Yes, I have pulled the crockpot out of the closet and blown off the dust in order to bring you a crockpot recipe in time for Easter brunch.  Other sites call this a crockpot brunch casserole. I call it a crustless quiche or a fritata done in a slow cooker. 

My particular slow cooker runs hot on the Low setting, especially when I use the smallest sized crock (I have three crocks that work on it). The first time I made this I woke up in the middle of the night and could smell it and just knew that it was done. I crawled out of bed, stumbled half asleep into the kitchen and turned it to Warm - or so I thought. Turns out I turned it to High and ended up with a charcoal briquette in the crock. Not good odor-wise or money-wise. My second attempt was much better when I used a technique I've seen mentioned in many other crockpot recipes - I folded aluminum foil several times to create a buffer between the bottom of my crock and the heating element. Much better results this time. But I will say that after trying this way versus baking a quiche in the oven, I prefer the oven.

You will definitely be better off if you have a slow cooker with a timer and varying temperatures.  This calls for cooking for about 8 hours and so I needed to wait until at least 10 p.m. before I put it on. That's my one complaint on my cooker - no timer.

I ate a lot of eggs last month. I was trying the Paleo (Caveman) diet which meant none of my normal breakfast fare that used grains - no oatmeal, cereal, toast, etc.  I pretty much resorted to eggs, either hard or soft boiled. I like a runny yolk and so for the most part I went with soft boiled eggs with fond remembrances of having them at British bed and breakfast places as a child. 

Last month another egg memory came to mind - baked eggs. My first encounter with baked eggs was via my mom-in-law. Anytime we had a brunch, but particularly at Easter, she would do a whole pan of baked eggs. It is an easy way to do eggs for a crowd without having to worry about serving people in batches. 

Tina's baked eggs would fill a 9x13 Pyrex dish. You can easily do a dozen in that size of pan. I'm alone, so I opted for ramekins. Either way, you grease the container and then add your ingredients. This dish is made for creativity and variation. Today I simply added onions, but you can definitely do shredded spinach on the bottom layer and top the eggs with slices of tomato if you like. Add your favorite spices or maybe do the bottom layer with a simple layer of salsa. Some people add a bit of cream, but I don't. It's really all up to you.

As for the Paleo variation, Paleo folks don't do dairy either. So they would eliminate the butter and cheese and use oil instead. 

Baked Eggs

eggs

butter

chopped onion

chopped spinach

Parmesan cheese, shredded

salt, pepper, herbs to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease your container well with butter or oil. Place a layer of onion and spinach in the bottom of the container. Break your eggs carefully atop the vegetable layer. (In a large pan you will be breaking them side by side in a layout like when you do cookies on a cookie sheet.) Sprinkle the cheese on top of the eggs. Sprinkle herbs, salt, and pepper to taste.

Bake in oven for about 10 minutes. 

You will need to keep an eye on them to determine your preference for doneness. Keep in mind that they will continue to cook a bit when you pull them from the oven. I like a runny yolk and so I need to pull them when the whites are almost completely set but a bit jiggly.

As we approach the New Year we end yet another holiday season. For readers of this blog, you probably noticed I didn't have much in the way of holiday postings. Just been in Oregon busy with dad's heart surgery. We brought him home yesterday.

With the new year only a week away it means that eggnog will soon be disappearing from the dairy case at the grocers. Yet there is still time if you need to put together an item for that a party you are going to. This is as simple as can be with only three ingredients. I came across it in the Food Network's magazine and just had to try it. It took about two hours to make, which is longer than regular flan recipes, but the texture is so smooth and light and worth the long bake time.

Eggnog Flan

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Stir the sugar and 2 tablespoons water in a medium skillet. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, swirling the pan but not stirring, until deep amber, 5 to 7 minutes. Pour the caramel into a shallow 10-inch-round cake pan, tilting the pan so the caramel evenly coats the bottom.

Bring a kettle of water to a boil. Whisk the eggnog and eggs in a large bowl until smooth, being careful not to beat in too much air. Pour the eggnog mixture over the caramel in the pan, then place in a large roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with enough boiling water to come halfway up the side of the cake pan.

Loosely cover the roasting pan with foil and bake 1 hour. Remove the foil and continue baking until the custard is set but still quivers, 40 minutes to 1 hour.

Remove the flan from the roasting pan and let cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until cold and set, about 2 hours. To serve, run a thin knife around the edge of the flan, place an inverted flat plate over the pan and flip to unmold.

How do you like your eggs? Scrambled? Hard boiled? I like mine over easy. I also like a lot of salt. I'm a salt-aholic who dips French fries in salt, not ketchup. So when I eat a hard boiled egg, I use a lot of salt.

I've mentioned before that I'm half Filipina and yet know next to nothing of my culinary culture. Filipinos are known for their balut - the embryonic duck eggs they eat. Turns out they also preserve duck eggs in salt. A few Asian cultures do so, each with a different method. The method I'm using here is not really Filipino, but Chinese, I think. But it is an easier method than making a mud slurry to encase the eggs in like the Filipinos do.

I'm going to be making a recipe that uses these salted eggs as a garnish and so I figured I'd make the eggs first, since they take three weeks.  I used chicken eggs this time, but will use duck eggs next time. The duck eggs are supposed to have a richer yolk.