I never met a bacon I didn't like.

This title is not completely true. Sometimes if bacon is overcooked I don't like it. The reason I chose this title is because I purchased some bacon at a meat market this week, and it looked really good, but then when I cooked it, the flavor was just like pork loin or some other cut of pork. It doesn't really taste like bacon. It's still good, just not what I was expecting. So I think I'll just stick with Costco bacon for a while. That's pretty good stuff.

Here is a nice picture of the bacon. Looks amazing! But it doesn't really taste like bacon. This is about 2/3 of a pound pre-cooked weight.

This week I started with some bacon fat left over from last week. I'm out of spray oil, so I just poured a bunch of bacon fat into the pan and then poured it out again once everything was coated. 

Next I cleaned 5 lbs of sweet potatoes and cut each of them in half. Then I baked them - with a stick of salted butter - at 400 degrees for just over an hour.

While the sweet potatoes were baking, I sliced up the bacon and fried it. I forgot to add anything to it. No mushrooms nor garlic this time. Just bacon.

When the sweet potatoes were cool enough to touch, I put about half of them in a container for later use, and cut up the other half for the egg bake.

Can I fit two 8 oz bags of spinach in this pan?

Yes I can!

After I put the bacon on top of the spinach I also sprinkled on some dehydrated onions. Then I seasoned it with the usual salt, black pepper, and cayenne.

When I was mixing the eggs, I remembered that I'd never added any garlic. So I added some crushed garlic from a jar with the eggs, as well as some heavy cream and the rest of the bacon fat. I only used a dozen eggs. They were Jumbo eggs, but I still wish I'd used more eggs in this one. I baked it all at 350 for about 45 minutes.

It turned out pretty good, but I am not loving it. I think I am getting bored with egg bakes. After this one I'm switching back to frying a few eggs each morning. Maybe I'll make some muffins instead, but I think I'm just ready for something different for a while. So you may not see another post for a while; maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months. It's time to get outside and enjoy the Minnesota weather!

If at first you don't succeed...

After my experience last week, I decided to try to take my own advice and make this week's egg bake exactly like last week's, but with the changes I wish I had made.

This week I cooked the bacon a lot longer and then set it aside, but I left the fat in the pan and used it to saute the onions. While the bacon was frying I threw in some crushed garlic from a jar so it could get sauteed a bit too. I probably should have saved that for the onions because I think the garlic got overcooked and lost its flavor.

The onions I used were going bad so I was cutting off the bad parts and using what was good. Probably about the same as two large onions, or maybe 3 or 4 mediums. A lot of onions either way!

These avocados would have made some nice guacamole. Nice and mushy!

I love the color contrast of the bacon and the avocado. Looks delicious!

A nice dusting of cayenne, salt, and black pepper on top. This week I used more seasoning as well.

18 large eggs (though they looked medium to me) and about half a cup of heavy cream all whisked together. I tried to pour it on gently so all the seasoning didn't end up in one place.
This baked for about 40 minutes at 350.

Last week I thought the bake was a bit bland at first, but it actually got better throughout the week. I would say this one tastes better than last week's did, but it could also be perspective. The week before last I made what I believe to be the best egg bake I'd ever made. So it was hard to follow that. Now my expectations have been lowered and that might be the real reason it tastes better. I also think this one could have used some cheese, so I might add a slice before I microwave my next piece.

Meh

In the interest of trying something new, I envisioned an egg bake with avocados and bacon, and some onions since we had some lying around. Unfortunately it was not all that exciting in the end. It's actually getting better as it ages in the fridge, but the first day it was very bland. I think I should have fried the bacon longer to bring out more flavor. Also I think I should have put the bacon on top instead of mixing it into the onions on the bottom.

After cooking the bacon enough that is was no longer raw, I cut up a few medium onions and put them into the pan. As I was stating above, the bacon needed to cook longer. What I want to do next time is cook the bacon longer and then set it aside, but return the fat to the pan. Then I can cook the onions in the fat. They were done cooking fairly quickly which is why I could not cook the bacon as long as I had originally intended. Live and learn.

This week I have a normal glass (Pyrex) cake pan. No need to grease it ahead of time because there is plenty of fat in the bacon and onion mix.

This is a nifty tool I found on the internet. It is especially for avocados. The knife and the pitting tool are nice, but what I really like is the slotted part. It makes it super-easy to slice up the flesh.

See what I mean? No need to mess around with another knife. It was easy to spread the pieces around and they were cut fairly evenly. The tool is also nice for making sushi. Or even when making guacamole, it's easier to mash up the small pieces than a big chunk.

I probably could have used more seasoning too. Usually bacon is salty so I try to take it easy on the salt, but this bacon was not too salty. Needed more black pepper too. I think the cayenne was about right though. I also had added some crushed garlic to the bacon and onions when I was frying them in the pan.

This is 18 eggs with a splash of heavy cream. An even dozen would have probably been plenty. I also think this one could have benefited from some cheese.

I cooked it for about 45 minutes at 350.

Looks good, doesn't it? It's actually not bad, but I've done better. I think I will try this again with just the onions on the bottom, and then the bacon on top of the avocados. I'm not sure if I will add cheese or not. You'll have to tune in next time to find out!

Masterpiece

This week I made the best egg bake that I've ever made. I think the major difference was cooking the bacon longer. I also didn't have any cheese and went without, but I don't really miss it. Other than cheese, I was using all of my favorite ingredients.

The best egg bakes are always made the day after I make sweet potatoes. My friend in Milwaukee actually does this too. Makes sweet potatoes in the evening, and then uses the leftovers and the dirty pan to make an egg bake the next day. That is pretty much the best way to make an amazing egg bake.

If you want to make good sweet potatoes, I always say you have to "cook the hell out of them." Bake them at 400 degrees for over an hour. Once they start to make your whole kitchen smell like sweet potatoes, cook them for about another 20 minutes. What I use is not a cake pan, it's a roasting pan with a small trough around the outside. This trough allows the melted butter to get absorbed by the sweet potatoes while they cook.
I actually overcooked this batch. I had a cold all weekend and I couldn't smell them, so I didn't know when to turn off the oven! Instead of a nice caramel on the bottom it actually was charred. Oh well, it still worked.

Most of the sweet potatoes were put in the fridge to be used in my lunches this week, but I took a few and chopped them up to throw back into the dirty pan.

A nice layer of spinach. It's hard to distribute it evenly. That's okay, it doesn't have to be perfect.

Cooking the bacon a bit longer meant there was more grease left in the pan at the end. Rather than waste it, I poured it into my egg mixing bowl.

Delicious bacon and mushrooms. Also some garlic and onions. After I added them to the pan, I also dusted them with cayenne, salt, and black pepper.

For some reason I bought jumbo eggs last time, but then I only needed a dozen instead of 18. Mixed with the bacon fat and some heavy cream, then poured over the other ingredients.

Deeeeeeeeeeelicious! In addition to frying the bacon a bit longer, I think it helped to not have any cheese over it. Plus this is good bacon from Trader Joe's. It helps to have high quality ingredients. It's important to note that I did not do everything perfectly. The great thing about an egg bake is that you can be a little sloppy and still have a great meal at the end!

Finally, something different!

Most of my egg bakes are getting pretty monotonous. Seems like I am always making mushroom and spinach, or mixed vegetables.

Well this week I discovered an old bag of "Stir-Fry" vegetables in my freezer. I bought them at Costco a long time ago, and they seemed like an excellent candidate for this week's egg bake!

If you want to try these yourself, here's what the bag looks like.

I also used my favorite bacon this week. Uncured ended & pieces from Trader Joe's. So delicious!

I didn't really do anything special this time. I sliced up the whole package of bacon and fried it up, along with some crushed garlic. Then I added the veggies to the pan to heat them up a bit. I added some dehydrated onions at that time as well. Once it was in the pan I dusted the mixture with cayenne, salt, and black pepper too.
There was a lot of liquid left in the pan at the end, which I poured into my egg mixture, along with some heavy cream. I used a dozen jumbo eggs this time.

I gotta say, this is pretty stinking good! It's a nice change from the usual monotony, and it used up some old stuff from the freezer. I didn't add cheese this time because I'm out of the shredded stuff. Cheese would be good on it though! I also should have greased the pan, but it will just need extra elbow grease when I clean it.

So this just goes to show that you can throw almost anything into an egg bake. Such a versatile breakfast!

Eggsperimenting (lame, I know)

I love those egg bake muffins, but my perfectionism messes with me when I'm trying to proportion the eggs into the cups. So this week I decided to take a different approach. I skipped the cream and just cracked an egg into each cup, then mixed it into the other ingredients with a spatula.

I still began with some bacon, mushrooms, and a bag of mixed vegetables. After I had them all mixed up I divided them into the cups as evenly as possible.

Then I cracked an egg into each cup. Two pans use up an even dozen eggs nicely!

The spatula (on the left) is an old Pampered Chef product that I bought from my sister-in-law many years ago. It was the perfect size and shape for my over-sized muffin tins. I mashed away until everything was mixed up in each cup. A bit time-consuming, but still less tedious than trying to evenly distribute mix from a bowl.

And of course we still need lots of cheese! I'm from Wisconsin after all.

Works of art!

Okay, I'm going to be honest. I made these a couple of weeks ago and I've been too busy to post the photos. I think I cooked these for half an hour at 350, but I don't actually remember. I have more detailed examples on previous posts. I just wanted to show an alternative way of mixing these muffins up. Enjoy!

A sour note

Just to be different, I'm going to write this post in reverse. I usually take these pictures with my phone, and my phone just bricked. I am getting a new one from Google right away (shipping NDA) but I was afraid I had lost my photos. Yeah for auto-backup! 

Look at this beautiful golden brown egg bake! Yum! This guy cooked for just over 1/2 an hour at 350 F.  There is about a cup of shredded cheddar on top.

This weekend I had to buy most of the ingredients because I didn't have much in my fridge. So I got a bag of spinach, some bacon, and some pre-sliced mushrooms, as well as a small container of sour cream. After frying up the bacon and mushrooms with some minced (dehydrated) onions and crushed garlic, I added them to the pan on top of the spinach, and then seasoned them with a heavy dusting of cayenne, as well as a little salt and a good amount of black pepper.

18 eggs were scrambled with an 8 oz container of sour cream, as well as the left over liquid from frying the bacon and mushrooms. The sour cream takes a little more effort to mix in, but the whisk makes short work of that.

I started with a few left over sweet potatoes which I diced up and threw back into the dirty pan. I love using the caramelized butter left over from baking sweet potatoes. It adds more flavor to the eggs.

Here is the experimental ingredient of the week. On New Years Day I was at my sister's house, and she had made an egg bake. It was delicious! She used our mother's recipe which includes sour cream and lots of butter. So I thought it would be fun to use the sour cream instead of my usual heavy whipping cream. All in all I can't taste much difference, so maybe I just need more sour cream. Next week I might go for the 16 oz tub instead!

When I went to the store to get bacon, I wanted to get some good stuff, not just the regular brands. I saw a big package of bacon ends and pieces that looked like a good deal. Unfortunately I failed to notice that it could be any one of three random flavors. This package ended up being maple flavored. Oh well, I chopped it up and it fried like any other bacon. But my home smells like maple flavoring, and I'm getting a little tired of having that flavor on my eggs every morning. I still have 2/3 of the bacon left, so I guess I'd better get used to it! 

Overall this is basically the same as last week except for the different cream. The maple flavor sort of overwhelms everything else, so that might also be why I am not tasting the sour cream. Oh well, it's fun to try something different every time or it can get quite monotonous!