cauliflower gouda layered baked eggs with tomato and spinach

I first discovered and fell in love with baked eggs last winter, and during those cold months I visited cafe after cafe on the weekends, sampling the myriad of baked egg offerings out there for breakfast and brunch. In the midst of this intense affair, I vowed to make my own baked eggs one day, but it was only recently that this promise was finally consummated. Was it good? You betcha!

I sigh in bliss, for thou art my lovely baked eggs.

A quick aside on how this baked egg recipe came about. A friend introduced me to the delicious gouda some years ago, and it's been one of my favourite cheeses since then. I really wanted to incorporate it into my baked eggs, so I designed a recipe doing just that. What I like about this recipe is that everything is cooked using just the ramekins and the oven, a tribute to my laziness. No separate sautéing of ingredients in pans, no boiling in pots, etcetera, meaning less dishes to wash!

oh my gouda! I worship you with my tummy.

The following are the ingredients I used. The amounts I leave up to you. You might prefer more of one ingredient than another, so create as you wish!

amazing baked eggs layered with cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, gouda, and spinach

Cauliflower, pinch off small florets to use
Cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
Gouda cheese, sliced (I used a mild Dutch gouda. You may substitute with other melting cheese.)
Garlic, finely chopped or crushed
Spinach leaves
Eggs
Olive oil
Salt and spices (I used Spanish hot smoked paprika)

- Preheat oven to 180C/350F. (I use fan-forced.)

- Create a mixture with extra virgin olive oil, spices and salt.

- Lightly toss the cauliflower florets and cherry tomatoes in the spiced olive oil mixture. Reserve the remaining olive oil mixture for drizzling later.

- Fill ramekins (or small baking dish) with the cauliflower and tomatoes - I filled mine up close to half-full. Place ramekins in oven for approximately 15 minutes or until cauliflower florets are just slightly charred at the tips.

- Remove from oven, and layer with sliced gouda cheese. Then layer with spinach leaves. Try to tuck them so they don't flop around. Otherwise, you may choose to weigh them down a little with more cheese. I didn't, but it's hard to go wrong with more cheese.

- Crack the eggs gently over the spinach leaves. For the small ramekins I used one egg, for the medium ones I used two. At this point I drizzled over some of the remaining spiced olive oil mixture but you can also do that just before serving. If you love the fruity taste of extra virgin olive oil, do this later.

- Bake until eggs are cooked to your liking. For runny eggs take them out at 10 minutes or even earlier. If you prefer them fully cooked, it may take up to 15 minutes. Mine was somewhere in between – cooked on the outermost part, with a bit of liquid gold right in the centre.

- Now they are ready to eat! If you want, you can top it with more fresh spinach and cherry tomatoes, herbs, and lemon juice to lighten it up.

a simple step-by-step picture guide!

step 1: toss cauliflower and tomato in seasonings, bake in oven.

step 2: retrieve roasted cauliflower and tomato from oven.

step 3: layer with cheese.

step 4: layer with spinach leaves.

step 5: crack eggs gently over the spinach leaves.

step 6: season further (if you like - or wait to do it just before serving), put back into the oven.

Notes:
The ramekins and its contents will be very hot after you take them out from the oven, be careful! Also, remember that the eggs will continue to cook in the residual heat of the dish.
Some ovens have their little quirks. I’m still getting acquainted to the one I use. My times are an estimate so you might need to experiment a little to get your baked eggs just the way you like.

For a first attempt, I was delighted with how well this turned out! Though I give props to my gouda, I wouldn't say there was a singular element that was the star of this dish - the ingredients worked as a team, the layers all coming together to a scrumptious final product. I had my baked eggs with a nice cold glass of fruit juice - a suitably refreshing complement to this warm, comforting dish. What a great start to the weekend!

the final and crucial step for baked eggs: eating them.

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oven-baked spinach chips

light and crispy spinach chips

You know how sometimes one idea leads to another? This always seems to happen to me. I'd have one thing in mind, then in a turn of events, decide to do something else. I was going to roast some carrots but when I opened up the fridge there was this bag of leftover spinach staring at me. So of course, I ended up making spinach chips!

spinach leaves, rinse and shake off excess water
extra virgin olive oil, a little goes a long way (may be omitted for a fat-free version?)
spices (I used garlic salt and chilli flakes)

- Preheat oven to 120C/250F, fan-forced.
- Toss spinach leaves in olive oil, garlic salt and chilli flakes, then lay them out (slightly apart, not overlapping) on a baking sheet/pan. (Grease or line the sheet with baking paper to make it easier for you to pick off the spinach leaves later.)
- Bake for approximately 10 minutes.

Quick and easy, what's not to love? I could pick most of the spinach chips off the pan without any trouble - some were slightly stuck but came off easily with the help of a butter knife. You could possibly circumvent this with a lining of baking paper. The spinach chips turned out really light and crispy with a lovely hint of garlic salt, chilli and olive oil. I have to say, it makes quite the addictive snack...

mmm, savoury spinach crisps.

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twice cooked corn with Spanish hot smoked paprika and extra virgin olive oil

Hola! Why, if it isn't hot smoked paprika mucking about with his pal, extra virgin olive oil.

Hot smoked paprika, meet oven roasted sweet corn. Oven roasted sweet corn, meet hot smoked paprika.

Extra virgin olive oil, you make sure they get along.

Vamos a ser amigos!

My tin of Spanish hot smoked paprika has been getting a good workout ever since I purchased it. It added quite a bit of flair to my spicy coffee toffees, and now it's getting down and dirty with this super-simple corn dish. So easy, so good!

twice cooked corn with Spanish hot smoked paprika and extra virgin olive oil

sweet corn, still in husks
hot smoked paprika (pimentón de La Vera picante)
extra virgin olive oil
salt and lime juice (optional)

- Preheat oven to 180C (360F).
- Rinse sweet corn with water until the husks are moist and roast them whole on the oven rack, husks intact. If the corn you have has already had their husks removed, steam them instead.
- After 25 minutes, retrieve from the oven. The corn should be perfectly cooked in their own husks.
- Discard the silk. Strip down the husks and tie them at the stem. Brush the corn kernels with a mixture of extra virgin olive oil and hot smoked paprika. The ratio of the ingredients is up to you. I like mine with lots of spice.
- Finish the sweet corn on the grill to char it up. Some of the kernels may pop loudly, this is normal.
- Eat as is with a sprinkle of salt and if you like, add a drizzle of lime juice as well. (I can't decide whether I prefer it with or without - depends on whether you want it tangy and smoky, or just seriously smoky! )

Either way, the pimentón and the sweet corn made a great match - the charred finish really completing the dish. Mmmmmm, hot and smoky nirvana!

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oka yams... love at first bite

I was at Prahran Market last Saturday when some oddly-shaped, brightly coloured curiosities caught my eye at the M J Mow Gourmet Potatoes stall. 

NZ oka yams

I thought they were some unusual variety of ginger at first. Then I read the sign - they were oka yams from New Zealand (also spelt oca yams). There were also printouts of a recipe for those who wanted ideas on making a meal with them. I had a chat with the stallholder, Michael, and he gave me more tips on how to cook these oka yams. He described the flavour as nutty, and said that if I didn't have an oven as required in the recipe printout, I could slice them up and sauté them, which was good to know as I only have access to a working oven on certain nights.

They were $15/kg and I bought 200 grams to try. After mulling over it for a couple of days, I decided to cook them with the oven method, and came up with a recipe that took some ideas from the printout while also incorporating some personal preferences.

some of the washed ingredients, ready to prepare for baking

This is what I ended up using, and it makes just one serving...

- 200g NZ oka yams, ends trimmed
- 1 large banana chilli pepper, chopped (or any pepper)
- 1 tangelo (oranges, mandarins etc will do too)
- 1 large clove elephant garlic, chopped (or regular garlic)
- 1 handful celery leaves, chopped (you can use your favourite herbs as well)
- 1 knob butter
- 1 dollop Greek yoghurt
- 1 heaping tablespoon almond flakes, toasted
- salt and pepper to taste

As you can probably tell by now, I am pretty liberal/flexible about ingredients and measurements, so just take the above as a loose guide, and feel free to substitute the ingredients with similar items. I do recommend you at least double the recipe if you make it, and especially if you're sharing with someone, as I was lamenting that I didn't have enough after the first bite.

First, I threw the yams, chilli, garlic and half the celery leaves into a baking dish, then coated them all thoroughly with butter. Then I cut up the tangelo and squeezed the juice over all the ingredients in the baking dish, reserving one generous wedge for more drizzling later. Now it's ready to go into the oven for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, you can toast the almond flakes either in a pan or in the oven until fragrant and golden brown.

oka yams and friends ready to go into the oven

After 20 minutes, I took the baking dish out of the oven and the yams were soft and perfect, so I season them with salt, pepper, the juice of the remaining tangelo wedge, yoghurt, the remaining celery leaves, and the toasted almond flakes.

oka yams ready to serve

Mix it all up, and dig in...

oka yams ready to eat

I really liked this, and I'm already thinking about buying ocas again. They had a nutty flavour as was mentioned, and they were really tasty. I think I did them justice with my dish, too, if I do say so myself. After some of my recent cooking attempts, which could've gone better, I feel some pride and joy again.

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kangaroo, a companion for giardiniera

As a lazy cook, one of the great things about trying new ingredients is that it adds interest and variety to my meals without too much additional effort. A few weeks ago, I picked up a jar of giardiniera (Italian pickled vegetables) at the grocery store, marked down to $1.

opened jar of giardiniera

Apparently they are usually served as an antipasto or as a condiment on beef sandwiches, but I thought I'd try them with something else I've been eyeing off for awhile now at the supermarket...

kangaroo mini-roasts

These kangaroo mini-roasts had already been flavoured with herb and garlic, but I took the liberty of adding red chillies and red onions. As you can see, I scattered the chilli seeds over the mini-roasts for extra spiciness. :D

Then it's the usual drizzle of olive oil, and into the oven they go...

Approximately 40 minutes later, after doing their time in the oven and resting for awhile, I roughly sliced my kangaroo mini-roast up and was happy to see that they came out medium as I had hoped. The onions were soft, and the chilli added a nice kick.

my attempts at making an easy meal look sophisticated

Finally, the pairing of kangaroo and giardiniera actually went quite well together. The total cost of ingredients came to $8.50 and this yielded two servings, so for a $4.25 dinner that didn't require a lot of work, it was not bad at all!

Ingredients:

2 kangaroo mini-roasts, seasoned with garlic and herbs
1 red onion
1 red chilli
1 jar of giardiniera
1 tablespoon of olive oil

another view

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