Huevos Rancheros Without the Headache

I have no idea what real authentic huevos rancheros taste like. I've ordered it at mexican restaurants and generally my eggs come out a little too runny and I think its a little bland...but after the huevos rancheros (HR) at Swingers* (in LA), I had to try to make my own.

Much like where I always search, I went to epicurious. I have a really hard time trying recipes without reading reviews on them. Epicurious gives me reviews and a ton of recipes.

I tried this one - making some of the changes from the reviews (using fire roasted tomatoes) and also adding homemade refried beans, cheese to the tortillas, sour cream and avocado. It was amazing.

We have brunch fairly often since its the only meal we can guarantee the babe's gonna be awake for, but I can't make this since frying the eggs takes some time and I like my meals to be completely cooked when the guests show up.

After my last batch of HR I froze half the rancheros sauce. The other morning I was feeling particularly in the mood for some mexican breakfast and we wake up well before the first breakfast burrito place opens.

I pulled out the frozen ranchero sauce and put it in a pan to heat up.

Made some beans (cut up an onion and poured some precut frozen bell peppers in some oil to cook up, Grabbed a can of TJ's organic black beans (no bpa in the cans, fyi), added some garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper, and let cook - then mashed with a fork after about 20 minutes of stewing).

Once the ranchero sauce was liquified, I poured it in a small square pyrex, made some wells, cracked four eggs in the wells, and put it in the oven at 350.

Then I crossed my fingers and hoped I hadn't wasted breakfast.

After 10 or 12 minutes, I looked in and it was magical. My eggs were perfect.

I made a quick corn quesadilla on the stovetop with our cast iron pan, spooned up an egg and the surrounding ranchero sauce and then put our beans and avocado on the side.

Same flavors and SO much less time standing over the oven.

Our next brunch is gonna rock.

Yeah, I get that this is a little gross looking. I'm gonna have to google how to take food pics...and start remembering to actually take them before we eat the food.

*this was one of my favorite places in Los Angeles (where I lived for about 5 years) that I always stop at when I visit. Rather than meeting someone for coffee if we just wanted to chat, we'd meet for a brownie sundae at Swingers. Decaf coffee, a huge HOT brownie with no nuts, chocolate ice cream, whipped cream, and nuts. It was heaven. This was also when I was in my early 20's - the chocolate brownies aren't so kind to my behind these days.

*the only thing I would do differently next time is spoon some ranchero sauce over the eggs before cooking. This way the tops would stay nice and moist - the tops did get a little dry without doing this.