BRUNCH BIRD NEST

 This is a recipe from Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, as she calls her blog and TV show. The very FIRST THING you have to do here is plan ahead! You will need some almost cooked (I used boiled but you can used baked) potatoes that have been cooled (preferably overnite) and peeled for starters. In case you think you can outsmart Ree and use frozen hash browns, put that thought right out of your pretty little head, Miss Scarlett! They won't work. Trust me on this! The other thing you MUST HAVE is some cooking/baking spray...that Pam stuff. 

 Okay, so you have the potatoes grated and SEASONED. Since I use a jumbo muffin tin, I probably should have had one medium potato for each. I didn't have quite enough but I pressed on anyway. See, you want the potatoes to overfill the cupcake hole and flop over the edges. That way they look like nests. They do shrink up when baked. FIRST you liberally spray the holes with the cooking spray. Remember that you want to get these out of the pan in one piece! Then you put in the potato and LIGHTLY press it into the sides, making an indent.   

 Then spray on to the nested potatoes with cooking spray. I used a pre-heated 425 degree oven and they browned in about 15 minutes. Remove and let cool. You can see that the potatoes shrunk up. So I didn't let them cool because I was pressed for time. I cracked an egg into a custard cup and poured it into the potato nest. (I like to use extra large or jumbo eggs).  

 They are ready to go into the oven but here I added my own touch...some cubed cheese (everything's better with cheese, I always say). Grate some fresh pepper on top too. Into the oven for about 15 more minutes or until the whites are set. If you have done everything right, they'll come out of the tin easily with a large spoon

They do look nice on the plate with some seasonal fruit (Rogue Valley pears and handpicked grapes) and some bacon. I sprinkled on some grated jack cheese (I think pepper jack would be good for a bit of zing. And a glass of tangerine juice with some white wine goes well, too. Mr. A pronounced this recipe "a keeper!" I have found that most of Ree's recipes fall into that category! Yummm.