Packers + Poached Eggs

What a successful day!  Not only did the Packers beat the Eagles 27-20, but I poached my first egg!
 I had been obsessing over whether or not I could successfully poach an egg for days, and decided the first Packer game would be the perfect stage to try.  I love ordering dishes with poached eggs at restaurants because it adds such a rich, beautiful and luscious component to any dish.  It can be used in so many applications; on pasta, any breakfast dish, on a sandwich or even just with bread.  It is impressive and delicious, causing it to be intimidating and plain old scary in my own kitchen, hence the reason I order it in restaurants.  After reading about how to poach an egg on millions of different blogs and learning it was the healthiest way to prepare an egg, I became obsessed.  Obsessed with the whole process and how to properly execute a poached egg.  So, I decided to make an open faced sandwich with prosciutto and a poached egg and it went a little like this:

What you need:

• One French baguette (only need half, save the other half for cheese or soup!)
• 8 thinly sliced prosciutto
• 4 Laughing Cow cheese wedges, swiss flavor (great way to make a light, creamy spread)
• 1/2 cup mayonaisse
• 1 bag of spinach (won't be using all of it)
• Olive oil
• 4 Eggs
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Lemon juice
• Dried basil

What to do with it:

• Cut the baguette in half, long way.  Brush olive oil over bread and spread around minced garlic.  Place bread in broiler and toast until golden brown.  Cut again into 4 separate pieces.
• To make spread:

• Combine Laughing Cow cheese, mayo and dried basil.  Probably about 1 teaspoon is enough.  Add a dash or 2 of lemon juice (fresh or not).  You can keep adding mayo, cheese, lemon and basil until you get a flavor you like.  Sprinkle in some black pepper too.

• Assemble!  Take your slice of bread, spread mayo/cheese mixture on it and then add 2 slices of prosciutto.  Grab a handful of spinach and lay on top, drizzle olive oil over whole thing and add a dash of salt and pepper.  Then, add your poached egg.

I am not going to get into how to poach an egg because I am no pro, and there are millions of instructions online.

 So, I poach my first egg, and it is everything I had been dreaming about for the previous two days.  I add my dash of vinegar to keep the egg from coagulating, I make a little whirlpool to drop it in and I keep a close eye on it.  I take my slotted spoon, and carefully scoop out my first poached egg.  I set it down on the paper towel, and finally exhaled.

It's perfect.  It's beautiful, probably going to taste amazing, and my mom even threw me a high-five.  My dad walks in the kitchen and my mom raises her hands in the air and cheers, "we poached an egg!"  At the same time, I was walking toward my dad to show it to him and put it on a sandwich, and then this happened:

We had a good laugh, to say the least.  After a couple of more tries, I proudly ended up with:

And then:

 It was so amazing.  The crunch from the toasted bread, meatiness of the prosciutto and freshness of the spread.  All amazing.  And then to throw a luscious poached egg on top?  Please.  Definitely a crowd pleaser, super easy to make and little to no prep work.  Really solid flavors and textures.  Lots of room for variation of ingredients and creativity.

 

Couldn't ask for anything more.  Family, food, and a Packer win.  So good, I made a poached egg for breakfast this morning.