Stop wasting your meals plans! Even if you don’t care for the hot foods, take advantage of those containers and stock up on ingredients. It’s fun and a good way to experiment with recipes.

I found a recipe for a Sleeping Omelette while sifting through one of my favorite food blogs, The Pioneer Woman Cooks. It Essentially looked like a savory bread pudding, and I had recently had a really good experience with one of those at the General Greene in Fort Greene… eww redundancy. Anyways, it was a ham and gruyere bread pudding and it was AWESOME, so I needed to try making my own variation.

I went to Palladium and swiped two meals to go, and this is what I got:

Container One:

A ham sandwich. Don’t get any spreads, no lettuce or tomato (you could easily try turkey or another meat, too)

An extra roll in case I wanted to make a bigger dish than I originally planned

One of the sections filled with feta

The other filled with mozzarella (I never actually used this because the cheese tasted pretty janky)

Container two:
10 cherry tomatoes
Olives
Mushrooms

Onions
Broccoli
Lots of spinach
A sprig of basil from the stir-fry line. Ask politely.

**note fill both sides when you’re in the dining hall and carefully, but quickly, close it like a book to max out what you can take.

From my closet
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
A dash of Italian seasonings
A dash of oregano
A dash of salt
3⁄4 cup of heavy cream. Half and Half or milk will do as well.
3-4 eggs

Preheat your oven to 350. Oil a small skillet. What I have here is a 6-inch Le Creuset cast-iron skillet. It is my very best friend because it can go from the stovetop to the oven and its perfect for small portions. But make sure you CHECK the capabilities of your pans, because putting anything with a plastic handle in an oven is a no-no. If you don’t have cast iron, simply prepare this in a skillet, and then pour the vegetables into a cake or pie dish.

Sauté your garlic till it’s fragrant. Add mushrooms, olives, and broccoli. Sauté about 3 minutes. Rip up pieces of the ham and add to the pan, sauté till fragrant. Add tomatoes, sauté another 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add red onions at the END. You could also just throw it all in the pan… I doubt it would hurt.

Tear the bread into about 1-inch cubes. No point in being neat with this. Push them into your veggie mix. Things should be looking pretty snug.

Now, in a small mixing bowl, scramble the eggs, add the milk, add the seasonings.

Take a handful of the feta and just throw it on top, spreading it all over. I like lots of feta so I used about 2 handfuls. Also, if you don’t care about an extra 100 calories, cut off about a teaspoon of butter and crumble it into pieces and place that on top of any pokey up bits of bread. This will give you a super crispy golden crust on top.

Pour the egg mixture on top of your veggies and bread and cheese. You may have too much for the pan – don’t worry. You do want to “drown” it in the mixture, but if it doesn’t fit it doesn’t fit. Let it sit for about 5 minutes to allow the bread absorb some of the egg.

If you have a cast iron pan, you can actually turn the heat back on and start to cook the bottom. If you don’t that’s okay too, you can bake it all at once. I think cooking the bottom first shortens the cooking time. If you’re doing it my way, look for bubbling near the edges of the pan, then move it to your preheated oven for about 15 minutes.

Voila, thank you Palladium.

Photos: Claire Brooks