Posted byYou know, when I started this challenge, I was worried that it wouldn’t be difficult enough for me. Bwahahahaha. Oh hubris. Look at me — I make one salad several times week on my own and I think I’m a fucking master chef. But I forgot that I’m rotten luck in the kitchen. As you can tell by my videos, I spend as much time dropping things and searching for wayward ingredients as I do actually being competent.
That’s why the Day Four’s breakfast’s disaster was NOT surprising, but totally disheartening…
Breakfast
It started out okay. I cut a hole in some bread using a shot glass (thanks to whoever suggested that!), it broke the perimeter of the bread, but whatevs, no biggie. I took that hit in stride and continued on. I got the pan all ready, buttered it up and let it get all hot and melty. And when I turned around… the bread was gone. What the! Where? How? Oh…
Sigh. Jackson NEVER takes food off the counter. I think this whole week of yummy smelling happenings just drove him to a life of crime. I get it, dude.
So it’s time to start over. I won’t break the bread this time! See, it was an opportunity to make it better. So cut the hole (again). Get the pan all buttery (again). Flip the bread over once it’s all toasty on one side. Drop the egg in the hole (oops, it overflowed a bit — I think I needed a bigger hole, or a thicker bread). Then cover. And voila!
Round 2 of egg in a hole smelled as good as it looked. I even transferred it to the plate without ruining it. Which is what I was the most worried about. I cut up half of an avocado, because I read that you guys like to eat avocado with your eggs, and that sounded like a good idea. Then I sprinkled it with olive oil and basil, added some salt. But when I reached for the pepper, disaster struck:
The fucking pepper grinder broke in my hands and allllllll the pepper spilled out. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.
At this point, I just scrapped it entirely. I am super sensitive to pepper. Like, I once ate a bite of my mom’s soup and asked “Whoa my gawd! What did you put in this? It’s SO spicy!” Thinking it had to be some jalapeños, or the world’s spiciest chili, or something. To which my mom answered, “Table pepper.” Oh. I’m a wimp.
I didn’t even want to stick around to see what an ENTIRE pepper grinder’s worth of table pepper would do to me.
I ended up eating plain toast with no holes and no eggs. And every bite went into my mouth.
Lunch
Not much to say about lunch. It was a banana in a hot dog bun with peanut butter. There are not pictures of it because I made it super-fast and then ate it in the car on the way to the grocery store. Yes… grocery store again. I had to get all the ingredients for Day Four’s dinner.
Dinner (to be continued…)
Usually every Thursday my friend, and cooking challenge recipe-maker, Jessica makes me dinner at her house. So I thought it would be a fun idea for me to make her dinner at her house. “Fun idea” sure… great idea? Eh, you’ll be the judge. Stay tuned for that video.
In the mean time, who was able to successfully eat their eggs in their holes? Who tried the peanut butter banadog? And who wants to adopt a breakfast-stealing pit bull?
I’m so sad for your pepper fiasco, but can I say THAT LOOKS AMAZING! Girl, that egg in a hole looks so good. Your plating is on point. I just wanna eat that up! I’ve never made eggs in a hole before, but now I really want to. You’re getting better at this!
I know, right!? It looked soooo gooood. And it smelled amazing. I highly recommend trying to make this. It was actually (ironically?) one of the easiest things I’ve made.
My family has always called it eggs in a nest. I use regular sliced bread and a small cup to make the hole (the hole is bigger than a shot glass, so less spill over). However, the bread is probably less tasty than the fancy bread you used
Mine called it eggs in a nest, too. I haven’t had that in YEARS, I may have to make actual breakfast tomorrow now.
This was one of our recipes in home ec. in high school, and the teacher called it eggs in a basket.
For me, instead of cooking the egg in the bread, I fry the egg as normal then after toasting the bread in a toaster, I take a cookie cutter and cut out a hole where I want the yolk exposed. It makes for a nice presentation without the hassle.
Oh man, I’m anxiously anticipating hearing how dinner went. You probably hate me. 😛
I’ll just say, I don’t hate YOU, I hate MYSELF. 😉
Egg in a hole is amazing and delicious and fun to eat.
I love me some peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but I like to slice the bananas and arrange them on peanut-buttered sandwich bread, maybe with a little honey, and then…GRILL it like a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s sooooo good that way.
OMG brilliant. That’s dinner tonight.
Just coming back to report that this was yummy!
I tried doing grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches and it just did not work out for me. The bread just tasted all wrong. You can’t butter the side going down on the pan, but the bread just soaked up so much of the butter that was melted in the pan. Maybe I used too much butter? Too soft of bread? All I know is that I wanted it to be amazing and it ended up disappointing instead 🙁
I often do mine in the Geo. Foreman grill; no butter required, and it comes out like a panini. If you’re doing it in a non-stick pan,
put the top on the sandwich and lightly butter, and put it face-down in the pan, and then butter the side now on top. Works on grain bread just fine.
I did mine in a (nonstick) skillet with softish whole-grain sandwich bread. I didn’t use any butter or oil on the outside of the bread at all, and it toasted up nicely.
Most absolutely Yes!! It takes a PB&B to a whole new level. Oh, you’ve got to try this someday Megan.
Someone’s gotta submit this as a guest recipe post!!! Maybe I’ll turn it into a video.
If you have an issue with black pepper, I would leave it off the eggs entirely. I have a family member who just puts salt on eggs and loves it! Especially with the oil and herbs, it doesn’t really need the pepper. My sister-in-law once did the egg in the hole and made the hole out of a duck cookie cutter! So adorable! However, I second frying the egg and toasting the bread seperately. The egg inside the hole is too much of a pain for me in the AM!
!!! I OWN a duck cookie cutter. So making this now.
Im just very happy that I am not alone in trying to battle thieving pets while cooking.
I am like… irrationally sad over that wasted avocado. I mean, the egg in a hole looks really delicious but avocado is like… my everything. NOOOO DELICIOUS AVOCADO WHYYYYYYY?
I’ve always heard this called toad-in-the-hole, which I just googled and got this and a dish of sausages baked in Yorkshire pudding ???
try it again! it looked wonderful until you got to the pepper shaker…
Yup, toad in the hole is totally sausages in Yorkshire pudding. A dish I grew up with!
So I’ve totally had a pepper grinder break in my hands before too. It was awful because I was starving and my food just looked delicious so I proceeded to use ALL OF THE SWEAR WORDS while I attempted to fix it (sadly it still tasted horrible, you made the wise choice by throwing it out).
MANNNNN. I’ve had rogue spice shakers ruin stuff for me so many times that I now just shake/grind the spice into my hand, then sprinkle it on. At work, we have this cinnamon container that never fails–when you shake it, you either get none cinnamon or OMG CINNAMON DUST STORM EVERYBODY HIDE.
Meghan-simple version:
1) Make toast in toaster
2) Make microwave eggs but maybe don’t scramble them
3) Dump eggs on toast
4) PROFIT
I make the hole by just using a knife and cutting a hole in my bread. Usually a square. But I guess one could get fancy with shapes. And I grew up calling it “egg in a basket”. The “fried in butter” (or bacon fat, before I became a kosher vegetarian) hole of the bread really is the best part.
Egg in a basket/nest/hole/Kanye’s-ego-bag takes practice. I first learned it in home ec – you won’t believe some of the messes the other students made. It was the first time the teacher had to scrape egg off the ceiling.
It’s worth the practice. That’s what cooking well comes down to – practice it until you get comfortable. A lot of us so-called cooks only got this way because we started cooking in our pre-teens or younger. We made all our mistakes back then. Like the time I was eleven and spilled mint extract in the sausage gravy …
Love Jackson’s “But I’m an innocent puppy!” expression. Nah, he’d never steal bread. lol
Oh man, when I was 4 years old and learning to make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches by myself (when I could *just* see over the table ledge) my childhood dog would steal every. single. one.
I know those “dog ate my dinner” feels.
OMG that dog’s face! Love love love it.
My favorite franken-food is to make an egg-in-the-hole grilled cheese… I make two of them, and then top one of them with a slice of cheese and try to carefully put the other one on top. I’m sad for your breakfast, though, and I hope you try it again with less pepper-grinder failing in the future! It’s as delicious as it smells and looks.
You just blew my mind.
I just make Fried Egg Sandwiches – yum! 🙂 More of a lunch thing, but good for days when you want something warm without really cooking (and for days when you don’t have any lunch meat, ha ha).
Sandwich bread with mayo & mustard + fried egg in the middle (cook the yoke through – I usually break it).
If you’re a topping-lover like my dad, melt cheddar cheese over the fried egg before transferring it to the sandwich and sautee some onions in the pan to put on top.
Your dog is the cutest. Seriously. Those eyes slay me.
Right!? How can I stay mad at dat face.
I love eggs in a hole and yours looks perfect! Damn rogue spices – I had the top pop of mustard once and practically the whole bottle ruined my sloppy joes.
99% of the time I feel like a compete interloper on this site due to the ginormous generational gap between us all, but today, I must say, I learned something from you chickadees that is so wickedly simple, yet it has escaped me for all of my 5+ decades. Seriously, I am palm facing this in a big way.
I have been eating peanut butter banana sandwiches my whole life. I love them! But, always with the lusciousness of said sandwich, I have struggled with escaping banana slices. It is a frustration that has always haunted the pure magic of perfect sammich for me.
Put whole banana in a hotdog bun… WHAT!
Thank you a thousand times, grasshopper, for teaching this old girl a new trick. Namaste.
There are NO generational gaps when it comes to pb&j sandwiches. 😉
I’m 46, Kirsten, so you’re not the only one that is up there!
Supersad about the pepper-grinder incident. Take solace in the fact that it was only an egg in the hole/nest/what-have-you.
Once, I had made a ginormous pot of delicious chili. I reached up to the second shelf of the cupboard next to the stove to get out the canister of sugar (it’s always good to add a little sugar to acidic stuff). Unfortunately, as I pulled it out, it came tumbling down, opening and pouring out into the chili as it fell. 🙁 I tried to spoon out as much of it as I could, but all I ended up with was a metric buttload of super sweet chili. We managed about a bowl or two each and I put the rest in the freezer so I could pretend I wouldn’t just be throwing it away later… I think I threw it away when we moved (I hope so, otherwise it’s still taking up space in our freezer).
Also: table pepper can be really spicy! I’ve definitely gotten things too spicy for my taste with it before. On the other hand, my mom has an awesome recipe for Ginger Snaps that has it in it to spice them up! 🙂
ONOZ! At least it technically wasn’t your fault. I once made this enormous pot of stew and used a TABLESPOON to measure the salt, instead of a TEASPOON. Didn’t even realize the mistake until it was finished and hit the dinner table. So we ALL got to experience my error. Dinner for everyone ruined with no backup plan. Wah-wah-wah.
Jackson, you fiend!
If you ever want to send Jackson to doggie jail, I will take him! And smother him with belly rubs and scratches and treats…it’s a very hardcore doggie jail at our house.