Baked Huevos Rancheros Recipe

I *adore* having backyard chickens. Now that the weather is warm we crack open the windows at night. In the morning we wake to the lovely warbling of hens. They are so funny when they lay their eggs - they gabble and garble in henspeak "Hey! Look what I've done!"

And indeed it is amazing. Right now my gals produce an average of an egg a day. That's 28 eggs a week for our family of five. It's no wonder we give eggs as gifts.

Of course we also eat quite a number of the eggs ourselves. One of my blogger friends, Molly, of A Foothill Home Companion also has hens. We were recently comparing egg recipes and I promised her I'd write down my version of baked Huevos Rancheros. And guess what? I did it! I did it! I actually did it!

I really like baking the huevos because the whole batch is done at once. This method is great for brunch or any other event where you want to serve folks in a single sitting. I know Huevos are typically a breakfast food but more often than not we have it for dinner. This recipe serves 2-4 people depending upon appetites.

Baked Huevos Rancheros

Ingredients:

Sauce:

• 28 ounce can whole tomatoes
• Medium yellow onion
• Chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
• Olive oil

Huevos:

• 15 oz can black beans
• Corn tortillas
• Extra sharp white cheddar cheese -- grated
• Avocado
• Sour cream
• Cilantro
• Kosher salt
• Fresh ground black pepper

Helpful kitchen implements:

• Ramekins (I use these lovely all clad ramekins that look like small pots)
• Immersion blender

Sauce:

1. Peel and roughly chop onion
2. Place ~ 2 tsbp olive oil in large skillet
3. Place on med/high heat and cook onions until translucent
4. Add salt and pepper to taste (I use ~ 1/4 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp pepper)
5. Add can of tomatoes (including juice)
6. Gently mash tomatoes with wooden spoon
7. Add 2-3 chipotle chiles and 1 tsp to 1 tbsp adobo sauce (I'm a bit of a spice wimp and stay on the lower end here)
8. Blend with immersion blender (it's okay to leave some onion and/or tomato chunks but make sure the peppers are well blended)*
9. Simmer until sauce thickens. In the meantime prepare ramekins (see as follows)

*If you don't have an immersion blender you could probably blend the sauce in a blender or food processor. But I must say -- I *love* my immersion blender. I highly recommend you acquire one. Mine was a relatively inexpensive Costco purchase and worth every penny.

Preparing Ramekins:

1. Pre heat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Coat bottom and sides of ramekins with olive oil
3. Tuck corn tortilla into ramekin
4. Divide beans amongst ramekins and place over tortillas
5. Crack one to two eggs over beans (we use two eggs per ramekin)
6. Spoon sauce over eggs
7. Sprinkle cheese over sauce
8. Place ramekins on baking sheet and bake until eggs are desired consistency (Mr. Peculiar is not fond of runny eggs so we bake ours all the way through ~ 30 minutes. Bake less if you desire a runnier yolk)
9. Top with avocado slices, sour cream and cilantro
10. Serve and enjoy!

Note: We eat ours directly out of the ramekins. I simply place the ramekin on a plate and then run around the kitchen yelling hot plate! hot plate! do not touch! hot plate!

Invariably somebody who knows better touches the hot plate. It wouldn't be huevos night without it.

buen provecho!

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