Open-Faced Egg Sandwich

So right after school was done kicking my butt (or at least the kicking had slowed down), my medical appointments started kicking my butt.  I've been off my feet a lot lately by doctor's orders, which means there's been much less cooking going on in our house than usual.  Actually, what's really been going on is probably something akin to what happens every week in Laura's house, where I made a big potful of something and we ate out of it for several days in a row so that my husband wouldn't have to work too hard to get dinner on the table.  This was self serving, too, because it also meant I didn't have to tell my husband what to do to get dinner on the table.  Sometimes that's almost more exhausting than just doing it myself, even though he means well.  :)  Luckily I've been sitting on this recipe for a while, so while I'm hanging out here on bedrest, or couchrest, as it were, for the remainder of the day, I thought I might as well share it.

I've mentioned before how much Marc and I love to have a big, guilty pleasure breakfast on the weekends, but besides things like sweets and simple carbs - coffee cakes, doughnuts, griddlecakes, etc. - most of my old cookbooks don't have much to offer as far as breakfast recipes.  Marc would always prefer to have a lot of protein in his big weekend breakfast, especially if that protein is in the form of bacon.  And cheese.  And eggs.  And then more bacon.  After a lot of paging through old books, I did find a few breakfast casserole and strata recipes, but it's nearly impossible to make something like that for 2 people, and I wasn't interested in eating it forever.  A little more scouring revealed several breakfast sandwich and scrambled egg recipes in a few old books from around the 30s and 40s.  One scrambled egg recipe contained oysters.  Another contained sauteed corn.  I decided I didn't know how to modernize something that sounded quite that repulsive, but was glad to hear that people were scrambling eggs back in the day because I knew I could work with that.  One book had a recipe for an egg sandwich and eggs benedict on the same page and hence the idea of an open-faced egg sandwich crept into my head.  That, plus the memory of a great meal at a bed and breakfast in the Poconos a few years ago created this tasty dish.  At this particular bed and breakfast, the scrambled eggs had herbs and a hint of garlic in them, and in this case, I actually gave in to a convenience product to get that same effect.

Open-Faced Egg Sandwich

I made this as 2 servings, but you would need to be pretty darn hungry to eat the whole thing.  Marc didn't have much trouble finishing his, but I could have probably shared mine with someone, especially if we'd had a little fruit salad or something like that to go along with it.  (As it was, the dog was happy to help me finish it.)  So I guess the point is it's probably not enough for 4 people as is, but a little more than needed for 2.  If you're interested in trying to make croissants from scratch, good on ya'.  I haven't tried that yet and luckily the grocery store bakery does a fine job of doing that for me.

2 croissants
1 Tbs. butter
4 eggs
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 Tbs. soft cheese spread with garlic and herbs (I used Alouette Garlic and Herb Light)
4 strips thick cut bacon

Lay the croissant on the counter and place your palm flat on top of it.  Use a bread knife, held parallel to the counter, to cut each croissant in half horizontally.  Melt the butter in a 12-inch nonstick skillet until no longer foaming.  Place all 4 croissant halves, cut side down, in the skillet and cook over medium heat until they are nicely crisped.  Remove from the skillet and set aside.

In the now empty skillet, cook the 4 strips of bacon to desired crispiness and drain on paper towels.  Cut each slice in half.

Beat the eggs along with the salt and pepper.  Drain the grease from the bacon out of the skillet and pour in the egg mixture.  Add the 2 Tbs of cheese but do not just throw in 2 big gobs.  Spread it out around the pan so it can melt into the eggs evenly.  Scramble the eggs to desired doneness.

On each plate, place a bottom and top of a toasted croissant and place 2 of the halved strips of bacon on each piece.  (So each of the 4 croissant pieces will be covered with one piece of bacon, except that the bacon strip has been cut into 2 halves.  Got it?)  Evenly divide the scrambled eggs over all 4 croissant halves and serve immediately.

You will need a fork to eat this; you can't really pick it up.