Poached Eggs

Take a break from boring cereal or toast, and start your weekend with scrumptious poached eggs and fried garlic mushrooms and spinach. Trust me your taste buds will thank you - plus it's healthy too. This meal takes around 15 minutes to make, and like most meals on this site will cost you next to nothing.

We used:

1. portobello mushrooms
2. spinach
3. 2 eggs per person
4. 1-2 garlic gloves pp
5. ciabatta roll

First steps to making this incredibly easy breakfast meal: put a pot of water on the heat to boil, turn on the grill and finely chop the garlic and slice the mushrooms.

Heat oil in a pan, put the garlic in first and then the mushrooms and a pinch of salt. While the mushrooms, which take around 5 minutes to cook, are frying, crack an egg into a glass. This makes it easier to pour into a pot of boiling water without the egg turning into a mess.

Add the spinach when the mushrooms seem almost cooked, as spinach doesn't take very long at all to cook and you don't want to over cook it (because then it's gross).

There's much debate about the best way to poach eggs with some people professing you need to add vinegar or salt to the boiling water - or even whisk the boiling water into a whirlpool. HOWEVER, we are here to tell you that you don't need to do any of this. Simply wait until the water is rapidly boiling and gently pour the glass of egg (one egg at a time) into the water. If you're poaching just one egg, it should take around 3-4 minutes to cook to perfection (*yolk is thick and runny, but the egg white is firm). If you're cooking more than one egg (we cooked three at once) allow 4-5 minutes. This is due to all sorts of complicated physics that are too lengthy to explain here, but basically the more you add the (slightly) longer it takes to cook.

Once you've put the eggs in, it's time to also put the bread under the grill. If your mushrooms and spinach look like they're done but your eggs aren't ready yet, take them off the stove and place them in the oven (like below) to keep them warm without overcooking them.

With luck (and a bit of practice) your toast will be ready at the same time as your eggs. Once the eggs are ready (if you take an egg out of the water and poke it's possible you can judge how firm the yolk and egg are - although 3-5 minutes should do it, as mentioned above. Remember too, be careful, it will be very hot). If possible, take egg out of water with a slotted spoon or spatula to drain the water away. Serve immediately on toasted ciabatta (or bread of your choice) with cooked spinach and mushrooms.

                  *Serve with orange juice and coffee and Weekend paper.