’ve become a big fan of breakfast. I’m usually a go-without-breakfast sort of girl, but recently, everything changed.  I started feeling sick if I didn’t eat and mentally foggy, not to mention grumpy and starving!  Needless to say, I’ve started eating breakfast.  For most of my life, I was not hungry AT ALL in the morning. It was really convenient, because it was one less thing that I had to worry about at the beginning of the day! I’d have a little coffee, and be on my way. But now that everything has changed, and I’m ravenous by 9 am, I’m on a quest to find new and interesting breakfast foods.  I’ve been trying out some recipes and I really like this Arugula, Mini Heirloom, and Burrata Bagel that I came up with the other day.  Oh, and if you’re a non-breakfast-eater, you can whip this up for a light lunch!

Whatever time of day you decide to make this, it’s delicious, it’s warm, and it’s satisfying.  Is it healthy?  The arugula and tomatoes are good, of course.  The burrata and bagel?  Lots of cheese and lots of carb, but burrata (if you aren’t familiar, I explain what it is, below) is not a bad choice, if you’re adding cheese to your morning meal.  It has fewer calories than cheddar for example, and is lower in fat and sodium, than a lot of cheeses.  So… whether it’s healthy or not, is probably debatable, but there are definitely worse things you could eat!  It’s fresh and it’s yummy.  Great for a weekend breakfast.

Let’s get going! Hope you’re hungry. Here is what you’ll need for 1 serving:

• 1 Bagel
• 2 TBLS Softened Unsalted Butter
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 Lemon (for juice and zest)
• 2 Garlic Cloves
• Tomato Paste (I love this kind in a tube, because you can reuse it much more easily).
• Burrata Cheese.  For those who are not familiar, Burrata is a fresh mozzarella that is creamy inside of its firm skin or casing.  It looks much like a giant poached egg.  I think different versions look different.  Some seem to have the skin and cream wrapped and wound around each other.  The one I bought at Trader Joe’s, for about $5, has cream inside a casing.  I’m sure there are more refined versions out there (like this one, perhaps), if you want to pay more, but TJ’s version is still very good, especially for the price.  And of course, so accessible!  Gotta love Trader Joe’s for having some great gourmet cheeses!
• Baby Arugula (I buy the kind in a bag-  they have an Arugula-only bag at Albertson’s)
• Mini Heirloom Tomatoes (can usually be found at any store) or any kind of tomato that you love.  I’ve also done a version of this bagel with Mini Villagio Marzanos and Wild Rocket Arugula. Both, found at Trader Joe’s.  I think I prefer the mini heirlooms because they’re easy to cut into tiny bite-sized pieces, and also because the tomatoes range in flavor, from tart to sweet.  They usually come in a package similar to cherry tomatoes.
• Kosher Salt & Freshly Ground Pepper

Here are some Kitchen Utensils that will be helpful:

• Lemon Press–  you can’t go wrong with this Pampered Chef Version
• Zester–  I love my Microplane, you can buy one like it at Target(if you don’t have a zester, you could use a handheld cheese grater with a fine grate

We’ll start by making a specialty butter concoction.  Take your 2 TBLS of softened butter and using a fork, mash it up and mix it in a small bowl.  Next, add 2 fresh garlic cloves that you have cut in halves, or in thirds, and add them to the butter.  Take your fork and mix and fold them into the softened butter.  I usually let them sit in the butter for a little while (15 minutes or so).  That way, the butter has a chance to soak up the flavor of the garlic.  Next, add a squirt of the tomato paste.  Just start very small, and mix in the paste, until it looks similar to my picture below.  Tomato paste is very potent stuff, so you don’t need much.  I used 1 small squirt.  After that, take your lemon and lemon press and press in just a little bit of juice from your halved lemon.  Mix everything well, so it looks a bit like whipped butter, and voila!  You have a REALLY tasty base for your bagel.

You won’t be using the actual cloves, on your bagel, just the butter. If you’re thinking about skipping this step, it will change the taste of your bagel. It adds a really nice garlic and tanginess that you can’t get without it.

Next, put your bagel in the toaster and LIGHTLY toast it. You want it crunchy, but it’ll be heading to the broiler in a little while, so you don’t want it too browned. The picture below is slightly too brown:

Now, spread your yummy butter onto your toasted bagel:

Then, put your burrata on to your bagel. I forgot to take a picture of the cheese on the bagel, before I broiled it :(.  Sorry.  Just take a bit of the skin and a bit of the cream part, and start spreading it onto your bagel.  Keep doing the same until you feel like you have enough cheese on your bagel.  Here is a picture that shows the burrata and bagel, post broil-  hopefully, that will give you an idea of how much you should put on.  Add freshly ground pepper and a tiny sprinkle of kosher salt.

After that,  get the remainder of your ingredients prepared, and cut up your tomatoes.  You’ll probably have half a lemon left over from making your butter.

Next, throw a nice balance of tomatoes and arugula into a bowl and top with some olive oil. After that, take half of your lemon and squeeze in, to taste.  I usually use most of it.

Mix that together, top with a sprinkle of Kosher Salt, and give it a taste. It should be tangy, but balanced nicely with oil and salt. If it tastes good, grind some pepper on to your mix. The pepper brings out the already, inherently peppery flavor of the Arugula.

Now, throw your bagel topped with burrata, under the broiler.  The burrata will not brown.  I think it’s just too creamy for that.  But it will melt down nicely.  I have to watch closely while I do this, or I will burn my bagel to a crisp.  Once it gets a certain level of brown, it only takes a couple of seconds to scorch.  I watch closely and turn the pan a few times during the process, because there are always some hot spots in a broiler.  Here is the result:

I threw a little EVOO on top, in the first picture above. Totally optional. May be too much juice for some, but I liked it! Second picture above is pretty well done (as in crisp!), but it tastes great like that, and may even add a little more crunch.

After that, pile on your Arugula/Heirloom mixture:

And last, but not least, one more round of freshly ground pepper and then zest the skin of your lemon on top.  I usually use the skin of almost half a lemon.  It depends on how zesty you like it, but I definitely think that the zest and the butter are the unexpected 1-2 punch, that give this bagel an awesome kick!

It’s time to eat!  Yummy.  Enjoy!

Please leave a comment if you make this, and let me know what you think! I would love to hear your creative spin on this recipe. Let me know if you add anything, that you think, makes it even more delicious!

Thanks so much for spending time here, at The Craine’s Nest!  See you next time.

Happy Nesting.

Kirstie xo