It’s a dreary Saturday morning and you’d do anything to stay under your quilt, read a book, and doze back to your dreamland.  Mine is usually filled with chocolate chip banana pancakes and hot cocoa, but for some reason, I got the itch for bacon and bleu cheese.  And we all know, when you want bacon, there’s no remedy.

My neighbors and I have a weekend brunch ritual that takes us to St. Arnold’s – a fantastic Belgian mussel joint in DC.  It has become our Central Perk, our MacLaren’s, our Cheers.  We always sit down with Annette, your classic diner-esque waitress with a tough exterior we’ve come to adore, and throw a few jokes around with Bruce who runs the place.  What’s not to look forward to?  But this weekend, between our sleepiness and overzealous indulgence in a West Wing Marathon, we just couldn’t make the trek.  Instead, we pulled some random ingredients out of the fridge and I put my hands to work on some oeufs en cocotte.

If you have spent much time on pinterest, you surely aren’t new to egg cups.  You can use a muffin tin or any other small oven-proof container.  Since one egg really isn’t un oeuf, I chose to use ramekins and fill mine with two eggs each.

For each ramekin, you’ll need:

2 large eggs

1 tbsp shallot, finely chopped

2 strips of bacon

2 tsp bleu cheese, crumbled

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cook bacon and remove from the pan just before it gets crispy.  Chop into ¼ inch square pieces. Set aside.

Caramelize the chopped shallots in a pan on low heat.  If you can easily remove most of the grease, use the same skillet you did for the bacon so that the shallots absorb the flavor.

Use butter or canola oil to grease the ramekins.  Put the shallots and part of the bacon in the ramekin.  Crack an egg into the ramekin, then layer in a bit more of the bacon and about half of the bleu cheese.  Crack the second egg into the ramekin and top with the remaining bleu cheese and bacon.  Finish with salt and a heavy handed amount of pepper.

Place uncovered in the oven and cook for approximately 14 minutes.  The eggs will be shiny on top, likely appearing unfinished.  Trust me, they are.  Remove, let cool for just a few minutes and enjoy!