French Onion Tart

This French onion tart is one of those recipes that knows no bounds.  Eat it for breakfast or lunch or dinner. It will be delicious and hearty any time of day. 

You're going to take a whole giant pile of onions and cook them down to nothin'.  Well almost nothin'.

French Onion Tart

From Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients

1 pie crust, homemade or store bought, you decide (you know I sure as heck didn't make my own!)

1 1/2 lb yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp oil

1/2 tsp salt

pinch of sugar

1 cup beef stock

black pepper

1/2 cup Swiss cheese

1 egg

1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Melt butter and oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add onions, toss with butter/oil mixture.  Reduce heat to medium-low and cover the skillet.  Cook for 15 minutes.

2. Remove lid and add salt, pepper, and sugar, saute 10-15 minutes longer.

3. Add stock, raise heat, simmer until broth nearly disappears. Let cool until warm.

4. In a medium bowl beat the eggs and cream together. Stir in onions.

5. Heat oven to 400.  Place pie crust in a 9 inch tart pan. Fill with egg mixture.  Top with cheese. Bake 25-30 minutes until filling is set. Serve hot or warm with a nice big salad.

This tart will warm you right up this fall.

Remember when it was a frightening thought to put that oven on just a few weeks ago? Not any more!

Yum! Tastes great leftover too!

Manicotti

I'm just going to go ahead and toot my own horn here.  This manicotti recipe has been our family holiday meal for ages.  It has always been seen by me as this massive undertaking and day-long project that I could never possibly recreate.

But guess what!? I made the holiday manicotti! I did it!!  With the help of my anti-anxiety medication, aka my husband, by my side.

I'm going to give you this incredible family recipe today and I don't want you to take it lightly.  When you are ready to prepare the manicotti, set aside some serious time.  You don't want to be frazzled and feeling rushed putting this together.  You need a patient delicate hand to craft all the crepes for this dish.

Manicotti
Serves 10

For the shells
4 eggs
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
1 cup water
1 cup flour

For the filling
3 lb ricotta
1/2 lb shredded mozzarella
3 eggs
salt
pepper
grated cheese (about a handful)
parsley

You will also need: tomato sauce and parchment paper

1. To make the shells, mix oil, eggs, salt and water in a blender.  Slowly add in the flour a little at a time. Batter will be thin and should have some bubbles.
2. Use a small non-stick pan to cook the crepes.  Spray pan with cooking spray and heat pan.  Taking pan off the heat, pour 2 tbsp of batter at a time.  Swirl the pan around to make the crepe round and even.  Flip to cook both sides.  The crepes cook up quickly, don't leave the pan unattended.
3. When the crepe is cooked place on a plate with a square of parchment paper on top. Stack each crepe in this manner.  You can cut up a whole bunch of parchment paper before you begin cooking, or have your assistant help out.
4. After all the batter is cooked, mix all filling ingredients in a large bowl. Put sauce on the bottom of a 3 quart casserole dish*.
5. Drop heaping tablespoons of filling on to the crepe, roll, and place seam side down in a prepared dish.
6. After all crepes are filled and lined up in the pan, cover with more tomato sauce.
7. Cook at 350 for 1 hour.

*I ended up using a 3 quart and a 2.5 quart casserole dish.

There it is everyone! Proof that I really did make this.  I have earned my old Italian Lady badge.  It is really and truly worth the effort.

Savory Noodle Kugel

I don't know why egg noodles aren't more a part of my life.  This side dish is so freaking delicious and simple it's a wonder how all the flavor got packed in there with just 5 ingredients!

Savory Noodle Kugel
From Cook's Country Magazine

Ingredients
6 eggs
3 tbsp olive oil
3 onions, chopped fine
salt and pepper
2 tbsp minced parsley
1 pound egg noodles

1. Heat oven to 350. Grease a broiler safe 13x9 baking dish. Heat a skillet with oil on medium heat.
2. Cook onions in skillet until caramelized. Transfer to a bowl and let cool for 10 minutes.  Whisk in eggs, parsley, salt and pepper.
3. Cook noodles according to package directions. Reserve 3 tbsp cooking water.
4. Whisk water into onion-egg mixture, add cooked noodles. Transfer to prepared baking dish. Cook for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and heat broiler.  Broil kugel until top noodles are browned and crisp, 1-3 minutes.

I served mine alongside some chicken cordon bleu, see recipe in previous post.

I was really tempted to add to this recipe because it just seemed too simple.  Do not succumb to the temptation! This recipe is simply perfection.

Baked French Toast

This recipe has been a part of my family for ages, but I have never tackled it myself.  It is great as an impressive holiday or company visit breakfast.  The best part about it is most of the work is done the night before.  The morning of you sprinkle on the topping and pop it in the oven.  

I used frozen mixed berries, but you can use a cup of any berry you wish, fresh or frozen.

Baked French Toast

Ingredients

1 loaf French bread, sliced into half inch slices, no butts allowed

3 eggs

2 1/4 cup milk

1 tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup flour

6 tbsp brown sugar

3 tbsp softened butter

1 cup berries, fresh or frozen

1. Place bread slices, cut-side up, in a 13x9 inch pan.  In a bowl, preferably with a spout, mix eggs, milk, and vanilla.  Pour over bread.  Flip bread over, cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. Mix flour, sugar, and butter in a bowl until mixture is crumbly.  This step can be made ahead, just cover and refrigerate.

3. Preheat oven to 350. Flip bread slices again, top with brown sugar flour mixture and berries.  Bake for 45 minutes. 

Feel free to serve it up with your favorite syrup, but I don't think it needs anything else.

Egg in a Hole Pancake Style

No bread.

No English muffins.

Potatoes require too much work.

Pancakes! with an egg in the middle!

That was my thought process this morning when I wanted an egg breakfast, but really needed a carb to accompany it.

I spooned the pancake batter into a circle with a nice sized hole for the egg to fit in.

Once the egg was set it flipped perfectly with the pancake.  I used a very large spatula and it was successful. PS I did not eat that Canadian bacon, it was just for photographing purposes. Not a fan.

I buttered up the pancake a bit, but wasn't bold enough to go with the syrup.  You can decide what you'd like to do on that front.

Want something different for breakfast this weekend? Then a pancake with an egg in the middle is for you.

Waffle Tacos

I made waffle tacos for dinner.  What is a waffle taco?  It's where you make a waffle, fill it with stuff, and eat it like a taco.  Amazing right?  I thought so.

Here's how I made mine.  I used Bisquik and added some salt and pepper to the waffle batter to make it a little more savory.  For the taco fixin's I used scrambled eggs, salsa, guacamole, and cheddar cheese.

This was a pretty weird idea, especially for dinner and I was hesitant about serving it, but in the end it was a success.  I would totally make these again for dinner or for breakfast and you should too!

Breakfast Casserole

More breakfast creations! The best part about this recipe, it is just so freaking simple and can be altered however you want it. Maybe add some meat, fresh herbs, or vegetables?

4 ingredients.  Think you guys can handle that? Eggs, crescent rolls, cheese, and milk.  

Breakfast Casserole

Adapted from Bob Evans

1 can of crescent rolls

2 cups shredded cheese (I used Muenster, but I think you use any cheese you please here)

5 eggs, beaten

3/4 cup of milk

salt and pepper

Directions: 

1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2.  Line bottom of a greased 13 x 9 inch dish with crescent roll dough.  Make sure to pinch perforations shut.

3.  Sprinkle cheese in an even layer on top of crescent rolls.

4.  Combine eggs, milk, salt and pepper and pour over cheese.

5.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Let stand for 5 minutes before serving

I served my casserole with bacon on the side.

Such a simple and indulgent breakfast.

Spinach Eggs in a Hashbrown Crust

I love making breakfast for dinner.  It's also a really easy way to make a solid vegetarian meal.

This dish was a fly by the seat of my pants sorta meal.  I knew I wanted to make eggs with a hashbown-esque crust, but couldn't really find a recipe that I loved.

Here's what I did.  First up, shred a bunch of potatoes and an onion with the cheese grater.  Brown up the onions in the pan with some olive oil, then toss in the potatoes and season with salt and pepper.  Then I patted this mixture flat and even to make the crust.

For the egg layer I scrambled up 8 eggs, chopped spinach, parmesan cheese, some milk, salt and pepper.  I cooked it on the stove top for a few minutes and the finished it up in the broiler.

I served this up with some English muffins and really wished I had a nice piece of fruit to go with it as well.

I must say, for a totally impromptu meal, this was a great success.  Make it for dinner, make it for breakfast, you decide.  The hardest part is peeling the potatoes and really, is that so hard?

Baked Egg Boats

I'm going to start out by saying I'm in a bit of a mood.  I wanted a more interesting weekend and that is just not going to happen.  I didn't even make my dinner interesting enough for myself.  This has been a day of disappointments so I apologize for not being overly enthused about what I cooked.

I was told to use a loaf of Italian bread in my dinner plan because it wouldn't been good for another day.  I had this recipe for baked eggs in a baguette sitting in my food I want to make someday board on pinterest for a while so that is the rationalization of this meal.  My disappointment is that I already had an egg and cheese bagel today so this was going to be a pretty redundant meal for me.

Step 1: you hallow out that loaf of bread.  The original recipe uses mini-baguettes, but I just used a whole loaf and cut it in thirds when it was cooked.

Step 2: prepare the filling.  The recipe called for pancetta, gruyere, and green onions.  Being that I had none of these items I called upon my resourcefulness and used tomatoes, basil, and provolone and parmesan cheese to add to my egg filling.

Step 3:  Dump the filling into the bread boat.

Here she is whole, fresh outta the oven.  The eggs get nice and puffed up, the cheese all melty and wonderful.

Below you can see my third of the egg boat.

This was a good meal, and I must add that my choice in filling fixins was quite marvelous, but it did leave me wanting more. Not in the fact that it wasn't enough food to consume for dinner, but just more something....

And yes, this is what I have done on my Saturday night. Blah.

Skillet Eggs with Zucchini

Eggs were on sale at the A&P a few weeks ago and we got a little too excited about it.  We ended up with 54 eggs in the refrigerator.  Needless to say, we needed to up the ante on our egg consumption.  That's how I ended up choosing this recipe for dinner.

The recipe is from Food Network magazine.  They call it skillet eggs with squash, but I refuse to call zucchini squash.  So this is my skillet eggs with zucchini.

Starts out with some scallions frying in the pan.

Then the shredded zucchini hops into the pan.  Along with some salt, pepper, and nutmeg.  I didn't freshly grate it even though I had the capabilities to do so, please don't be terribly disappointed.

When the zucchini is cooked down, I made some indents in the mixture with the back of a serving spoon to nest the eggs in.

I actually cracked the eggs into a little bowl before putting them into their nest! Can you believe it? I dirtied some thing that was not entirely necessary!  Thankfully my mother did the dishes.

Cheddar cheese gets all over this eggy zucchini goodness.

 I toasted up some sliced Italian bread to go with it.  I will say 2 of these eggs was a serious meal.  Loved it!

Egg-ceptional

I used this recipe for herbed-baked eggs from Ina Garten to make my family a little breakfast for dinner last week.

This is the herb mixture that I topped the eggs with: dried thyme, fresh basil and parsley, garlic, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.

Loving this new use for ramekins!

Fresh outta the oven.  Ina suggests to have some nice runny dippy eggs, but I don't like my eggs like that so I made sure the egg was cooked all the way through.

I served the eggs up with hash browns and toast.  These were so delightfully simple, easy, and delicious.

Hash Brown Casserole

This baby's got all your breakfast favorites all rolled into one: eggs, hash browns, bacon, and cheese. If you're really missing the toast maybe you could make it into a sandwich. The best part about it is that you put in your crock pot, go to bed, and wake up to the delicious scent of breakfast ready to eat.

I used this recipe from a Latte with Ott, A.

You layer hash brown, bacon, cheese, and seasonings (I used salt, pepper, and garlic salt)

Then you beat up a dozen eggs and pour it all over the top.

This took far less than the 8-10 hours that was suggested so you might only get 6/7 hours of sleep the night you make this if you don't want one end to get super crispy like mine did.

And since all posts must end with some bragging, this casserole was a big hit at the St Patrick's Day breakfast.

Breakfast for Dinner

I got this super bad-ass injury playing volleyball last week, but decided I was still able to cook some minimalist dinners.

So I give you... breakfast for dinner!  I chopped and peeled a bunch of potatoes and an onion to make my own hash browns because apparently  I thought that purple sausage of a finger needed some exercise.  I seasoned the potatoes with creole rub and I must say they were seasoned to perfection.

I served the potatoes alongside bacon egg and cheese sandwiches on biscuits. Mmmmmmm I need this meal  in my belly again... FYI it's probably going to happen tomorrow.