Pat Does Claudia's Baked Eggs

What was that thing that comes just before THE FALL?

Right. The PRIDE thing.

So. How did I get from this...

...to this?

This may not have disaster written all over it, but in MY world, a plate looking like this spells DISASTER.

The Big Guy ALWAYS cleans his plate. Especially at noon on a Sunday when the Saturday paper still holds lots of interesting tidbits. And today, it was the paper not the plate that had the interesting tidbits.

I thought, 'easy'. This will be an easy Sunday Brunch. My friend Claudia has her incredible 'Baked Eggs with Spinach and Pancetta' on her blog now, and since she loves this dish, and I do have spinach in the refrigerator, I thought, "this will be a snap and The Big Guy will be hungry by now since we both have been working. Well. He has been working, I have been on the phone with Claudia talking about the FoodbuzzFestival next weekend. (Is anyone out there going?)

First, I heated 2 tbsp/25 mL oil and 1 tbsp/15 mL butter in my favourite cast iron skillet, which btw, I'm still cleaning as you read this- no matter WHEN you are reading this.

Claudia uses onion and garlic sauteed in oil and some balsamic. Thinking, or NOT as the case turned out, "TBG likes potato", I'll add one here, so I shredded 1 onion- not the sweet Mayan, I only had yellow- and 1 potato. Add to the pan, stir constantly...because once the starch in the uncooked potato hits the hot oil, it is going to glom up the bottom of the pan. YUP. Big time! No problem. I will just take my sharpened fish lifter (my fave tool, btw) and scrape the bottom. Key is to tell everyone to keep the pan on LOW. EGADS. I've got it on medium-high. Oh well. This is why we TEST recipes, eh?

I rubbed in some of my just-dried sage and rosemary, now all safely inside for the winter. Claudia didn't add any herbs. OOOOPS. just checked her blog. She added balsamic vinegar, oh well, it's in the oven now. That little slip won't make a difference.

Claudia doesn't actually tell us how much spinach to use, but hey, I write cookbooks. I KNOW these things. I added a 6 oz/227 g bag to the pan because I love spinach. I forgot that The Big Guy isn't all that keen on spinach.

When she say's "break 2 eggs into the 'nest' of spinach", I thought, aha, I'll clear out little spots right down to the pan so that the eggs nestle in the vegetables while they cook. I used 3 eggs: 2 for The Big Guy, he's working today. This could be where I began my descent...or was it way back when I decided to add the potato?

I was going to serve it with my Red Pepper Sauce- Tune in next blog for the recipe.

I added a bit of Turkish Paprika, but only to MY egg. The Last thing I wanted to hear was, "hm. What's that red stuff?". Oh, no. This dish was going to be my Sunday Brunch House Special, just like Claudia makes...

I Was SO PROUD! It looked GREAT.

What is YOUR little red flag when you know people are just telling you they like what you just cooked? Mine is "hm. What's that green stuff?"

Today I sort of snapped, "It's spinach. Just like that green stuff, pesto that you guzzle by the gallon."

So, right then I knew it had to be spectacular or TBG wasn't going to go back to the gallery raving.

It was OK. Perhaps not a FALL, but a stumble for sure.

The egg yolks were too hard (I like them runny) and I definitely added too much spinach. For success and raves, you will need to follow Claudia's recipe.

And if you have any questions about how to do this better than I did, ask her. I'm still trying to figure out how she gets the yolks to stay runny...