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.