More sausage! Brandon was supposed to make dinner tonight and well, I kind of took over. He wanted breakfast for dinner and I’m totally in to that, don’t get me wrong. Problem is, we’re going out of town, out of the country actually, for the next 5 days and I had some stuff I wanted to use up in the fridge.  So we melded our ‘wants’ and came up with this beauty.

We didn’t get home until 10 p.m. the other night so this recipe was inspired, once again, by my lack of time mixed with feelings of hunger. I have to say, we do make a menu every week and do go shopping for the necessary ingredients. This recipe, however was not on the menu, but because I had some Canadian bacon in the freezer and I ALWAYS keep eggs, I was able to whip up a good, solid meal in less than 15 minutes.

Ingredients

• 1 package Canadian bacon
• Equal amount of eggs

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

In a muffin pan, place a piece of Canadian bacon into each hole. Press it down and crack an egg into each piece of bacon. Cook in oven for approximately:

• Runny Yolk – 8 minutes
• Semi-Soft Yolk- 10 minutes
• Hard, Crumbly Egg -14 minutes

Pop the egg “cups” out of the pan once they’re cool enough to handle. Whatever you don’t eat goes straight into the fridge for a snack or another meal!

Rubbery, over cooked, leathery eggs are not tasty eats. There are 2 secrets to a great frittata.

1. Use a dish that’s wide enough! The smaller the diameter of the dish, the longer the eggs take to cook–hence the leathery-ness and browning. Notice in the pic that the eggs come about half way up the dish.

You’ll never guess #2.

2. Acid. Vinegar, lemon juice, salt, etc. Acids actually tenderize the proteins in the eggs, so the end result is lighter and creamier…and NO, you don’t taste the acid in the finished eggs.

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 3 strips of bacon, crumbled
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 3 basil leaves, chopped
• 1/2 roasted red pepper, chopped
• 1/4 t vinegar or lemon juice

Method

Grease an oven safe baking dish (a pie or tart pan works great here) and turn the oven to 350F.

In a bowl whisk together all the ingredients and pour them into the greased baking dish. Bake for approx. 20 minutes–or when you gently agitate the dish, the center doesn’t jiggle.

This dish is a take on classic shirred eggs. In my eyes, this could be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s easy to assemble and easy to clean up. I’m writing this recipe for 5 individual portions, but it’s easy to modify for the number of mouths you’re feeding.

Ingredients

• 2 c roasted marinara or your favorite sauce
• 5 eggs
• 5 slices of melting cheese (I used raw milk Colby)

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place 5 greased ramekins* on a baking sheet. Fill each ramekin with about 1/2 a cup of sauce. Crack 1 egg into each ramekin and top with a slice of cheese. We use raw cheese, you could also leave it out. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes.

Traditional shirred eggs leaves the yolk runny. I like runny yolks a lot–but if you cook the yolk all the way through, it turns crumbly and tastes a lot like ricotta filling in lasagna.

BE CAREFUL when you take the baking sheet out. Don’t grab the ramekins with your bare hand–yes, I have done this before. Use an oven mitt to place ramekins on a dinner plate, that way you don’t have to hold the ramekin or wait for it to cool in order to eat.

*If you don’t have ramekins in your pantry, you could use a muffin tin–just reduce the cooking time. Ramekins can be found on the cheap at places like TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Target.