Cheese me.

Breakfast. Bane of my life.

No seriously.

There are two morning scenarios in my life.

A. Work Days: I wake up cranky and knowing I have like, responsibilities and stuff. I have just enough time to either eat real food or shower. For the good of humanity I shower, which means eating what I consider non-acceptable foods: cereal, granola bars, toast. I know lots and lots of people LOOOVE cereal, but I find it utterly disgusting unless it's midnight and the milk is ice, ice cold.

B. Home days: I'm responsible for my own behavior, usually getting a lot of "reading" and "writing" done. I fight an epic battle with my alarm clock. I want to eat a million of everything. I don't have time to make eggs benedict. I can either eat non-acceptable foods and move on to doing homework like I'm supposed to, or I can cook a huge, amazing breakfast-for-one that's not ready until noon and starts me on a downward spiral of distraction and procrastination that lasts all day. Those days are full of guilt, but they taste soooooo much better.

Today I'm somewhere in between and I made such a warm, savory, flavorful breakfast that I have to share it with you. None of my recipes ever fall into a logical category. Is this an open-faced sandwich? Is it some kind of weird, sauce-less pizza bagel? I have no idea. All I know is that I want to eat a hundred more of them. And I like when there's white wine in my breakfast.

This looks like a lot of time and steps, but it's really not.

Ingredients:
1 Bagel (I used poppy seed, 'cause I wanna)
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup grated mozzarella
garlic powder
dried parsley
basil
oregano

3-4 White mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
salt
black pepper
2 tbsp white wine

Destructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and move the top rack up the second-highest position in the oven.

Butter both halves of your sliced bagel and place them (butter-side up, friend) on a cookie sheet. VERY lightly sprinkle with garlic salt. Sprinkle each half with 1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese, followed by 1/4 cup each of the mozzarella. Now sprinkle lightly and evenly with your herbs: basil, oregano, and parsley. I like to grind them up in my hands a little bit so they're not so "intrusive." And it brings out the scent and flavor.

At this point you could proceed to the oven step but the mushrooms are the best part, so DON'T!

In a small pan (preferably a crepe pan, how fancy), melt the remaining butter (about 1 or 1 1/2 tbsp) over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms in a single layer and sprinkle with salt and pepper. When the mushrooms are starting to brown, give them a stir. After about 2 minutes on each side, hold the pan away from the heat and add your white wine (red wine is fine too), return to eat. Stir this around to deglaze the pan.

When most of the liquid has cooked away, turn off the heat and place the mushrooms evenly over the tops of your bagels.

Bake for 4-5 minutes. Then crank on the broiler and let it go until the cheese looks melty (not longer than a minute or two).

You don't want this in the oven very long! The bagel will dry out and everything will get hard and gross!

Take it out of the oven. Eat it in 4 bites.

So amazingly yummy. I wish that my homework was to find new ways to consume dairy products, because obviously I'm a pro.