This week I am super excited to be participating in the #TABASCO10 third annual 10 Ingredient Challenge. The challenge involves creating 5 different recipes in 5 days with the following 10 ingredients: TABASCO® Original Red, Green Jalapeño or Chipotle Sauce, Chicken, Eggs, Mozzarella, Fennel Bulb, Zucchini , Rice (Brown, Basmati, Jasmine or Wild), Rigatoni, Ciabatta, and Honey (Salt, pepper, oil are 'free' ingredients). 

When I first received the email asking if I wanted to be in the challenge, I was a bit trepidatious. I thought to myself - how could I possibly come up with 5 different recipes using such few ingredients, and ingredients that I hardly ever use? Brent reassured me that it would be awesome, and then I was pointed in the direction of my pal Stephanie's blog - I Am A Food Blog. Last year she took the challenge and this year she actually picked the 10 ingredients! After going through the fun creations that she came up with, I was immediately convinced that indeed this looked like something that I could get behind. And besides, who doesn't secretly want to be a contestant on the Iron Chef? (without all the judgment, of course)

I already had the following ingredients in my cupboard/fridge: TABASCO® Original Red, Green Jalapeño and Chipotle Sauce, eggs, mozzarella, rice (brown, basmati, jasmine and wild), rigatoni, honey, salt, pepper, and oil. I went out to the market and picked up some zucchini, fennel, and ciabatta to complete my recipes. I really felt myself gravitating towards a few favorite ingredients: the eggs, mozzarella, and zucchini combo but figured that you guys would probably get sick of 5 variations on eggs, and really, how creative would that be? So I stuck to one egg-centric recipe, smokey chipotle scrambled eggs with fried zucchini and mozzarella, with some olive oil toasted ciabatta on the side. It was a pretty easy meal to come up with, as it is one that I eat often. Although, I rarely use zucchini in cooking, so it was fun to experiment with that.

I have a bottle of TABASCO Chipotle Sauce in the fridge that I mostly use for breakfast burritos and huevos rancheros, so I was quite confident that it would work well in this dish, and for the other ingredients, I used eggs, mozzarella, zucchini, ciabatta, oil, salt, and pepper. I am quite pleased with how it turned out and is probably one of my favorites from this challenge. Smoky chipotle eggs are amazing. Be sure to stop by tomorrow to check out recipe #2, and if you want to check out what other bloggers have created during the challenge, you can follow the hashtag #TABASCO10.

Thanks to the folks over at TABASCO for sponsoring this post.

recipe

SMOKEY CHIPOTLE SCRAMBLED EGGS WITH ZUCCHINI AND MOZZARELLA

serves 2

prep time: 5 minutes

cooking time: 15 minutes

1 tsp olive oil + 1/2 tsp for ciabatta

1 1/2 cups chopped zucchini

4 large eggs

1 tsp

TABASCO Chipotle Sauce

dash of salt and pepper

1/2 cup mozzarella, grated

4 - 6 slices ciabatta bread

Heat the oven to broil

In a medium non-stick frying pan, heat 1 tsp of olive oil on medium-low. Add the chopped zucchini and fry until golden. Place the zucchini on a plate and wipe the frying pan clean with a paper towel. Place the frying pan back on the heat and turn the heat to low.

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, TABASCO sauce, salt and pepper. Add the eggs to the frying pan with the zucchini. Scramble until fluffy. Turn off the heat and add the mozzarella. Let the heat of the pan melt the cheese.

While the eggs are cooking, brush the ciabatta bread with olive oil. Place onto a baking tray and into the oven. Broil until toasted.

Serve the eggs and ciabatta toast warm.