The Maryland Egg Council runs ads on one of Baltimore’s most popular radio stations, 101.9 Lite FM, and encourages listeners to visit the radio’s amazing recipe website for egg recipes and videos. Recently, I headed down to Maryland so the egg council could feature ME in these videos – they filmed me preparing my famous 40-second omelet, an omelet wrap and my flaming dessert omelet.

Taping these 8-minute “egg infomercials” was a lot of fun and a great opportunity for me to talk about the nutrition, versatility and value of eggs while also sharing some great recipe ideas with the host, Sharon! They’re available here: http://whatsfordinner.vertasource.com/.

That same day, the host, Sharon, also did a video for Land O’ Lakes, making a breakfast pizza in a skillet. I don’t have the exact recipe, but I wanted to share the basic outline since it looked so good! The great thing about this recipe is it doesn’t need specific quantities of certain ingredients because it’s kinda all up to whatever you have in your fridge and whatever you’re feelin’ like. Enjoy!

Breakfast Pizza

• Lay a sheet of refrigerated pie crust into a 10-inch frypan and crimp the perimeter like it was going to be a pizza.
• If the pan doesn’t have an ovenproof handle you’ll have to wrap it in foil because the pan is going into the oven.
• Whisk together 6 eggs and a half-cup of half & half or milk. Season with salt and pepper, then pour it into the pie crust.
• Sprinkle on any other topping that suits your fancy: bacon, diced onions, peppers, spinach or any other cooked veggie or meat.
• Then cover the whole thing with about a cup of shredded cheddar or any other kind of cheese that suits you.
• Bake it all in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 40 to 45 minutes.
• Take it out and let it stand for 2 or 3 minutes before slicing it into wedges and serving.

Oh, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Hickman Family Farms is the largest egg producer and supplier in Arizona. And, since they truly are a family company, owned and operated by one family for nearly 50 years, they are very community oriented. What’s more, each employee is totally embraced as family, like I was when I visited there last week.

I began my trip with the Hickmans by making omelets for volunteers at the St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance which, I learned, was the world’s very first food bank. There were two other chefs who joined me in the omelet making at this “appreciation” breakfast party.

One of the main events of my trip was attending a Farm Animal Appreciation Day event for local people in agriculture from around the area. Despite the fact that the event began outside in the dark at 4:30 AM (!!!), a huge crowd showed up along with local television media and agriculture commodity people from various parts of the country. I gave a crash-course in omelet making to two of the local farmers and together we cooked omelets for over a 100 people, all of whom had to leave at sun-up to get back to work. Sun-up!!

I also gave my omelet demonstration to two schools while in Arizona. First, I went to Kellis High School. They have a terrific culinary program for teens interested in a career in the food service industry. After my demonstrations in the school’s well-equipped teaching kitchen, many of the students came up to the pan to try their hand at speedy omelet making. It was really heartening to see how many high school teens are enthusiastic about getting into the professional culinary field.

Next, I went to the Dessert Thunder Elementary School and delivered my demonstration to over 600 young children in three waves of assemblies. The theme of the assembly was the extreme importance of eating breakfast every morning, how it will affect the rest of the day and how terrific eggs are for that meal. To keep it interesting for the youngsters we based the assembly on “How Well Do Your Teachers Listen?” which involved teacher-versus-teacher omelet races! The kids went wild. The Arizona Republic even covered the happy madness.

I loved my time in Arizona – and had such a great time with everyone at Hickman Farms. They truly understand the value of the incredible egg!

With everyone doing lots of baking during the holiday season, I thought I’d show you my trick for how to crack an egg using one hand – which will surely impress your guests! Check out this short video.