Don't Feel Like It Dinners

I know all of you follow your meal plans flawlessly, and never get to 5:00 pm and think,

"Crap! (or whatever profane or euphemistic emphatic expressions you regularly use) I have nothing on the go for dinner!"  but sometimes I do.

And while this usually leads to the usuals: breakfast-for-dinner, nachos and cheese, or take out , I wanted something quick, but different than usual.

So I went flipping through a few of my old Martha Stewart Food mags,  combined ideas from a couple of recipes (in the April 2009 edition) and came up with this:  Egg Parmesan-ish.    It was according to Josh and the older kids, fabulous, and even my pickiest eaters ate it without complaint, though a bit of coaxing to get started was needed!

The other great thing was that it only took five minutes to get it into the oven.  Then it baked all on it's own for 25 minutes.  Depending on your parental guilt level, you could use that time to make a salad or veg tray to compliment this excellent dish (I didn't) clean your kitchen, de-lint you dryer, fold some laundry or do something life-impacting like watch TV with your kids. Alternately if you have no guilt, you can stare into space until your timer goes and enjoy the nothingness.

At any rate it fit the cheap, fast and easy (I'll say it for you:  just like me!) requirements I needed for dinner that  night.  It will definitely go on my Last Minute Menu for the future!

Egg Parmesan-ish

Karinaloewen.blogspot.com

Prep Time : 5 min if you’re me, 10 if you’re more careful and tidier	Dinner served in:  30 min
Yield:  6-8 portions
Ingredients:
10-12 large eggs (I used 10, the pan could have accommodated 12 no problem)	2 cups favourite pasta sauce
Can of crushed tomatoes (15 oz)	2 tbsp oil
1 tsp rosemary	1 -2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup, and ½ cup parmesan cheese	2 tsp dried basil
Saucepan for heating sauce, barpan/rimmed cookie sheet for baking
Directions:

·         Preheat oven to 350° F

·         Preheat saucepan, add oil.  When heated add garlic, basil and rosemary.  Heat until fragrant

·         Add pasta sauce, crushed tomatoes, and first amount of parmesan cheese.  Stir to combine and heat through

·         Dump 2/3 of this into your bar pan and Spread to cover the bottom.

Dump!

·         Crack 10-12 eggs, in a perfect poly hexagonal design to ensure proper baking.  For serious?  I’m not Martha, just crack away .

Crack as imperfectly as you'd like!

·         Blob the remaining sauce over the eggs

·         Sprinkle with remaining parmesan cheese

Sprinkle, then Smack!

·         Smack that bad boy in the oven and ignore it for a good 20 minutes.  I needed 25 minutes to ensure the egg whites were cooked

Pretty Good for something that's been dumped, cracked, sprinkled and smacked!

Post Recipe Thoughts:

·         If I had had spinach, that would have been a great addition to the sauce.  Maybe with Feta cheese?

·         It was a bit saucy for my liking, although that was easily remedied when serving. I may cut back by  ½ a cup on the pasta sauce next time, or I could add more eggs - if you haven't noticed, it's not really a rocket-science recipe. 

·         If you would like me to state the obvious:  remove from the oven when done.  Turn off your oven.  Clean up your kitchen.  Kiss your spouse.  Love your kids.  Then End.  Amen.