French Toast & Bacon Egg Cups

French Toast & Bacon and Egg Cups

Recipe Review- Eggs, Bacon and French Toast in one bite- what could be better? 

I really love brunch. I'm a big breakfast person but I rarely get to eat it. That's not entirely true- I eat a meal in the morning everyday. Usually its a quick egg sandwich- or lately a fruit smoothie, not really much fun. Weekend brunch makes up for all those workday on the go breakfasts. With all its choices, leisurely pace, and requisite alcoholic beverages, brunch is special occasion not to be missed.

Over memorial day weekend a friend hosted a brunch so I decided to make some egg cups that Kevin had found a recipe for. I lost the link he sent me so googled and found another great food site- 15 Spatulas which had a similar recipe. I decided to change it up and make french toast for the bottom of the egg cups. This obviously make the recipe a little more complicated but I reallyyy liked the taste.

French Toast Egg Cups
yield: 12 servings

dozen eggs
6 pieces french toast
maple syrup (optional)
12 slices bacon
salt & pepper

Place bacon on a cold baking sheet in a cool oven. Turn oven to 400 degrees and bake for 15 minutes. Bacon should be mostly cooked- but still easily pliable. Prepare a muffin pan with a light coating of non stick spray. Let bacon cool and then wrap one piece around the sides of each muffin cup.

Cook french toast using your favorite recipe, and cool. Use a round cookie cutter slightly larger than the bottom of  your muffin pan to cut the toast into circles (you will get two for each piece of bread). Push one bread circle into the bottom of the muffin cups prepped with bacon. This will help to hold the bacon in place. Drizzle maple syrup over the french toast.

Crack one egg into each bacon cup. Season with fresh ground salt and pepper. Bake in oven preheated to 400 degrees for 12 minutes- or until your eggs have set up to your liking. Let cool for 3- 5 minutes and transfer to a plate and serve.

Notes: 

I overcooked my bacon- you want it to still be flexible but mine was bordering on crispy. That made wrangling the bacon into the cupcake tins tough to do- but I made it work.  

Since I was making a full dozen egg cups I went the oven method for the bacon. If you aren't making as many feel free to make your bacon on the stove top. 

You might be able to see the cupcake liners that I put into my muffin pan. I thought this was a genius idea, and would make them easy to remove. Nope. The papers adhered to the bacon and tore when I tried to remove them. So definitely do not do that!

If you don't care for french toast- I also experimented with doing hash browns for the bottom of half of them and that was equally tasty. 

I did the beginning steps with the bacon and french toast the night before, then covered the pan in plastic wrap and threw it in the fridge. All I had to do day of was preheat the oven and crack the eggs, and then sip a Bloody Mary while they cooked. 

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Shallots

Recipe Review- You'll forget these are vegetables they taste so good! Even people who don't normally like Brussels sprouts will gobble these up.

We never had Brussels sprouts growing up. I'm not really sure why. Maybe because of the connotations that Brussels sprouts are not kid friendly. I've heard them described as bitter before. I'm not sure what kind of preparation said sprouts are undergoing because since trying them in my adult life I've never met a Brussels sprouts recipe that I didn't like. Steamed, stir fried, broiled or baked I find them delish- but this quick prep is a crowd pleaser. Its only has a few ingredients and steps. Sometimes simple is the best. Plus- who doesn't like bacon! I'm pretty sure that shallots and bacon can make almost anything taste better.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Shallots
adapted from recipe by Rachel Ray

4 slices of bacon
1 large shallot
1.5 lbs Brussels Sprouts
Salt & Pepper
1 cup chicken broth

Place bacon on a cold pan and heat until crispy- flipping periodically. Remove from pan but do not drain grease. Coarsely chop bacon and reserve. Add Shallots to the pan and cook until light brown. Prepare Brussels sprouts by removing bottom and slicing in half. Add Brussels sprouts and season with salt & pepper. Cook for 3-4 minutes and then add in broth. Bring to a simmer, then cover and reduce heat to medium low. Cook for 10 minutes or until softened. Drain and transfer sprouts to a serving dish. Mix and bacon and additional salt and pepper if needed. Serve immediately.

printable recipe 

Yosemite

Last weekend Kevin and I drove up to Yosemite for 3 days and nights of camping and hiking. It was an amazing trip. I had worked 20 straight days in a row, and Kevin and I had survived the first month of living together, we both desperately needed (and deserved!) a long weekend away.

When we got to Yosemite we went to the store to load up on food for the weekend, we kept things simple, sandwiches for lunches while hiking, kabobs on the grill for dinner, and egg sandwiches for breakfasts. We had planned on cooking the eggs on a camp stove, but our friend who lent us the camp stove forgot the regulator that connects the stove to the propane. (Thanks though Liz we still love you!) So we ended up cooking everything in a frying pan over charcoal, a little more time consuming but it turned out great. We also wound up inventing a completely euphoric egg sandwich that was way too good not to share.  So here you have it- rapture- in the form of a breakfast sandwich: