Baked.

Last night I decided that I wanted an egg with my dinner. It was a breakfast for dinner night and I thought an egg would be lovely with the Kashi waffle and veggie bacon. And I was right. The thing I is, I don’t generally care about eggs and I eat them so rarely that I am not very good at making them. I can scramble. Oh yes, how I can scramble (I use water instead of milk or cream…something about the proteins? Or the steam? I don’t remember, but it was in a book.) I can boil, soft or hard. I don’t think I’ve ever poached and egg but I am betting I could. It’s the frying that’s the problem. It should be easy enough but I can’t get the timing right and I either break the yolk or I cook it too long or, worst of all, I don’t like to cook eggs in butter so I use olive oil and they get really, really brown and look gross (but they taste fine, I swear). So last night, I figured it was about time to try something new. Baked it was. And it worked perfectly. One good egg was a perfect serving with the other stuff. It was easy. I DIDN’T HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO IT! That’s the biggest thing for me. I get home from work kind of late and I like to be able to put the dinner in the oven and let it go while I change clothes, give the cat her meds, check the mail, go to the bathroom, gather up clothes for the next day, prepare my breakfast and sometimes lunch for the next day and put away some dishes.

…

You know what I’d like even more? Someone else to do all that stuff…

Anyway, it worked well, it tasted good and it’s a keeper. Baked eggs are nothing new but if you are not a fan of standing over a frying pan it’s a nice way to go.

Here’s what I did:

-Buttered small ramekins (Next time I will use olive oil. Turns out, I don’t really like butter all that much. But, I had some in a small dish from a dinner I had served to friends the night before so it was convenient. Live and learn. Olive oil or Earth Balance next time.)

-Cracked one egg into each ramekin.

-Topped with salt, pepper and parsley.

-Added a few drops of soy creamer on top. A very few drops. Just enough to dampen the yolk really. I had read that the eggs could dry out without the addition of cream or milk and I had no cream or milk because I don’t really like cream or milk (or eggs…except last night, or butter…) so soy creamer it was. I was worried that there might be a protein issue here like when you add soymilk to hot coffee....it kind of curdles a bit…but no. No problems. Then, because most of the recipes I read called for it, I added a bit of cheese. Parmesan on one, cheddar on the other.

-Tossed the whole thing in a 350° oven for about 14-18 minutes. I let them cook a little long because I was unsure about how well done they would be. 18 minutes was fine. 14 would have been fine too, for a runny yolk.

-What I’ll do differently next time:
Olive oil instead of butter, no creamer on top, no cheese on top, possibly a wee bit of toast on bottom, and some frozen spinach, and if I have it, a slice of tomato. And maybe some other herbs, like thyme, or some green onion. And despite the fact that I claim not to like eggs (unlike Snarkydork, who REALLY does NOT like eggs), I think I might use two eggs in a slightly larger ramekin…with previously mentioned toast (or bread), spinach and tomato.

Congratulations to me for doing something else that the rest of the world has done for ages. Yeah, I’m not breaking new ground here. But it was really good.

Oh, also, if you are looking for more things to read, I've been posting a bit over here...