As the late, great Anthony Bourdain once said:

“What nicer thing can you do for somebody
than make them breakfast?”

I couldn’t agree more, though as much as I enjoy cooking, I am not the primary breakfast maker in our household. This isn’t because I don’t like breakfast—or my family—I just find functioning in mornings incredibly challenging and always have. As a kid, I was known to come downstairs with a blanket over my head and not allow anyone to speak to me until it was removed. SO, I’d heard about this breakfast burrito hack from the Interwebs and been meaning to try it for a while, but the opportunity had simply not arisen. (I had simply not arisen.)

This weekend my older son and I were having a leisurely morning upstate. My husband and younger son had gone out snowboarding leaving just the two of us, which is rare. My ten-year old was up first and snuck a little Ipad time while I snuck a few extra Zzzzs. Symbiosis at its finest. Then, in typical kid fashion, as soon as I’d unpeeled my eyes and assumed a vertical position, he asked me to help him build some Lego—namely to help him find pieces which is pretty much my designated Lego role. In general, I prefer to freestyle, with both Lego and cooking. I’m hardly a rebel but not always great at following instructions either. His idea was to make our own version of a Lord of the Rings scene with Orcs.

I grabbed some coffee and started to dig in the big Lego bin, pulling any medieval-looking weapons, brown and black legs and capes, grumpy faces, helmets, shoulder shield thingies, flames, bones, etc. I offered up a few pieces of golden armor and weaponry, which were hastily dismissed as, “Too flashy.” The Orcs are a rugged, earthy crew. Nevertheless, like a band of meandering hobbits, we got there in the end, and were both pretty pleased with the result. Behold.

And who am I to deny you a few close ups?

Please note the spit-roasted turkey and pot of fish. Orcs get hungry, and so did we. The next order of business was breakfast. Since we’d bought some tortillas the day before, it was time to try the breakfast burrito/tortilla hack. Here’s our basic ingredients (salt not pictured):

1) Mix up an egg (. . . or two or three depending on the size of your tortillas) with some salt and pepper. We had little tortillas so I used one egg.

2) After adding some sort of fat to the pan (I like ghee, butter or avocado oil would work nicely too), pour egg in and allow to spread out flat like you are making an omelette. (Note: We had a big pan and a small tortilla. Similar sized pan + tortilla would be better.)

3) Let the egg set a bit. When it is still just a bit undercooked, slap a tortilla on top of it!

4) After a minute or so, flip to brown the tortilla a bit. You’ll have something that looks like this.

At this point, some people add cheese for more of a quesadilla effect, but my one child doesn’t eat dairy and this particular child eats cheese, but not melted. Cut to our next step . . .

5) Remove from pan and add toppings. For my child, some not-melted cheddar and Zhoug sauce. It’s a bit spicy, so we went easy.

6) Fold.

7) Cut and eat.

For my version (Gluten- and dairy-free), I used corn tortillas and no cheese and dolloped some of this avocado-tomatillo salsa from Sam’s Club on top. It tasted like chilaquiles, which is a win in my book.

I love recipes that are really just techniques you can put your own spin on, and this is definitely a great one. My son loved it and it’s seriously so easy he could make it himself. Needless to say, we had a great morning, improvising with Orcs and eggs and spending a little one-on-one time together. With everything swirling around these days, it was a nice little reminder:

“Where there’s life there’s hope, and need of vittles. ”

—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings