Cooking with Colwin.2

Sauteed Vegetables and Poached Eggs in One Pot

I love Laurie Colwin's hatred of extraneous cooking implements and her adoration of tag sales. To emphasize simplicity, she offers a recipe that can be made with one knife and one pot.

This is one of my favorite things to make--sauteed vegetables with a couple of eggs cracked in the middle and some cheese sprinkled or plopped on top (I like cheese a lot--goat's cheese plops; swiss cheese sprinkles). I guess maybe I learned this recipe from Laurie the first time I read her cookbook. Or maybe it evolved from a version of eggs cooked in tomato sauce from Smitten Kitchen.

Anyway, it's useful to go back to the recipe sometimes for things that you've made over and over to remind yourself of what's actually supposed to go in the dish. In this case, anyway, it certainly was.

So, slice some vegetables--zucchini, onion, snow peas (I used the first two; you can use whatever is on hand)--and saute them gently in butter with minced garlic. Partially cover them so that they release their juices. (I think I'd been sauteeing them on high heat to get them to cook faster, but Colwin is right, as usual: they just need to be lightly cooked.)

Add some pepper, push the vegetables to the edges, melt some butter, and crack a couple of eggs in the middle. Cover until they're cooked. Add a little cheese on top. 

Incidentally, I picked up all of the ingredients for this dish from the farmer's market. Including the free-range eggs, which I forgot to tell you are Christian free-range eggs: 

The vegetables are light and tender and go perfectly with the eggs and swiss cheese. The garlic really makes it. I used a small onion as Colwin suggested, but I it was too much onion for me--I would use just a half in the future.

I have a eggs question for you, dear readers. Francisco likes them scrambled; I like them sunny side up. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm objectively right (in this area, as in all of life). Is this a matter of taste or are runny yolks just plain old detectable and scrambled eggs simultaneously too wet and too dry?