Crustless … Egg Tart

This weekend was one of my most memorable weekends ever.  My best bud, Elly, had come down from the northeastern part of the country to visit me.  We haven’t seen each other for a good long ten years!   The last time we met, it was when Hubby and I were back in Indonesia to visit my family.

Elly and I first met each other when we were in the ninth grade, or what is equivalent to US’s 9th grade class.  Then we were separated in high school, until we were in the same class again during our senior year.   Our friendship blossomed during that time, only to be separated again when I went to US for college.  In its miracle way, fate brought us closer together; Elly had come to United States in 2000.  Our correspondence at that time was sparse, each of us were busy with our own lives here.  Then, with the help of Facebook, our friendship has blossomed once more.  This time, our relationship is stronger than ever, even though we are still separated by the mass of land of this continent.  We talked about everything, from our family, kids, old high school friends, jobs, houses, to FarmVille.  Well, I’ve got to use up some of those rollover minutes from AT&T, right?  If I don’t use it, I lose it!  🙂

Sometime last year, we talked about visiting each other, but we were not able to do that until last week.  Elly came to stay with us for 3 days!  Such a short time, which I treasured very much.  I thanked Hubby for being such a supportive husband, listening to two almost 40-year-old women giggling like two high school girls with no care for the future.  Gosh… I can’t believe we’re almost 40!!  Where did the time go??

Elly just came out of the airport in this picture… 🙂

Elly looked the same as before, except her hair was straight now and she is more mature than the young girl I knew back then.  I guess, the same can be said about me, except that sometimes I still like being silly.  Well, we were still pretty silly.  Armed with our iPhones, we were both logged on to Facebook, jostling each other and giggling together.  Our friend Swi, just shook her head and commented that most people probably didn’t realize that we were both in the same room together.  Both Elly and I realized, that back then, we spent our time together reading comics, side by side in the same room.  This time, with the technology, we just stared at our iPhones, side by side… 🙂

Elly and I on her last day here… 😦

Anyway, while Elly was here, we wanted her to try out our cooking as much as she could in such a short amount of time.  So, between Whataburger fast food, which  is only available along Interstate 10, Salsa Fresca, Planked Chicken, Smoked Pulled Pork Sandwich with the homemade Sandwich Slaw to Smoked Brisket and Spareribs, we managed to squeeze these into Elly’s tummy.   Ha ha…

Now, for breakfast, I made her this very easy Crustless Egg Tart.  I found this recipe last year, when I was planning a Thanksgiving brunch.

All I needed was some kind of lunch meat, eggs, parmesan cheese, tomatoes, green onions, and salt and pepper.  The original recipe uses ham lunch meat and cherry tomatoes.  I only had turkey lunch meat in my fridge, and roma tomatoes, so those would do just fine.

First I sprayed my muffin pan with cooking spray.  Then I arranged a piece of the lunch meat to resemble a bowl inside the muffin pan.

Then I broke one egg over each “bowl”.

Since I didn’t have cherry tomatoes, I put in seeded, cut up roma tomatoes instead.

Then I salted and peppered the eggs and sprinkled the chopped green onions…

Then I grated the parmesan cheese on top of the cut up tomatoes… and I was done!

I baked them at 350F for about 18-20 minutes.

Now, that was a fast, tummy-filling breakfast!  After all, we needed all of the protein we could consume before we trekked toward the Outlet Mall that Friday.  🙂  Shopping require energy right?  So, make some of these delicious Crustless Egg Tarts, and let me know if you like it!  🙂

Print recipe here.

Crustless Ham and Egg Tarts Brunch Recipe
Recipe from: Divine Dinner Party.com

These are one of the prettiest, easiest brunch menu ideas. Just assemble and pop these little suckers in the oven– then spend time with your guests. Each one is it’s own perfect little serving… no need to worry about egg-dirty serving spoons and bits of scrambled egg tumbling onto the carpet. They’re also pretty, impressive, and re-heat well. And are tasty as could be, of course. Recipe make 12 single servings or 6 double servings– scale up or down depending on the potential pigginess of your guests.

Ingredients:
2 tsp. olive oil
12 thin slices ham
12 lg. eggs
12 med. cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp. chives, finely chopped
3 tbsp. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil all cups in a 12-cup muffin pan with olive oil (cooking spray also works well).

Line each muffin cup with a slice of ham. Leave the ends of the ham sticking out over the top slightly.

Break one egg into each ham-lined muffin cup. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with one cherry tomato, a sprinkle of Parmesan, and a sprinkle of chives.

Bake 18-20 minutes until egg has set.

Let cool 5 minutes before removing tarts from muffin tins. To remove, run a knife around each muffin cup to loosen. Serve.

Note: Another way to do this easy brunch recipe is using scrambled egg in place of the whole egg. Simple mix eggs as normal and pour into ham cups. You might want to make half of each please all your guests.