10 September 2007

Baked Eggs in Tomato Cups

My husband loves to have eggs for breakfast in the morning. I am happy to make him whatever he likes for breakfast, but it's been a challenge to make basically the same thing every day in different ways so that he doesn't get bored, and so that I can see him not just eating a good breakfast, but loving it!

For a while now I've been slightly obsessed with baked, or "shirred," eggs. After reading several different recipes, I perfected my technique for making shirred eggs in ramekins and it became part of our morning repertoire. However, I'm working on slimming down so I decided to try a new version of baked eggs that would be a bit lighter. Recently we got some lovely locally-grown tomatoes that are not too large--probably 2 1/2 inches across--and I was inspired to make them into "cups" for our baked eggs.

With a paring knife, I cut a circle down through the top of the tomatoes and then scooped out the tomatoes' innards with a spoon. I placed each tomato into a ramekin. Then I took one of those wedges of Laughing Cow lowfat creamy cheese in French Onion flavor and cut it in half, and put one half in each tomato. I carefully cracked an egg into each tomato, sprinkled with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, and baked them in the oven for about 15 minutes at 375 degrees, until they were softly set with the yolks still runny. Served with toast, they were such a delicious and special breakfast--and not as fattening as our usual baked eggs!

And best of all, hubby was delighted with his unusual and tasty breakfast. Success!