Tex-Mex Omelet with Roasted Cherry Tomato Salsa -- Because “Eggs” at 3 AM Is a Love Language

Year two. The coals are still burning. Jessica is twelve weeks pregnant and has entered the phase where she's stopped being sick every morning and started being hungry every hour, which I prefer because I can solve hunger. I cannot solve nausea. Nausea is outside my jurisdiction. But hunger? Hunger is my entire jurisdiction.

She's craving things I've never seen her eat before. Pickled jalapeños — straight from the jar, standing at the refrigerator at 11 PM, eating them like chips. Mangos with Tajín, which is a Mexican thing she picked up from my mom and now consumes with the dedication of a convert. Scrambled eggs at 3 AM. She woke me up at 3 AM on Tuesday and said "eggs" and I got up and made them without complaint because this is the deal. You make the baby, I make the eggs. Division of labor.

Sofia knows the baby is coming in a general, two-year-old sort of way. She talks to Jessica's belly sometimes — says "hi baby" and then loses interest and goes back to her dinosaur book. She has not yet grasped that "baby" means a permanent, screaming roommate who will consume a significant percentage of her parents' attention. We're not going to explain this in advance. Some truths are better experienced than described.

The Scottsdale Smoke Showdown is this weekend — my first competition of 2017. I entered brisket only this time, not the full four-category slate. Jessica said I could do one category or zero, and one category meant I'd be done by noon instead of midnight. Pregnancy has clarified my priorities in a way that no amount of self-reflection ever did. The baby outranks the brisket. This is new math for me, and I'm adjusting.

Practice cook this week: a twelve-pound packer, salt and pepper with a touch of garlic powder, mesquite smoke, 250 degrees for fourteen hours. I'm chasing consistency now, not discovery. I know what my brisket can be. The question is whether I can make it be that thing every single time, under pressure, in a parking lot, with judges. Consistency is the hardest part of competition cooking. Anyone can make one great brisket. Can you make ten in a row? That's the line between good and great.

My dad came by Saturday to watch me trim and season. He sat in his lawn chair under the ramada and offered opinions I didn't ask for, which is his love language. "You're leaving too much fat on the point," he said. "The cap needs to be a quarter inch, not a half." He's right. He's always right about fat. Roberto Rivera has an instinct for meat that I'm still trying to earn through repetition and sweat. Someday I'll get there. Probably around the time I'm his age, sitting in a lawn chair, telling my son he's doing it wrong.

Jessica’s 3 AM egg request has become a recurring event in our house, and I’ve stopped treating it like an interruption and started treating it like a brief. She wants eggs — fine, but I’m not making sad, plain scrambled eggs for a woman carrying my child while also craving pickled jalapeños and mangos with Tajín. She’s clearly running on Tex-Mex frequencies right now, and this omelet — loaded with bold flavors and finished with a roasted cherry tomato salsa — is the answer that finally felt worthy of the assignment.

Tex-Mex Omelet with Roasted Cherry Tomato Salsa

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 2

Ingredients

• For the Roasted Cherry Tomato Salsa:
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 small jalapeño, seeded and minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
• For the Omelet:
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup shredded Pepper Jack cheese
• 1/4 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 tablespoons pickled jalapeño slices
• 2 tablespoons sour cream, for serving
• Fresh cilantro, for garnish

Instructions

1. Roast the tomatoes. Preheat oven to 425°F. Toss cherry tomatoes, jalapeño, and garlic with olive oil, cumin, salt, and pepper on a small sheet pan. Roast for 10–12 minutes until tomatoes are blistered and beginning to burst. Remove from oven, stir in lime juice and cilantro, and set aside.
2. Make the egg mixture. In a bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, chili powder, cumin, salt, and pepper until fully combined and slightly frothy.
3. Cook the omelet. Melt butter in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Pour in the egg mixture and let it set on the bottom for about 30 seconds. Using a spatula, gently push cooked edges toward the center while tilting the pan to let uncooked egg flow underneath. Continue until the eggs are just barely set on top.
4. Fill and fold. Sprinkle Pepper Jack cheese, black beans, and pickled jalapeño slices over one half of the omelet. Fold the other half over the filling and slide onto a plate.
5. Top and serve. Spoon roasted cherry tomato salsa generously over the folded omelet. Add a dollop of sour cream and garnish with fresh cilantro. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 380 | Protein: 22g | Fat: 27g | Carbs: 14g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 520mg