Toad in a Hole, One Eyed Monster, Rocky Mountain Toast

Get you're mind out of the gutter. We're talking about breakfast. Some may also know this as Eggs in a Basket. We stumbled on this dish a couple weeks ago. We had a loaf of cheap white bread thanks to one of my Saturday morning escapades to "coupon the hell" out of the grocery store. Saturdays are double coupon days. Yes, I'm that woman you hate to be behind in line, and I get great satisfaction in paying 39 cents for something that is $4.99 full price.

Back to breakfast. So we have this random loaf of cheap white bread and nothing to do with it, when Andy remembered a scene in a movie where they cook a dish where eggs appeared to be cooked in bread. This set us off on an internet search to figure out what the dish/movie was. He remembered who was in the movie, which eventually led us to V for Vendetta, which eventually led us to Eggs in a Basket (aka Toad in a Hole, One Eyed Monster, Rocky Mountain Toast).

It's simple enough:

• Take white bread and tear a hole in the center (reserve the centers - trust me, you'll want these).
• Butter both sides of the bread.
• Preheat your griddle to 400 degrees. Or use a frying pan on high. The bread is already buttered, so no need to grease the surface.
• Put the slices of bread on the griddle.
• Cook the bread for less than one minute.
• Crack an egg into the center of each piece of bread.
• Season the bread/egg pieces with salt (or garlic salt if you're single/married for more than 5 yrs) and pepper (or pepper medley) to taste.
• Take the centers of the bread and dip them in melted butter. 
• Place the bread centers on the griddle.
• Watch the bread/egg pieces. You'll notice the eggs start to whiten up (see photo #1). When it looks like they're whitened about halfway through, flip them. Be careful with this step because the top is still going to have the consistency of a freshly cracked egg. You need to flip it quick. If you're slow, the egg will fall out of the hole. If you're coordination is off, you're going to send wet egg flying across the room. Proceed with caution. 
• Repeat seasoning combo on the other side of the bread/egg pieces.
• Keep an eye on the removed bread centers. Flip occasionally. Brown/toast to your preference. 
• After the bread/egg pieces are flipped, cook to the desired yolk consistency. We make them over-easy and use the removed bread centers to dip into the yolk. 
• Plate and enjoy! You're only regret will be that you didn't make enough.

Welcome!

We live in Wisconsin. There are long stretches of time during the year when most reasonable people don't venture outside. We are reasonable people. So when we're not canoeing away the summer months, we're probably in the kitchen cooking, counting down the days to our next trip to a warmer locale or that elusive season they call spring/summer/fall. In this house, Andy plays the role of chef, and I (Mary Ann) am the sous chef. It's a good system.

Our hobbies are few and far between, so we figured why not blog about our exciting kitchen adventures. Maybe someone else can get some enjoyment or ideas out of our random cooking experiences. We also thought this might be an opportunity to capture some of the dishes that come out of the kitchen, as Andy does not cook from any recipes nor does he write anything down. We use the internet, movies, tv, etc., for inspiration, but rarely follow any step-by-step instructions.We've made everything from curry cashews to live blue crab straight from Maryland to bread pudding.

One other thing I should mention here, the head chef happens to be a vegetarian. That's right, no meat, no seafood, no poultry. Despite this, he can season and prep a steak as good as the most zealous carnivore out there.

Now you know a little bit about us. Let the cooking begin!