Monday, March 17, 2014

Bangers and Mash Muffins

It's a busy St. Patrick's Day week and while we've been guests to four different corned-beef-and-cabbage dinners, we weren't able to do our own this year. I can't let a holiday pass without some culinary contributions of my own, so this year, I made a crazy soda bread with sunflower seeds, as well as a new creation all my own: Bangers and Mash Muffins.

The soda bread is easy enough if you have all of the ingredients. As a guest at a gathering last night  who doesn't see much bread beyond store-bought white described it: hearty. This year, I added currants to my old Shamrock Soda Bread recipe and it is delicious.

I picked up a large "banger" sausage from the meat counter at the Albany Food Co-op last week, but we never had the time to do anything with it. Facing a pre-7 am start to St. Pat's Day, I decided to pre-make some Irish-themed egg muffins the night before. Pop them in your oven 20 minutes before you leave the house, and you have a hot, tasty meal right in your paws.

Bangers and Mash Muffins

6-cup muffin pan
6 eggs
1 pork sausage ("banger")
1 medium onion, diced
2 small red potatoes, boiled and diced
1/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Boil the red potatoes until tender and cut into small pieces. Saute the diced onion and boiled cut potatoes in a little bit of olive oil. Fry the banger and cut in small pieces. Add to the chopped onion and potato and mix well. Whisk six eggs in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Spray or coat the muffin cups with olive oil. Evenly divide the eggs into the muffin cups. Sprinkle a pinch of cheddar cheese in each muffin cup, into the eggs, leaving some cheddar for the tops of the muffins. Evenly distribute a spoonful of the sausage-onion-potato mixture into each of the cups, into the eggs on top of the cheese. Top each muffin with a pinch of cheese. You can cover this and pop into the fridge the night before so that you can remove it and heat it in the oven the next morning, or you can make it right away. 350 Farenheit for about 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy!