Midnight Snacks

This is a post that would be much better with pictures. But I wasn’t thinking about pictures when I went ravaging through my fridge at midnight looking for food. Again. No. You’d think I was pregnant. But no. Just nocturnal. And breastfeeding. I’ll go with that explanation.

Regardless of the reason – midnight found me hungry for snacks. And one of my favorite late-night snacks is eggs and toast. I’m very partial to the over easy egg with sourdough and any permutation thereof.

The movie Spanglish glorified this sort of midnight snack to an art form, with a special DVD feature showing how to make that fried egg, bacon, tomato sandwich. I should have guessed but this recipe was developed by Thomas Keller (of French Laundry), who also created the amazing Ratatouille recipe for that adorable, rodent-filled movie.

In a similar vein, when I was a kid, I had this really old (like 1950′2 era) Betty Crocker cookbook for young girls and in it were tons of retro recipes. My favorite was a recipe for “Eggs in a Frame.” Basically, you butter both sides of a piece of bread, toast it in a pan, cut a circle in the middle (save that toast round for later!). Break an egg into a cup or bowl and lightly salt, drop a little more butter in the center of the “frame” and gently slide the egg into the frame. Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes on medium heat, then gently flip over. This will yield an egg with a yolk that is thickened but still a little runny. That’s how I like it…you can also cook it through on one side until the egg white is set and serve it sunny side up.

Anyway, tonight, lacking bacon and lettuce to make the Thomas Keller version – I just ate my eggs in a frame with an extra slice of toast and some sliced, salted cold tomatoes. So yummy.

Crave

 

Unlike Erin, my late-night craving last night for Peanut Butter Cups was NOT pregnancy-induced. Just the same, it demanded gratification.  I never eat Reese’s since they contain lots of dairy and hydrogenated garbage so it was already more than time for me to develop my own method of satisfying the timeless urge to combine peanut butter and chocolate.

Scrounging through my cupboards I found a jar of creamy peanut butter, some powdered sugar and some bittersweet chocolate chips and some random, mini candy cups leftover from Christmas baking. Perfect.

A bit about the chocolate (since I’m here), I really like Guittard  Semisweet Chocolate Chips and not just because they’re the only widely-available baking chips that don’t contain milk or butterfat. They are dark and not too sweet and they melt exquisitely and have a delicious mouth-feel.

I melted about 2/3 c. chocolate in the microwave (which is basically sacrilege in the melting chocolate world) but just until most of the chips were melted. Stir it with a spatula (no metal! plastic or silicone only!) to help the remaining chips melt.

While that was going on, I whipped up (with a fork) about 1/2 c. of peanut butter (probably less) and a couple tablespoons of powdered sugar and scooped it into a small ziplock with a corner snipped off to make a piping bag.

Clear a spot in your freezer so these can chill.

Drop some melted chocolate in the bottom of your candy cup, enough to coat the sides of the cup (all the way to the top of the cup) and to leave a slightly thick layer on the bottom. Put these in the freezer to set. Once the chocolate is matte and hardened, pull them out and pipe your preferred portion of the peanut butter mixture into the center of the cup. Cover this with more chocolate and then return to the freezer. Mine took maybe 10 minutes to set and then I could peel of the cup and devour.

I have to warn you though – these are like 1000% more rich than the store-bought version and I could barely eat one at a time. Enjoy with caution, they may put you into a peanut-y-chocolate coma.