Tuesday, February 22, 2011

February 22: Eggs-traordinary Stuffed Toasty Baskets with Lemony Greens

1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
8 slices bacon, chopped
garlic cloves, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
   Salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 slices soft white sandwich bread
3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
2 small vine-ripe tomatoes, chopped
eggs
   Grated Parmesan, for sprinkling
6 cups mixed greens
   Salad dressing and toppings of your choice

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Preheat a medium skillet over medium heat, add the EVOO and the chopped bacon, and cook for 3 minutes, or until the bacon is crisp. Add the garlic, onions, crushed red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Cook until the onions start to turn translucent, about 3 minutes.


With a serrated knife, cut the crusts from the bread. With your fingertips or a rolling pin, flatten or roll out each slice of bread as thin as you can get it. Nestle each thin slice of bread into the cup of a nonstick standard 1/2 cup muffin tin, pushing the bread down on the bottom of the tin and pushing it up the sides of the tin. The bread will reach the top of each tin and be slightly above the rim. If the bread breaks or tears, just smoosh it together a little, it will still be fine. (If you do not have a nonstick muffin tin, liberally brush your muffin tin with some additional melted butter, then proceed with nestling the bread in each buttered cup.) Brush the bread with the melted butter.


Add the tomatoes to the bacon and onions. Turn the heat up and toss around to evaporate some of the tomato liquid, about 1 minute.


Working one at a time, crack the eggs into a small bowl and then carefully transfer to the bread-lined muffin tins. The goal is to not break the yolk. Sprinkle each egg with a little salt and pepper.


Top each egg with one eighth of the tomato-onion mixture and then sprinkle each one with a little grated cheese. Place in the hot oven and bake for 15 minutes.


Dress your salad with desired dressing and toppings in a bowl.

To serve, use a butter knife to nudge the cooked toast and eggs out from each tin and onto a plate. Serve with the dressed salad.

4 SERVINGS


These baskets are really EGG-straordinary! They are so good, I had to double the recipe. One really is not enough for one person, as the recipe calls for. It's actually pretty easy to double it. Just make 8 instead of 4. I also changed the salad. Here is Rachael Ray's recipe:

"In a small bowl, combine 1 tablespoon mustard with the juice of 1 lemon, salt, and pepper. In a slow, steady stream, whisk in 3 tablespoons of EVOO. In a salad bowl, toss the lemon dressing with the mixed greens."

Last time I made this recipe, I couldn't eat the salad because it was so sour. I decided to change it to "salad dressing of your choice." We had a nice Caesar salad with croutons, Parmesan, and Romaine lettuce. Delicious!

4 comments:

  1. Hey,
    We made these this week. We really liked them.

    Mine were nothing like yours. My muffin pans were not big enough. We just ate the bacon, onion, & tomato mixture as a topping on them. It was good that way, so it worked.

    I made the lemony salad. I used a little less than a teaspoon of dijon mustard, the juice of one lemon, and a 1/4 C EVOO. I liked it a lot. Josh thought it was still a bit sour. I'll use a little more EVOO next time and serve it on the side.

    I think I might try them again with the eggs scrambled like a quiche. I think this would be a great, easy quiche recipe.

    Good recipe. Good instructions and warnings from you. Great job.

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  2. Hey, I also meant to say that I used whole wheat bread and left off the butter. It worked great. We didn't miss the butter at all and the wheat bread worked fine. So, you can cut out a little fat and add a little whole grain to this recipe if you want.

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  3. That's good, it does wind up being fatty. Warning: if you scramble the eggs and put them in the muffin cups, they will run all over your oven. I did that with Mark's. But if you're making quiche in a big pie crust, it will work just fine. Is that what you meant?

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  4. No. I was thinking of using less egg. I thought I could put the filling and cheese in first like in a quiche receipe, and then fill it in with scrambled egg (again like my quiche recipe). Maybe it won't work. If I try it, I'll have to put a pan under it just in case. Thanks for letting me know how it ran with Mark's. Good tip.

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