Way back when I started getting interested in cooking, my folks bought me a killer set of Calphalon non stick pans. I can’t remember exactly when that was, but I’ve been using them for YEARS. We noticed that the coating has been wearing away, so we decided to get a new set. Calphalon has served us well, so we stuck with them, but decided to go with the 10-piece Signature Series Stainless Steel set! Since I grilled out yesterday — if you’re curious what I made, check out my Last Week’s Menu post going up on Monday — today marked the first use of these shiny new beauties! The honor was bestowed on my semi-regular breakfast.

Earlier this year year I read Tim Ferrris’ The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Chef. Both books tout the benefits of a slow carb diet which encourages the consumption of protein and discourages ingesting white carbs and dairy. I’ve had good months of sticking to the program and bad ones, but one idea definitely stuck: the importance of eating a high-protein breakfast consisting of eggs, beans and spinach.

I’ve never been much of a breakfast person, but since I have the benefit of time on my side, I started playing around with this basic framework and have come up with a regular breakfast that works for me. It consists of three eggs, chick peas, spinach, goat cheese, avocado, salt and garlic powder. This time around, I didn’t have any spinach on hand, so I cooked up the eggs in some cooking spray, seasoned with salt and garlic powder and then added in the chick peas and some chopped-up leftover steak. Once cooked, I added that to a bowl with diced avocado and goat cheese. Boom! Breakfast!

The great thing about this kind of breakfast is that it’s super-versatile. If I’ve got some unassigned tomatoes, I’ll toss those in. It’s also been a great way to use up some of the leftover meat that can wind up sitting in the fridge uneaten and then get shifted to the trash.

I mentioned having time in the morning, but you can also prep a lot of these ingredients the night before. Avocados tend to brown in the fridge, so you might want to save those for the morning of (or squirt a little lemon juice on them), but otherwise you could combine your beans, veggies and any other protein in a container the night before and then you just need to cook the eggs, which you could pre-whip the night before too. The whole thing should only take about 10-15 minutes.

It wasn’t the craziest test for the new pan, but I was impressed with the lack of left-behinds when I was finished. With the old pans, I had good days and bad, the latter featuring all kinds of craziness still stuck on the surface. This time, the mess looks minimal and should clean up with no problem when I do dishes later today.