Breakfast for dinner

An:

A while back, Sam emailed me a link to a Buzzfeed article, along with a comment: "We NEED to make this." I followed the link to a listicle about eggs baked in avocado halves. As an avid food-blog reader, the avocado baked egg was nothing new. My thought has always been this: eggs are perfect, avocados are perfect—why mess with two separately great things? After our trip to the beach though, I was craving some lighter fare and this recipe came to mind. We walked over to The Brooklyn Kitchen, a grocery, butcher shop, and kitchenware store all-in-one (plus they do cooking classes!) to pick up two just ripe avocados, fresh eggs and vegetables for a simple salad.  

Sam:

Breakfast for dinner is almost never a bad idea. As An mentioned, after stumbling across this Buzzfeed article about eggs and avocados I really wanted to try this recipe. I love eggs and I love avocado, but I had never had the two merged together into one. There isn't much for me to say here other than I was excited to see how this would turn out!


Baked Eggs in Avocado
A fun recipe to turn two popular ingredients into one tasty entity (adapted from epicurious)
Serves 2 with a simple salad and some extra veggies on the side
Approx. Time: 25-30 minutes (includes time to preheat oven)

Ingredients:
2 ripe, but slightly firm, avocados
4 eggs
salt
pepper
hot sauce, for serving

Special equipment:
Aluminum foil
Baking dish with 2" high sides

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 450F. Set aside a medium-sized round or oval baking dish for placing the avocados in. 
2. Tear two sheets of aluminum foil into square in shapes, and roll them into a sticklike shape. These will help the avocados stay still in the baking dish. 
3. Halve the avocados lengthwise and remove the pit with the blade of your knife. With a small spoon, scoop out some of the avocado flesh, making the original pit-hole big enough to fit the egg (Feel free to eat the scooped out avocado—no waste here!) Set the halves in the baking dish, cut side up, and arrange the foil tubes around the bases of the avocado halves so that they remain level and don't topple over while baking.
4. Crack each egg one at time into a small bowl, spooning one yolk and as much egg white as you can into each avocado half. There may be leftover egg white, but you can discard this or save it for another use. 
5. Season the eggs with salt and pepper to your liking. 
6. Once the oven has finished preheating, carefully slide the dish into the hot oven and bake for 12-14 minutes. The egg white should be just set, but the yolk still molten. Remove dish from oven, allow to cool for 5 minutes and serve with extra salt and pepper and hot sauce. 

Costs:


$ —  $10 or less (per person) - We spent $20 total on this meal which included having left over apple, onion, and lettuce from the salad and two extra eggs.


Verdict

An: We served our avocado baked eggs accompanied by a simple green salad with julienned Granny Smith apple and sliced red onion and a dish of sautéed heirloom tomatoes with fresh basil (from Sam's balcony garden!). I didn't think eggs or avocados could be greater than they already were, but I was pleasantly surprised by this recipe.


Sam: This was a great meal. It was tasty, relatively easy to make, and gave me a new perspective on two ingredients that I really like, eggs and avocado. One thing I noticed was that two of the eggs were slightly overcooked (the yolk was a little hard), and two were cooked perfectly so that the yolk was nice and runny. Make sure that you make the the hole in the avocado a good size so you get enough egg white in there to cover the yolk while baking in the oven. In addition, this is the kind of recipe that can have a bunch of different spins on it which is great, and well documented in many recipes around the web. I'll be doing this again soon and maybe do something crazy like add cheese on top!

Lobster and Scallops in Sag Harbor

Sam:

An and I went to Sag Harbor for the first time for a couple of days in the middle of the week and we got a sweet mid-week deal staying at Capt. Anton Hagen's Airbnb which is a seriously awesome and beautiful place to stay! There are a couple of things that I knew about Sag Harbor going into our first visit from a food standpoint: There is super fresh seafood, there are some great restaurants, and those great restaurants are silly expensive. With access to Anton's kitchen with pretty much every cooking utensil you could think of and a big propane grill, An and I decided to cut out the middle man, buy some fresh food at the local market and cook it ourselves. I had only cooked lobster once before and An never had. So, once she got over the fact we were killing an animal, we were good to go....right

An:

Totally! Cooking lobster always seemed like something I should leave to the pros. I'd made lobster tails before, but never a whole live lobster. I was a little hesitant because I had never cooked a live anything before, but I thought I had may as well try it once. So I consulted one of my go-to food and cooking sites, Serious Eats, and found a basic recipe for a lobster boil. We picked up a fresh Maine lobster and some local sea scallops from The Dock House, and rounded it out with some vegetables from the local market on Main St. We headed back to our Airbnb home and prepped for the main event!


Lobster boil with corn and potatoes
Classic preparation for steamed lobster with corn and potatoes (adapted from Serious Eats)
Serves 2 with accompanying sides
Approx. Time: 25 minutes total

Ingredients:
1 tbsp unsalted butter
4 small red potatoes, halved
3 ears of corn, husked and halved
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
One 1 1/4 lbs live lobster
2 heaping tbsp unsalted butter

Steps:

1. In a large soup pot or lobster pot, melt the butter on medium heat. Add the potatoes and layer the corn on top. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the vegetables.
2. Pour 1 1/2 cups (12 oz) water into the pot and increase heat to medium-high. Once the water begins to boil, reduce heat to maintain a simmer. 
3. Add whole lobster to the pot (Sorry, little dude!), making sure to remove the rubber bands from the claws (a pair of scissors works well). Cover the pot with the lid, and simmer for 18 minutes.
4. Meanwhile in a small pot, melt 2 tbsp of butter on medium heat for 2 minutes or until it begins to lightly simmer. Remove from heat and transfer to a small bowl for dipping.
5. Once the lobster is done, remove from pot with a pair of tongs and transfer to plate, along with corn and potatoes. Serve with butter on the side. 

Pan-Seared Sea Scallops with White Wine Sauce

A simple, yet sophisticated recipe for preparing scallops in under 7 minutes (adapted from My Recipes)

Serves 2 with accompanying sides 

Approx. Time: 7 minutes 

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 lbs sea scallops (about 7 pieces)

fine sea salt

ground black pepper

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp unsalted butter

Steps:

1. Heat the olive oil in a nonstick or cast-iron pan on medium-high heat.  
2. Season the scallops on both sides with fine sea salt and ground black pepper. 
3. Once the oil begins to smoke, add the scallops to the pan. Cook for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, until the first side has formed a golden crust—with tongs, lift one up to check. Flip and cook the second side for 1 to 2 minutes. 
4. Remove scallops from pan and place on serving plate. 
5. In the same pan, add the white wine and salt and bring to a simmer on medium heat. Cook for 2 minutes.
6. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the butter. 
7. After the butter has melted, spoon the pan sauce over the scallops. Serve. 

Costs:


$$ —  $11 - $20 (per person) - We spent $35 total and had plenty for the both of us (no leftovers) 

Verdict

Sam:

Lobster is usually regarded as an expensive delicacy in our society, but in cooking this meal I realized it's not too complicated of a task and not prohibitively expensive. Granted we did share one lobster, however along with the scallops, corn, and potatoes there was plenty of food to go around. It's one of those meals where you need a couple of specialized tools like a large soup/lobster pot, but if you can find something that works this is really a fun, easy, and relatively quick meal that feels pretty fancy. If you're in beach town or a city on the water with good access to fresh seafood I definitely would recommend giving this dinner a go! 

An:

I definitely agree with Sam. When I'm trying new recipes, the two things that make a meal stand out are 1) the taste and 2) how easy or difficult it was to prepare. This was definitely super tasty for a minimal amount of effort. If I ever have the chance to cook live lobster in the future, I'd definitely go for it. I'm already thinking of the next time I'll be able to make this for friends and family. Pan-seared scallops are a great thing to master, just don't be afraid to let the pan get real hot before you add them in! The key is cooking them until they're just opaque, so they don't turn to rubber (as with most seafood when overcooked). On that note, we felt the lobster was just overdone, and in the future, would probably cook it in the pot for 15 minutes instead of 18.