Monday, October 6, 2014

I should dedicate this post to my younger brother as today I made one of his favourite things for supper:

Egg Pie is one of my younger brother's favourite meals, and as it was a cold day and I haven't turned the heat on yet, I thought I would prepare a couple of meals and one of them was Egg Pie.  I think all in all this meal would cost us all of $3 tops and I'll break it all down as we go along.

Egg Pie:
Hard boiled eggs, two or three per person
Cheese Sauce
Mashed Potatoes.

First hard boil your eggs, you know how to do that.  If you don't there are instructions here.  Peel the eggs and cut in half and place in the bottom of the casserole dish with the yolk side facing up, as in the photo.
Next make the cheese sauce.  My recipe consists of:

1/4 cup plain/all purpose flour
1/4 cup marg
2 cups milk
1 or 2 cups of grated cheese, I prefer a strong cheddar
1 tablespoon of mustard, any flavour you like
salt and pepper.

Melt marg in pan, add flour, using a whisk to bind it together.  Let it cook over a medium heat for a minute or two whisking all the time.  Gradually add two cups of milk, again whisking all the time until it comes to a boil and thickens.  At this point I usually season it by adding the S & P plus the mustard.  I then turn off the heat and add the grated cheese.  The heat of the white sauce will melt the cheese without any added heat from the stove.

Pour over your eggs:
Potato layer. I used Yukon Gold this time and I also cooked a big pan of potatoes so I could have leftovers.  I'll explain later.

When the potatoes have cooked, around 20 minutes.  I mash them and add salt and pepper to taste, a clump of marg probably a couple of tablespoons, and probably around a cup of milk.  When they are all mashed together, I then take a wooden or silicone spoon and beat them until nice and smooth;  or until my hand aches.

Layer the potato on the top of the cheese sauce and make a decorative pattern with a fork if you so desire!!
Depending if the egg pie is cold or warm, you need to put it in an oven to warm through..  I use our toaster oven and have it on at 250 oF for around 45 minutes so the top of the potato gets nice and crispy.

THIS EGG PIE DOES NOT FREEZE, THE EGGS GO NICE AND RUBBERY - ASK ME HOW I KNOW!

Before I said cook a big pan of potatoes as leftover mashed potatoes do freeze nicely.  It is so handy to pull out a bag of potatoes that can be heated up in the microwave in minutes.
Now I flatten the bag right down, so it is nice and flat and thin; the contents were still hot when I took this photo.  A flattened bag uses up less space and it takes less time to defrost.

In the back left hand corner of the above photo is part of another meal I made.  This time a favourite in my elder brother's household.  I'll post that recipe in a day or two's time.

So the cost break down is:

Eggs around $1
Cheese around $1
Potatoes, salt, pepper, milk, butter, mustard around $1

I got the cheese on sale for $4 for 500 grams, I probably used less than 1/4 block.
Eggs were well under $3 for 18
Potatoes were $1.99 for 10 lbs, I did not use 5 lbs in this recipe. Milk was free with another deal I got the other week.  
The other items used were not much of anything, at the most 25 cents for all.

I cooked this on a Sunday when it is cheaper electricity, so cooking everything wouldn't cost much either, especially as I use my toaster oven to bake it at night.

The added heat with cooking and having the toaster oven home also warmed the house up a little another added saving of not having to put the heating on.

12 comments:

Buttons Thoughts said...

Oh now I have heard of this and never understood what it was. Thank you for sharing I think I will try this. Hug B

Country Gal said...

My mum used to make an egg and bacon pie soo YUMMY ! Looks good ! Thanks for sharing , Have a good day !

William Kendall said...

My mother made a dish that sounds quite like this one.

Lena said...

I've never heard of it before! It sounds yummy.

EG CameraGirl said...

A new recipe for me - I'll have to try it!

bonsaimum said...

It looks and sounds yummy. In fact it looks very very nice. :)

laura said...

This looks yummy Gill!

Anonymous said...

Thinking of you and hoping all is well, Gill. Any Hallowe'en pix of the young'uns?

flowerpower said...

Hope all is well and you had a great Halloween.

Scrappy quilter said...

Missing you. Is everything ok.

Tari Nyach said...

Gill, you haven't posted in a while, hope all is well.

Cathy said...

Hello Gill
Hope all is well - long time no hear.
Take care
Cathy

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