Baked Eggs with Swiss Chard, Sausage and Gruyere Cheese

A true seduction meal; imagine how special your loved one will feel when you saunter into the bedroom with a gorgeous serving tray filled with food and fun to extend your morning bedtime together.  Cushy pillows, a down comforter, sexy tunes playing in the background… time just does not matter – a pure oasis of luxury. 

This recipe is an easy to prepare breakfast dish: Baked Eggs with Swiss Chard, Sausage and Gruyere Cheese. If you have bacon fat in the refrigerator that would be a good choice for this recipe, however, you can easily use olive oil. Also, for this recipe you can use spinach or swiss chard. 

You can prepare this dish in individual ramekins for single servings (2 eggs per) or place all ingredients in a medium size glass pyrex dish. Serve with a slice of toast, a steamy cup of coffee, and the NY Times crossword puzzle – unless you have other things in mind…. 

Seduction Meals Tip: Overall it takes about 15 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to bake. While the dish is baking you can whip up a pot of coffee and set your breakfast tray with plates, napkins, forks, knives, salt and pepper shakers, and some flowers if you have any on hand. 

Baked Eggs with Swiss Chard, Sausage and Gruyere Cheese / Serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 cups of sliced swiss chard
• 2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon bacon fat or olive oil
• 1 cup of sausage meat, crumbled
• 1/2 tablespoon bacon fat or olive oil
• 1/4 cup of Gruyere cheese, finely grated
• 4-6 eggs
• salt and pepper to taste
• Option: Garnish with fresh thyme

Directions

1. Pre-heat Oven to 375 degrees
2. Wash and pat dry swiss chard. Fold each leaf in half and remove the center stem resulting in two half leaves of swiss chard. Discard stems
3. Take 5-6 swiss chard leaves and place one on top of one another. Place the leaves vertically on your cutting board and roll (like a cigar). With the rolled leaves set horizontally on your cutting board – slice from left to right into 1/8″ slices resulting in long ribbons of the leaves. 
4. Heat 1 tablespoon of bacon fat or olive oil in a skillet of medium heat. Add garlic slices and swiss chard – lower heat to medium low and toss leaves, garlic and oil with tongs a couple of times to prevent garlic from over browning. Sautee for 4-5 minutes, being careful not to overcook swiss chard. Place swiss chard in a bowl and set aside
5. In the same skillet, add remaining bacon fat or olive oil and heat in a skillet over medium high heat. Add sausage and cook for about 4-5 minutes until all meat is evenly browned.  Remove from heat.
6. Take your choice of cooking pan (glass pan to hold entire dish, or individual ramekins for single servings) and evenly spread the swiss chard on the bottom of the pan. Next add the sausage mixture followed by the grated cheese and finally the cracked eggs. If using ramekins, add 1-2 tablespoons of swiss chard, sausage, sprinkle cheese on top and add one or two eggs depending on size and desired portion. 
7. Bake in middle of oven for approximately 15 minutes in pyrex pan, and 10 – 12 minutes for individual ramekins.  Checking eggs towards the end to be sure the eggs are cooked to your liking – a soft yolk versus a hard yolk. Adjust time accordingly. 
8. Add salt and pepper taste and sprinkle with fresh thyme.