Scrambled eggs with caramelized onion; Ginger cookie coffee

On Monday, I had the misfortune to be scheduled for some bloodwork. You know, the kind where you sit down on a bench, and they put some kind of tourniquet on your arm, have you make a fist, start poking the inside of your elbow with a needle, and then expect you to not use that fist to punch them in the nose when they declare you have tricky veins, and could they see the other arm, please.

And then when they do draw the blood, your vision goes black and you fall over.

They didn't have a "first thing in the morning" appointment available, so I instead got that weird ten-o'clock-ish appointment that's at just the wrong hour for expecting to go to work for any reasonable amount of time before having to turn around and leave again for your doctor's appointment. So I stayed home, drank a lot of water, and made a big breakfast in hopes that it would prevent me falling over this time.

I don't usually drink coffee, but there are days, man, y'know? I like flavors, and I prefer decaf, because I get all jittery otherwise. These are not things my husband is into, and he is a much bigger coffee drinker, so I try to keep my grubby hands off the main coffeepot. Some time ago, my mother-in-law gave us this little tiny coffeepot, just big enough for me. I'd been keeping it downstairs, in the "guest apartment" that is the finished basement, but I've been feeling an itch for coffee lately, so I brought it upstairs to play.

Our family has this ginger cookie recipe, handed down through at least four generations now. It is, for me, one of those recipes that defines you: I am not a chocolate chip cookie girl. Chocolate chip cookie favoritism is for conformists and capitalist sheep brainwashed by Nestle. I am a ginger cookie girl; not the crunchy boxed kind that break your teeth when you try to bite into them, but the soft, chewy kind that your parents taught you how to bake; the kind you threw a tantrum over when you were four years old in footie pajamas; the kind where you eat six out of every dozen before they even have a chance to cool. The cookies themselves take some time and effort to make; sometimes I put their spice combination in other things. Like coffee.

I made about two "cups" of coffee, as measured by the machine (is there a more miserly measure than this? What is this, literal cups, like half-pints? Who drinks in those doses?), with the appropriate amount of coffee grounds as suggested by the coffee jar. I think it was about two tablespoons. Then I added 1/8 tsp. each of ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground cloves, to the coffee grounds, and stirred them up. I popped the grounds into the machine and hit the button. Bam! Ginger cookie coffee. It was pretty good.
I like mine with milk and sugar. I tried molasses instead of sugar once - because the cookie recipe calls for molasses - but it didn't really work out. Maybe I didn't add enough, but it seemed like it would take a ridiculous amount of molasses to bring it to the same sweetness as a packet of sugar or two.

I've also had a craving for caramelized onions lately. Usually these don't rate very high on my list of ingredients, because they take so long to cook. But I want what I want, and I had time, so I decided to make some scrambled eggs with them.

I melted some butter in my egg pan - I can no longer remember how much, but it was probably on the order of half a stick - and sliced up an onion, which I then chucked into the pan and let saute until it turned brown. I stirred it sometimes, but mostly I made my coffee and toast and read my book, one of the Song of Ice and Fire series. I've been re-reading, since it's been a while, and I want to have it all fresh in my head when the next one comes out in mid-July. Exciting!

When the onions were done, I cracked two eggs straight into the pan and stirred them up, along with a handful of shredded cheese. It was a risky business, since they started cooking right away. I suppose, strictly speaking, I should have cracked the eggs in a bowl, scrambled them there first, and then added them to the onions, but that would be an extra dish to wash, so I just cracked into the pan and stirred fast.

I will grant you that the results were not pretty. I'm not sure it gets much uglier than slimy brown gook in your eggs. It tasted really good, though, and it was nice, to have a yummy, relaxing breakfast by myself, with the boys at work/daycare. (As opposed to no breakfast at all, racing out the door, to be honest.)

And I did not pass out when they drew the blood! I was still made into a pincushion, though. Damn trick veins!