I have this terrible habit of going to Half Price Books and buying half the store and never reading
any of the books I buy....it's tragic I know. However, this habit does not seem to apply to cookbooks, particularly cookbooks with pictures :) Yes, I must admit...I'm a complete four year old when it
comes to books with pictures.
On my last trip to Half Price Books I came across this fantastic treasure of a book called
Step by Step Vegetarian: The Perfect Guide to Meat-Free Meals. Pictures! Pictures everywhere! So
far I've made 2 recipes from it, and holy hot dang! Had to share this one with you, it's absolutely
heavenly and relatively affordable. Hope you guys enjoy!
Ingredients:
(Serves 4)
- 1 large ready to bake pastry puff sheet (I used Pepperidge Farm, one sheet)
- 1/4 cup milk
- Approx. 24 slim asparagus spears
- 3/4 cup tomato sauce
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup mozzarella cheese (optional)
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Parchment paper, or foil and some nonstick spray
- Baking sheet
- Rolling pin (optional, see step 1)
- A smallish cup, a coffee cup should work fine
- Medium sized sauce pan/pot
- If your pastry is silly and not an easy to use Pepperidge Farm pastry, you may need to roll it into a flat-ish rectangle approximately 14x8 inches. Then cut this into four smaller rectangles.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or foil and a heaping dose of nonstick spray. Lay out your freshly cut rectangular pastry dough and prick the surface with a fork (to allow the heat from the oven transfer through the future yummy, buttery, flaky layers of the pastry, and more importantly so it looks like a cute little rectangular dalmatian) Brush lightly with milk and set in refrigerator to chill for 20 minutes.
- Bring some lightly salted water to a boil in your medium sized pot. Rinse your asparagus, and chop off the woody so that they are just slightly shorter than the length of your pastries. Boil the asparagus spears for 2-3 minutes, remove just before they become tender. Drain and rinse the asparagus in cold water.
- Once your pastries have chilled, spread the tomato sauce from the middle of each pastry out to almost the edge. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, you want the pastry to be puffed around the edges and pale golden.
- Remove from the oven and sprinkle with mozzarella. Arrange the asparagus on top like a little asparagus corral around the edges. The asparagus will act as a fence for that unruly egg you're about to put on the top.
- Next, one at a time, crack an egg into the small coffee cup and slide the egg into the asparagus corral. Proceed to sing weird old western songs to yourself to aid in this process.
- Return the pastries to the oven and bake for at least 10 minutes or until the eggs no longer wiggle around every time you hungrily open up the oven door to check on them.
- Season with salt and pepper and make a feeble attempt not to burn your mouth as you scarf them down.
