Aida's Eggs

Have any of you seen Food Network's new show, "Ask Aida"? In case you haven't, it features a pretty (and really skinny) young woman named Aida who cooks while her friend (?) Noah checks her e-mail for her and reads questions from viewers. (Sarah Molton used to have a show with a similar concept- viewers called in and asked her questions, but without the tech-geek...)

I watched it this weekend, and I'll be honest- didn't really care for it. I sometimes felt like Aida was just making stuff up as she went. (At one point she was poaching eggs, and was cracking eggs into individual bowls. Noah asked her what the bowls were for, and her response was something along the lines of "I think they're so beautiful!"... Uh, what? I think you're doing it because that way you can slip the eggs into the poaching water without breaking the egg apart.)

She also never ate anything she made, which bothered me. I might not have noticed, except that Noah ate, and she just stood there watching him weirdly as he ate. It was strange.

Kyle did suggest, however, that we try her baked eggs with Canadian bacon and spinach from the episode. We were at the grocery store when he suggested it, so I bought what I remembered her using, and kind of made it up from there. To see how close I was, I looked up her version on Food Network's website. I was almost dead on. I did use different baking temps and times- I've included mine. Hers are available here.

Baked Eggs with Canadian Bacon and Spinach

From Aida Mollenkamp

Serves 4

Butter

2T minced onion (I omitted this)

6oz fresh spinach (I used 10oz, and would probably use more in the future)

4slices Canadian bacon

4 eggs

1/4c heavy cream (I used 4T Silk soy creamer)

1oz grated sharp cheddar (I forgot what cheese she used, and used grated Parmesan)

Preheat oven to 375F. Butter four ramekins and lay one slice of Canadian bacon in each. In a saute pan, cook onions until soft, but not brown (if using.) Add spinach to the pan and cook until wilted. Top each slice of bacon with 1/4 of the spinach. Crack one egg into each cup, drizzle with 1T cream. Sprinkle each cup with cheese.

Bake for 10min. Turn on broiler and broil for 2min.

We ate ours with whole wheat toast. (You'll want toast- the spinach is very...juicy, and the toast is excellent for sopping it up.) These cooking times yielded "over medium" eggs- the yolks just barely runny, which is how I like mine. You can adjust times based on your preference. The egg cups were very good, and made for an excellent (and fast) weeknight supper- including prep time, it took about 15min. The leftover cups microwaved well for breakfast the next day, too.

As much as I didn't care for the show, I really did like the egg idea. I may play around with the veggies in it for variety (maybe mushrooms or sauteed peppers) as it makes for a perfect "I don't feel like cooking and I'm hungry NOW" dinner.

I may have to watch a few more episodes to develop a final opinion... maybe she'll find her groove. And maybe I'll get a few more dinner ideas!