Eggs on toast with creamy spanich sauce
Kate and I get asked a lot about the kinds of go-to foods we have at home when we need quick and easy meals. In my house we have plenty of frozen pizzas, burritos, and chicken nuggets in the freezer, but when I actually want a quick home-cooked meal, I have to say I probably grab eggs most often. When I lived in Brazil, I got used to eating eggs in creative ways. People often fried them up and served them over black beans and rice, in a salad, or as a topping for pizza. To this day, a hot fried egg over beans is one of my favorite comfort foods. At my house I often whip up scrambled egg burritos or quesadillas, pile eggs on english muffins with hot ham or pastrami and cheese, or make omelets or frittatas. Most egg dishes lend well to using up scraps of random veggies you have in your fridge, which make them a great last-minute I’m-totally-out-of-food meal. Just last night when my little brother was visiting (and was rather shocked to find his food-blogger-sister’s cupboards quite bare) he rummaged through the fridge and whipped up an awesome scramble with bacon, roasted red peppers, and peperoncinis. So quick and so great.
This recipe was inspired by Eggs Florentine, which is a super amazing and slightly naughty dish of poached eggs on english muffins with spinach and hollandaise sauce. This version is lightened up and made to be quick and easy. It’s totally something I think of as momma-lunch. When, as a stay at home Mom you find a magical moment when you realize you have a few moments of peace and can actually prepare something wholesome and filling for yourself as opposed to eating the rest of the dino-nuggets left on the kids plates and snacking on chocolate bars (please tell me I’m not the only one who does that.) My husband is usually home for lunch, so sometimes while the kids are chowing down on PB&J’s I’ll make something like this for us (which is why the recipe is written for 2). It makes a great breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. You’ll just need eggs, a couple of slices of bread, a tomato, some spinach, mushrooms, and a tiny bit of cream cheese.
Slice the mushrooms and give the spinach a rough chop.
Toss the mushrooms in a hot skillet with a little drizzle of olive oil to start browning. While those are cooking, you’ll mix up your creamy sauce. Remember a few weeks ago when I posted this yummy Zucchini Ribbon Pasta dish? I explained in that recipe that while I don’t often use fat free cream cheese in cooking, it does tend to work great in sauces. That recipe only uses part of a package of cream cheese and when that happens I always try to come up with recipes that can use the rest so you can plan accordingly. This won’t use all of the rest, but it uses a little! You can use regular, low-fat, or even fat free here. Since this recipe is written for 2, we just need an ounce of the cream cheese and we’ll thin it out to a creamy sauce using some nonfat milk and add spices for flavor. Make sure to microwave and whisk the cream cheese well to get all of those lumps out.
When the mushrooms have cooked for a few minutes and are browned up, toss in the spinach.
It literally takes about 8 seconds for it to wilt.
Then add the creamy mixture to the veggies and stir to heat it though.
Since I like to avoid getting all of my pans dirty, especially on a quick dish like this, I scrape all of the creamy sauce into a bowl and cover it, give the pan a quick rinse, and then put it back on the stove to cook up my eggs. You can fry your eggs or poach them, whichever you prefer.
While they’re cooking, slice up a ripe tomato.
And toast a couple slices of bread. Whole grain is extra healthy, but if I’m being honest, hot buttered sourdough would be my first pick!
Layer a couple tomato slices on the bread, top with the spinach sauce, and then an egg. If your sauce has thickened from sitting, just whisk in a little extra milk. Completely optional (I happened to have some in my fridge this time around) is a sprinkle of feta cheese and some chopped parsley.
I eat it with a knife and fork. The toasted bread sort of sops up the creamy sauce and the egg yolk and the juices from the tomato. You get a lot of flavors and textures and one serving is super filling. Momma lunch at its best!
Eggs on Toast with Creamy Spinach Sauce
Recipe by Our Best Bites
Ingredients
½ teaspoon extra virgin olive oil (plus cooking spray as needed)
1 cup sliced brown mushrooms
2 cups loosely packed spinach, chopped
1 ounce low fat or fat free cream cheese
2-4 tablespoon skim milk
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
⅛ teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt (more as needed)
2-3 cracks cracks pepper (more as needed)
2 eggs
2 slices whole grain bread
1 tomato, sliced
optional: 2 tablespoons low-fat crumbled Feta Cheese, parsley
Instructions
Heat a medium skillet to medium-high heat. Add olive oil and mushrooms and cook 3-5 minutes, until golden brown. If needed, add cooking spray during cooking process. While mushrooms are cooking, place cream cheese in a small, microwave-safe bowl. Warm in 20 second intervals until melted and can be stirred smooth. Add, garlic, onion, oregano, salt and pepper. Add milk a little at a time and whisk until smooth, heating more if necessary until you have a nice sauce consistency.
When mushrooms are done, add chopped spinach to pan with mushrooms and stir just until wilted; it should just take a few seconds. Add cream cheese mixture and stir until combined and heated through. Remove mixture from pan and keep covered in a bowl. Wipe pan clean and heat to medium-high heat. Spray pan with cooking spray and crack 2 eggs into pan. Sprinkle eggs with salt and pepper and cook until desired doneness. (You can cook your eggs sunny-side up, or over easy, or poach them.)
Toast bread in toaster and top each with a couple of tomato slices (if desired, you can quickly warm tomatoes in hot pan). Spoon spinach mixture over each serving and top with egg. Sprinkle with feta and parsley if desired. Serves 2.
Nutritional Info (using fat free cream cheese and whole grain bread)
Cal: 269, fat: 9g, carbs: 29g, protein: 17g, fiber 9g
Note: We do not provide nutritional information on all of our recipes. Occasionally we’ve calculated them ourselves and share with you.
This post was a big hit last Father’s Day, and we had readers comment that they were excited to make them for Valentines Day, so see below for an updated printable. Because if there’s one way to your lover’s heart, it’s through bacon.
This not only holds the bacon together, but it creates a little stand for it, so it doesn’t topple over during cooking. Place those little beauties on a rack, sitting over a foil-lined baking sheet. Cooking them on a rack lets the bottoms cook as well so you don’t end up with mushy-bottomed flowers. Because that would be an atrocity.
Pop them in a 400 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. The outside should be crisped and browned, and the inside won’t be crisp, but it will be cooked.
After my little rosebuds came out of the oven, I realized I wanted a heftier flower in there, and thus was born- the jumbo bacon flower:
Just layer on another strip. That’s a real man-flower, there.
That green base and the thing sticking up in the middle of it. The bigger the “thing” the better for your bacon stability. Wow, that sounds very technical. Pop those babies right in there, like they were always meant to be.
And then gaze upon the beauty and majesty of the salty blooms, freshly picked from your kitchen. If only bacon roses really grew in the ground…
Guaranteed to make grown men swoon. Or at least giggle like little girls. Either way it’s a win-win for you.
