By Jack's 4-H fair presentation is in two weeks and we are in full preparation mode. He has a display board — carefully lettered, photos of every stage of the garden, data charts showing growth rates that would impress an agronomist, and soil test results that he presents with the gravitas of a doctoral candidate defending a thesis. He is six. He has a thesis about soil amendments. I am both proud and mildly concerned that my first-grader knows more about nitrogen fixation than I learned in college.
The garden is peaking. Tomatoes everywhere — Beefsteaks, Romas, cherry tomatoes in quantities that suggest the plants are competing with each other. I've been giving tomatoes to the neighbors, the mailman, Kevin's office, and anyone who makes eye contact. The green beans are producing daily. The sunflowers are seven feet tall and starting to droop with the weight of their seed heads. The corn has been eaten — all of it, all four rows, boiled and buttered and consumed with reverence over the past week. Sixteen ears total. Not enough to can. More than enough to remember.
I made BLTs every day this week because when your garden is producing this many tomatoes, you eat BLTs. Thick-cut bacon, lettuce (from the store — I didn't grow lettuce), and tomato slices an inch thick on toasted white bread with mayo. A BLT with a garden tomato is a completely different sandwich than a BLT with a grocery store tomato. The garden tomato is warm and sweet and splits under the knife with juice running down the cutting board. The grocery store tomato is a pink tennis ball. I am not judging. I am stating facts.
Dad's corn is ready too. He called to report the harvest: forty-eight ears from his Grinnell garden. He froze some. He gave some to the neighbors. He ate four ears in one sitting, which for a man who eats like a bird is essentially a competitive eating event. I think the corn feeds something in him that regular food doesn't. The corn is the farm. Even in a garden, even scaled down to a fraction of what it was, the corn is always the farm.
I started planning the canning schedule. August is coming. Forty quarts are coming. The jars are waiting on the shelf and the canner is in the garage and the tradition is holding, year by year, kitchen by kitchen, and I will keep holding it because that's what I do. That's what Weber women do. We hold.
By Friday I had made BLTs for five straight days and I still wasn’t tired of them — which tells you everything you need to know about a garden tomato in peak season. When the weekend rolled around and Jack came downstairs asking what was for breakfast, I thought: there is a pound of thick-cut bacon in the refrigerator and there are still tomatoes on every surface of this kitchen, and the answer is obvious. The Pepper Pig Breakfast Sandwich is just a BLT that got up early, added an egg, and decided it was worth the extra five minutes.
TRANSITION_STARTPepper Pig Breakfast Sandwich
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 4 slices thick-cut bacon
- 1 teaspoon coarsely cracked black pepper, divided
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 4 slices sturdy white sandwich bread or sourdough, toasted
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1 large garden tomato, sliced 1/2 inch thick (2 slices)
- 2 leaves green leaf lettuce or butter lettuce
- Kosher salt to taste
Instructions
- Pepper the bacon. Lay bacon slices in a cold skillet in a single layer. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper evenly over the tops. Turn heat to medium and cook, turning once, until the bacon is deep golden and crispy, 7—9 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate. Pour off all but about 1 teaspoon of bacon fat from the pan.
- Fry the eggs. Return the skillet to medium-low heat and add the butter, letting it melt into the remaining bacon fat. Crack both eggs into the pan. Season with salt and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Cook until the whites are fully set but the yolks are still slightly soft, about 3 minutes. For a firmer yolk, flip and cook 30 seconds more.
- Toast and spread. While the eggs cook, toast your bread until golden. Spread mayonnaise generously on one side of each slice — don’t be shy about it.
- Slice the tomato. Cut your best garden tomato into thick 1/2-inch rounds. Season the cut face lightly with salt and let it sit for 30 seconds. This draws out just enough juice to remind you why you grew them.
- Build the sandwich. On the mayo side of the bottom toast, layer lettuce, then tomato, then two slices of bacon broken in half, then the fried egg. Cap with the top slice of toast, mayo side down. Press gently — just enough to hold it together. Cut diagonally and serve immediately.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 520 | Protein: 22g | Fat: 34g | Carbs: 32g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 890mg