By The ISFA work continues — another kitchen table this week, another young family with numbers that might work. I sat across from a couple in Tama County and laid out the grants and watched their faces change from fear to possibility, and the change is the thing I live for now.
The recipe this week: filet mignon Valentine Day. Standing at the stove, Marlene's wooden spoon in my hand (the cracked one, the one that will outlast us all), the recipe either from the card box or from my own expanding collection, both equally real, both equally mine. The kitchen holds all of it — the old recipes and the new ones, the teacher's food and the student's food, the grief and the joy and the cinnamon. All of it. Always.
January. The real winter. Dark and cold, the wind off the prairie personal in its grudge. We endure with soup and blankets and the belief that spring comes eventually. I made bread — sourdough from the starter named Marlene, the bread rising in a warm kitchen while Iowa does its worst outside.
January in Iowa has a way of demanding food that answers back — something warm, substantial, something you can hold in both hands. After a week of sitting across kitchen tables from families balancing fear and hope, and after mornings spent watching sourdough rise while the wind did its worst, I kept coming back to the simplest kind of comfort: a good ham and egg sandwich. It’s the food of endurance, of making it through, of one more day carried forward — and it felt exactly right.
Ham N Egg Sandwich
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 4 slices thick-cut ham (about 4 oz total)
- 4 large eggs
- 4 slices sturdy bread (sourdough, whole wheat, or white)
- 2 tablespoons butter, divided
- 2 slices cheddar or Swiss cheese (optional)
- 1 tablespoon mayonnaise or Dijon mustard (optional)
- Salt and black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Toast the bread. Toast the bread slices in a toaster or under the broiler until golden and just crisp at the edges. Set aside.
- Warm the ham. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the ham slices and cook 1—2 minutes per side until lightly browned and heated through. Remove and set aside.
- Cook the eggs. Add the remaining tablespoon of butter to the same skillet. Crack in the eggs and cook to your preference — sunny side up, over easy, or over hard. Season with salt and pepper. If using cheese, lay a slice over each egg in the last 30 seconds of cooking and cover the pan briefly to melt.
- Assemble. Spread mayonnaise or mustard on the toasted bread if desired. Layer two ham slices on the bottom bread, then top each with a cooked egg. Close with the top slice of bread.
- Serve immediately. Eat warm, with both hands, while the kitchen is still steaming and the wind is still outside where it belongs.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 480 | Protein: 30g | Fat: 26g | Carbs: 32g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 890mg