Thread by @howardtayler

Microwave omelette. Start to finish, from putting things on the counter to taking my first bite, was six minutes, including photos.

Here we go!

Ingredients and tools.

Ingredients:
Pre-shredded cheese, pre-chopped sandwich ham, butter, milk, and one egg. Easy-peasy.

Tools: a whisk, a silicone spatula, a cooking bowl (condiment bowl from Corelle, and a mixing bowl (I used a glass measuring cup). The cutting board is just for the photo.¹

1) Break the egg into the mixing bowl, and add about a tablespoon of milk.

2) Whisk it up nice and frothy.
3) Using the silicone spatula, smear butter all over the inside of the cooking bowl.

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP.

4) Stir the ham and cheese into the egg mixture.
5) Scrape it from the mixing bowl into the cooking bowl WITHOUT SCRAPING THE INSIDE SURFACE OF THE COOKING BOWL. That layer of butter is important.

6) Microwave for 30 to 40 seconds. YMMV quite a bit depending on your microwave. Mine's a 1200w model which needs to be cleaned a bit but I didn't think of that before taking pictures.

7) "Do I really need a silicone spatula?" you might ask. Well, it's going to make this next task, "folding" the omelette in the cup, a LOT easier to do without breaking the crucial seal of butter.

You're doing this to avoid under-or-over-cooking various parts of breakfast.

8) Microwave again! Same time range, 30 to 40 seconds. If you've done the previous steps correctly (and gotten the timing right) your omelette should puff way up just before the microwave stops.

It's hard to get a picture of that.

And when you open the microwave, it will have collapsed. That's fine. This is a 5-minute nuclear omelette, not a soufflé.

9) Remove from microwave using your favorite tools for not burning your hands. I use a quick, light touch followed by being very very fast about it.
10) Again, silicone spatula: separate the omelette from the cooking cup. It should come away pretty clean, because. BUTTERSEAL!

11) Upend the bowl on your serving plate.
12) Remove the bowl, and smush the omelette dome into something that looks more breakfasty, and less factory-pressed. Or don't. It's all presentation at this point.

13) Enjoy your omelette²

NOTES:
¹ Re: cutting board—if pre-cut stuff is in the fridge, you'll just scoop from container to mixing bowl.
² "This is just scrambled eggs," you say, but if you've ever failed to beautifully fry-pan an omelette, you've called scrambled eggs an "omelette" before. Come at me.

Additional notes:
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
I bought a "Just Crack an Egg" breakfast kit, and saw "patent pending" on the package. What could they POSSIBLY be patenting?

Probably the cup, which was a very slick non-stick plastic.
justcrackanegg.net

So I started experimenting. I don't have any microwave-safe teflon, so I tried buttering a microwave-save condiment dish. I used the same ratios of ingredients from the "Just Crack an Egg" kit, and discovered that if I got to pick the cuts of ham, cheese, etc, mine was better.

Those kits are about $3.00 I think? Plus you add your own egg. The cost of ingredients in my method is maybe $0.40, but the cost of tools might be as high as $20 depending on how fancy you get with the silicone spatula and the whisk.

Plus the microwave, obviously.

I think my favorite thing about this is that it fulfills several morning-times food requirements at once:
Fast
Hot
Cheap
I can do it while half awake

It's faster than grabbing an egg sandwich from a drive-through on the way to work. During the 2nd 35-second cooking cycle, you have time to put everything back in the fridge. While it cools on the plate you can have everything else in the sink or dishwasher.

Okay, yes, eating it does take time. I like to eat it from a plate, but you could put it between two layers of carbohydrate and run out the door.