The All-American Breakfast: Bacon, Egg, and Toast Cups

I find breakfast very confusing.  One, everyone makes a huge deal about how it's the "most important" meal of the day."  I don't buy it.  I think it's healthier to just eat when hungry.  When I wake up, I'm not rubbing my hands together at the thought of a bacon doughnut.  I won't go into it, but read this science-y article by a non-scientist/total-hottie.  He basically debunks the breakfast myth and talks about how eating breakfast just makes you hungrier.  Unless you weigh 45 kg, you really don't need to eat as soon as you wake up in order to have the calories and fuel to function for the rest of the day.  Your body has stuff called fat for that reason.

Breakfast is doubly confusing when considering the limited range of acceptable food options.  I really dislike when I'm happily chomping away at something between 8 and 11am and hear a bystander gasp, "For breakfast?!"  I could be eating kimchi.  I could be eating a carrot.  Everyone is confused, but no one as much as me.  Why the hell not?  Food is food, and I'll eat it when I want.

Right, so I made these little breakfast cups full of all those things (and there aren't many) that staunch Americans consider breakfast-approved foodstuffs.  Bacon.  Eggs.  Buttered Toast.

Bacon, Egg, and Toast Cups
(recipe adapted from Martha Stewart)
Makes 6 cups.  Takes about 30 minutes.

3 tablespoons melted butter
8 slices white or whole-wheat sandwich bread
6 bacon slices
6 eggs
Salt and ground pepper
parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Lightly butter a muffin tin.

With a rolling pin, flatten bread slices slightly and using a cup or something round, cut the bread into circles.

Depending on how big your bread rounds are, you'll do this differently, but basically just assemble a bread cup within the muffin tin.  I did so by putting a bread round at the bottom and using bread scraps to patch up the edges.  Make sure the bread runs up over the lip a bit so the egg doesn't spill out later.

Brush bread with remaining butter.

In a frying pan, cook bacon over medium, until almost crisp about 4 minutes.  Lay 1 bacon slice in each bread cup and crack an egg over each. Season with salt and pepper. Bake until egg whites are just set, 20 to 25 minutes. 

Run a small knife around cups to loosen. Grate some parmesan on top if you'd like.  Eat right away!