Baked Eggs with an easy potato nest

There are a thousand ways to make baked eggs and I've made at least a few hundred varieties over the years. Today's baked eggs used frozen potato puffs (aka Tator Tots) for the bottom nest. I used the microwave to defrost these just long enough to be able to smash them into a nest in the bottom of the greased ramekin (about 3 minutes on defrost setting.) I then baked the potato nests for 15 minutes at 425 in our roaster oven. I don't always do this as a separate step, but today I wanted a crispier nest than you get if you bake it all together at once. This is also why I used the roaster oven instead of the regular oven. I like to bake my eggs at around 350 degrees and I can get the roaster oven temp down much quicker than the regular gas oven. After 10 minutes I pulled the potato nests out and left to cool slightly while the roaster oven temperature dropped. I then topped the nests with left over chili-con-queso and, of course, an egg. No additional seasoning this time; the chili-con-queso provided all that I needed. I baked these at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

It's a low-cost, low-effort breakfast and while not entirely healthy due to the frozen potatoes, using those instead of fresh shredded potato or left-over mashed potatoes does save some prep and cooking time.