Sprout & Pea

I’m kick­ing off my first $5 chal­lenge meal with a dish that’s per­fect for both break­fast and din­ner. It also shares a name with my favorite sea­son that is just upon us– red flan­nel sea­son, or as most peo­ple like to call it, autumn. I was first intro­duced to the red flan­nel hash at a favorite local brunch spot and since first order­ing it, I have had a dif­fi­cult time ever order­ing any­thing else. It just hits that sweet and savory spot so well. I’ve been want­ing to recre­ate this myself  for quite some time so when I was crav­ing beets at the end of my work day, this imme­di­ately popped into my mind. I knew it would be a cheap din­ner, but I did not real­ize that I could make this for well under $5. Here’s the cost breakdown:

1 medium red beet (organic) $1.47
1 small sweet potato (organic) $.61
1 medium shal­lot $.35
1 egg  $.66 (I had a case of 6 organic eggs in my refrig­er­a­tor already and for­got to take note of the price but I know from buy­ing them often enough that they cost about $3 and change. For the sake of argu­ment, let’s round that up to $4 and divide by 6)
Greek yogurt $.89 (I bought a sin­gle serv­ing con­tainer of Greek yogurt on sale for $1.79 and I used half of the yogurt — sav­ing the rest for break­fast tomor­row, so I divided in half)

The remain­der of the ingre­di­ents are sta­ples: olive oil, red wine vine­gar, salt & pep­per, and 1 clove of gar­lic (a head costs about $.74 which would still keep this meal under $5 if included in costs).

Grand total: $3.98

The other great thing about this meal is that once you chop up your veg­gies and toss them in the oven, you can turn your atten­tion to other things for a good 30 min­utes. Just come back now and then to toss them with a spoon so they don’t stick.

Like magic, with the first bite of my din­ner came a per­fect cool fall breeze through the win­dow and I was in red flan­nel hash bliss. I may even be tempted to make this again for break­fast this week­end. Here’s how to make this under $5 dish…

Ingre­di­ents:
1 medium red beet
1 small-​​medium sweet potato
1 medium shal­lot
1 large clove of gar­lic
2 tbs extra vir­gin olive oil
1 tbs red wine vine­gar (plus 1 tbs for poach­ing egg)
Salt and pep­per to taste
1 egg
1/​4 cup Greek yogurt (optional)
driz­zle of honey (optional)

Peel the beet and slice into small half inch cubes. Cut the sweet potato the same way, leav­ing skin on. Finally, cut the shal­lot and gar­lic into large pieces. Com­bine all of the veg­eta­bles in a medium pyrex and toss with olive oil, vine­gar, salt and pep­per. Roast at 400 degrees for about 40 min­utes or until beets are soft. Toss veg­gies occa­sion­ally while they are in the oven so they don’t stick to the pan.

When veg­gies are about 10 min­utes away from being fin­ished, bring about 2 inches of water and 1 tbs vine­gar to boil in a small pot. Once water boils, reduce to sim­mer, crack egg into a cup and pour into the sim­mer­ing water. Scoop any whites towards the yolk. Let cook for aout 3–4 minutes.

While the egg is cook­ing, remove hash from oven and if you like a slightly sweet kick, driz­zle a very small amount of honey over the hash, mix together, and plate. Add a dol­lop of Greek yogurt on top of the hash and then top with the poached egg.