Are You Sick of Eggs Yet?

As I mentioned before, it's an obsession. How many ways can one cook a humble egg? The possibilities are literally endless. Lately my egg dreams have turned to more exotic applications, an egg curry may be in my near future here. Just this past Friday I had an egg dish that borders on egg utopia. After picking up Andy's car, we took Zander out for lunch to Perkins, because we wanted breakfast, but figured Zander would want lunch. And while not exactly highbrow, Perkins knows their breakfast- and their muffins!

When we walked in the door we were confronted by a large sign advertising their new "Eggs Benedict Special." Right there I was in trouble. Eggs Benedict is probably my favorite way to eat eggs. As I looked over the menu, I had decided on the classic version, when I read the fine print under another. It started with an English muffin, topped with a sausage patty, a slice of cheese, egg, and smothered in country style sausage gravy. A second runner up to my eggs benedict is the Southern classic, sausage-n-biscuits. I had to order that. And it was, in short, spectacular. While I consciously knew that this was not a healthy breakfast in the least, it was insanely delicious and perfectly fine for a rare treat.

So in the spirit of the egg, I have another treatment that I did a little while ago, but failed to share. I got it into my head that I could cook an egg in something other than a pan or a dish, and decided that a garden-fresh tomato would be my vessel. I used a paring knife to cut a hollow into the top of a tomato, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and placed the tomato into a 350ºF oven to get hot. After aabout10 minutes, I pulled the tomato out and gently cracked an egg into the hollow. It just fit. The egg also got a sprinkle of salt and pepper, Parmesan cheese, and some snipped chives. I baked the whole thing for another 10 minutes or so- basically trying to ensure that the white was cooked through. The resulting egg was pretty good with some toast on the side. It was a little uunder seasoned but overall I was thrilled with this egg, the only improvement I could see making would be to somehow incorporate some bacon. A perfect breakfast with a cup of Irish Breakfast tea, this one goes on the radar for those days when I have some tomatoes lying around, waiting to be used up.