scrambled eggs with mushrooms

Man, have I ever become good at cooking eggs. * buffs nails on shirt *

I remember thinking as a kid, "You must learn the dealio with eggs." Eggs as glue, as foam, as leaven, as thickener, the effects of heat upon them, their chemical properties, how to use them, to cook them, how to enhance them. Only then can I proudly don the toque and insignia of master chef and boss everybody else around in my imagination.

Did you know chickens poop and wee and lay eggs from the hole? WELL, THEY DO! Doesn't knowing that makes eggs ever so appetizing?

That multipurpose overused corporal orifice is called a cloaca and it's an opening shared with fish and certain mammals, namely kangaroos and so-called monotremes, mammals that lay eggs. In birds, the vent. Boy birds and girl birds touch cloacas to bump uglies but only for a few seconds so you needn't be overly troubled by eggs you eat emanating from the same hole abused for sex, besides, those eggs are unfertilized anyway, but there is still that nagging chicken poop that concerns us. Makes me want to soak 'em in Clorox water innit.

I'm over it.

* Three eggs heated gently and attentively, with the set curd pushed toward the center of the pan as making an omelet and removing the pan from heat before the liquid is fully set. That's the secret, if there is a secret, to light and tender pan fried eggs.

* Made even more light and tender with the addition of ricotta cheese after the pan is removed from the heat, and gently and incompletely mixed with the loosely set egg curd.

Go easy on the ricotta. NutritionData pans it, and that makes me sad. Bastards. Always taking away my fun.

* In another pan, garlic warmed in olive oil. Sliced mushrooms added in abundance. Cooked to barely done. Stand there and watch it and as soon as they begin to show color, remove them to another bowl to cease their cooking.

*In the same pan the mushrooms evacuated, heat a scant trace of fresh olive oil, and an even smaller amount of AP flour, about one teaspoon or less. Possibly a tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of flour. Brown the flour and season it. This contributes to the color and depth of the sauce. With a whisk, stir in enough chicken broth, beef broth, wine, vegetable broth, milk, beer, tomato juice, whatever liquid you have on hand that seems good to you in that moment, and add that liquid or combination of liquids while whisking. Don't worry yourself about cold liquid to hot roux or hot liquid to hot roux or hot liquid to cooled roux or cold liquid to cooled roux, or any of those conflicting precisian rules for martinets, just make sure to be continuously whisking and it always works. Keep adding liquid until you attain the desired thickness, mindful that flour roux thickens further as it cools.

* Tomatoes not cooked

* Fresh mint

* Fresh chive

This flour used here is the only fast carb in this dish. Without this type of sauce the dish would be 100% fast carb free and that's entirely possible. With this teaspoon of flour the dish violates NAB rules and so unfortunately cannot be counted among those numbered dishes. But there are other ways to make a sauce that doesn't involve flour, it's just I didn't feel like it today, and I am after all the king of my domain and hero of all my own stories.