Girls, girls, girls, girls!

Come on, my girls.

Girls, girls!

- It's a chicken roundup!

- It is.

(bright guitar music) They love their treats.

(bright guitar music) - What is my favorite thing to eat for dinner?

Eggs!

They're the secret weapon for two weeknight meals.

I'll show you my take on a breakfast classic, bacon and eggs with spaghetti!

It's tossed with toasted buttery crumbs.

Bacon, eggs, toast, spaghetti?

What's not to like?

And on Ask Sara, I'll answer a viewer's questions about rolling out pizza dough.

And finally, my friends join me for another take on a classic, Waffles Eggs Benedict.

My waffles are savory, not sweet, and that makes all the difference when you eat them for dinner.

So turn the day upside down.

Have breakfast for dinner!

How much do I owe you?

- [Cashier] $4.50 please.

(light, cheerful music) - [Sara] Funding provided by: - [Voiceover] Subaru builds vehicles like the versatile Subaru Forester, with Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive and plenty of cargo room.

A recipe made for whatever the day brings.

Subaru, a proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals.

- [Voiceover] Family-owned and Indiana-grown, Maple Leaf Farms is a proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals, providing a variety of duck products for home kitchens.

Maple Leaf Farms duck helps inspire culinary adventures everywhere.

Maple Leaf Farms.

- [Sara] And thanks to the generous support of: (light, breezy music) - Hi, I'm Sara Moulton, welcome to Sara's Weeknight Meals.

Today is upside down day, that means breakfast for dinner, my favorite kind of dinner.

And I am making bacon, eggs and toast with a little partner called spaghetti.

So let me get started with the bacon.

I'm gonna cook it my favorite way.

I'm gonna bake the bacon, I'm not cooking it in the skillet.

So I have about eight ounces of bacon.

It's about seven slices.

So I've got a rack set over a rimmed sheet pan with foil in it.

The foil will catch any drips and mess.

I'm gonna bake it in a 375-degree oven for about 25 minutes.

What you'll see when you bake bacon like this, first of all, your whole stove top does not get covered in bacon grease, and secondly, the bacon will come out perfectly crisp because it's got air circulating underneath.

Be very evenly cooked, and if you care, it doesn't curl.

It'll bake flat.

So, let me get this all in here.

So this first thing I'm gonna do, and it, you know, it does take a little while but it's hands off time.

Let me rinse my hands.

OK, into the oven.

Middle shelf, 'cause it will cook most evenly on the middle shelf.

OK, bacon done.

Now, down to my crumbs.

So, I said there's gonna be toast here, too.

Well what it really is, is toasted crumbs.

So I'm gonna put two tablespoons of butter in my skillet.

Get them melting.

And then, I made some fresh bread crumbs, and you can too, it's very easy.

You only need about one slice of homemade style white bread.

One slice equals about a half a cup of breadcrumbs, so you need about four slices to make two cups, which is what I've got here.

I just get this melted, and what the crumbs do here besides keep up my theme of bacon, eggs and toast, is they will sort of stand in for Parmigiano-Reggiano, which is something you might have wanted to add to this, and not that there's anything wrong with that, it certainly, if you don't feel like making toasted breadcrumbs, use the cheese, but, I think you might get addicted to these after you make them the first time.

And you could use olive oil instead of butter, if you prefer, OK.

So in go our crumbs, then you have to stir them, I'm gonna turn this down, it's medium heat.

So while those are cooking, and I'll keep an eyeball on 'em and not going too far, I'm gonna cut up an onion.

OK, so this isn't what you'd normally have with bacon, eggs and toast, but it adds a nice extra.

So it's one large onion, I'm gonna slice them thin, and they're gonna get wonderfully caramelized.

Again, another stir.

Every so often, come back and take a little look.

(light, breezy music) Now, if you slice the onion this way, they will hold together very well.

If instead, you slice the onions crosswise into half moons like this, it will break apart, the onion will break apart.

So slice your onion following the ribs, following the lines.

We need six eggs.

Again, six people.

And I'm gonna give this another stir and get it out and get my onions in before I start with the eggs, but let me just explain about the eggs.

When eggs are harvested, when they're taken out from under the hen, they start to age right away.

They're very fresh initially, which is wonderful, and what very fresh means is that the yolks are very firm, and the whites are very firm.

When you're baking, you really want firm yolks and whites.

But as the egg gets older, the white gets watery, the yolk gets flabby, they break easier and they don't beat up the same way.

They're not as good for baking.

That looks pretty good, let me get two tablespoons of butter in there and the onions.

So, you wanna try to use fresh eggs for baking.

Old eggs are good for hard-boiled eggs because the other thing that happens to eggs, I'm adding salt and pepper to season this, is that a air pocket develops between the shell and the membrane, and so a very fresh egg, when you've hard-boiled it, is impossible to peel, 'cause there's no gap between the shell and the membrane.

But an older egg has a large gap, very easy to peel.

So that's the one thing you want an older egg for.

OK, all of this is going in, that you want to start them on low and then, get them nice and golden.

Now, on to beating the eggs.

I was making scrambled eggs recently, and I started cooking them, and suddenly I noticed, when I was done, that there was this big chunk of egg whites in there.

What happens is that egg whites cook faster than egg yolks, so if you don't beat your scrambled eggs, your eggs before you scramble them, you're gonna have these big chunks of white in there.

So a friend of mine, Leslie, just taught me this trick.

If you put your eggs through a strainer, you break up the viscous white, and it will already be sort of pre-beaten by doing this.

So you just have to force it through.

Now why I love eggs and why I love having eggs for dinner is they're economical, they're very affordable, they only have about 70 calories an egg, terrific source of protein.

So I really think everybody should see eggs as an option for dinner, even one night a week, and these days, eggs have a good reputation.

They used to say, "Oh no, they're dietary cholesterol," and now we're saying, "Well, you know, "maybe dietary cholesterol isn't the biggest problem "for heart disease."

See what's happening here?

It's like pre-beaten.

Of course, if you don't want to dirty a strainer, you can skip this tip, just whisk the eggs like crazy.

You also want to add a little bit, I'm gonna try two, I'm living dangerously.

You also want to add some salt to the eggs, and a little bit of water.

That helps to break them up and helps them to cook nicely.

Like a tablespoon or two.

Milk is good to add, too.

Milk is a tenderizer.

And a nice pinch of salt.

And then I'm gonna go check my bacon.

(light, breezy music) Oh yeah, that looks good.

See, perfect bacon.

Perfect, perfect bacon.

There's nothing better than bacon.

You just wanna calm somebody down, just make some bacon.

Everything will be better.

OK, these guys look good, too.

Doesn't matter if I leave a little bit in here.

OK, so we're using spaghetti.

We only need about 12 ounces for six people.

There we go.

We're gonna break it in half, and it gets toasted in the pan, and I know this seems funny, we're not cooking it in plenty of boiling salted water, which is what we're supposed to do.

Bet you I can't break all of this once so I'll do it phases.

So I'm just breaking in half, but we're gonna cook it in the skillet, which is so liberating.

Regularly, you cook pasta in water, but this works, too.

Make sure it's on medium, and you just stir it until it gets a nice golden color to it.

So while this is toasting, I'm gonna chop some parsley 'cause I want to finish this with a fresh chopped herb.

You could use any herb you like, basil would be wonderful.

(bright guitar music) So you see how it's starting to get a little darker.

That's what we're looking for, but that's why you have to keep stirring, 'cause it browns a little bit unevenly.

OK, that's perfect.

We're gonna add two cups of chicken broth, and one and a half cups of water, and we're gonna bring this up to a simmer, and we need a half a teaspoon of salt.

That's exactly a half teaspoon of salt.

After about 12 minutes, it will have softened and be ready to add the eggs and the bacon.

And while it's coming up to a boil, I'm just gonna crumble my bacon.

Big pieces, little pieces, whatever pieces you want.

OK, that looks good, I'm gonna turn it down a little bit 'cause we don't want a lot of all the liquid to evaporate before the spaghetti is done.

And while that is simmering away, I'm gonna go check my email.

(light, breezy guitar music) OK, and how do you know when it's ready?

Well it's very scientific.

Mm, that tastes perfect!

It's a little slightly under al dente 'cause I'm gonna add the eggs, and then just sort of scramble them in, and it's that simple.

I know this seems like carbonara, but it's not, because the eggs get scrambled, and there's breadcrumbs in there and other things, but you do want pepper in there.

(grinds pepper) So I'm gonna put back in the onions, and they will reheat, and the heat from the pasta and the eggs, and half of the crumbs, 'cause we want a little crunch in there.

Doesn't that look yummy?

OK. Let me serve myself up some.

(repeated tapping) (gentle acoustic guitar music) A little bit of bacon on top.

(gentle acoustic guitar music) A few more crumbs for crunch, and finally, our parsley.

OK, that is a happy bowl for dinner.

I am gonna dig in.

I just wanna say that you should make this dish, breakfast for dinner, it's gonna make everybody happy.

Oops.

Mm.

(gentle acoustic guitar) So, I get all these questions on my website, SaraMoulton.com, and it's so much fun to answer them, but I wanna share them all with you, so we're gonna answer a few today on the show, and I have David Ramirez from Greenwich, Connecticut right here in my screen!

And I'm so happy to chat with you!

I'm just, I've heard you cook a lot.

That's terrific.

A young person who cooks early, great!

What kind of stuff do you make?

- I love making the traditional pasta, all that food, but I also like making food from Columbia, where I'm from, so I learned a lot from my parents, and It's great, I get to cook all different kinds of things.

- Is your mom a good cook?

- Yeah, I love her food.

Yeah.

- [Sara] OK. - [Sara] So, you have a question for me.

- Yes, I have been trying to make homemade pizza lately, and I have been having a lot of trouble with the pizza dough.

I always try to roll it out, and then when I roll it out, it either gets stuck to my rolling pin or it slides all over the place.

- Oh yeah, oh it's just so annoying.

Several people have tried to teach me how to throw it up in the air, and stretch it, letting it hang off the table, I'm not-- - [David] Yeah it's very hard.

- [Sara] It's very hard, I can't do it, so I learned this trick and it's just the coolest trick, and I wanna share it with you, and you will never have problems rolling out your pizza dough again, so let's watch this.

- Awesome!

Thank you.

- Now, if you've ever rolled out pizza dough, you roll it on the counter, on flour.

Don't you find that when you use flour, you roll the dough this way, it comes right back.

You roll it this way, comes right back.

You feel like you, it's just so hard to get it to stay out there.

I learned this from Pam, my wonderful makeup artist, whose mother is an amazing Sicilian cook.

Pam said her mom always rolls out her pizza dough on oil, not flour.

Look at that.

Isn't that amazing?

So what do you think?

You're gonna try it?

- Yeah, what a great tip, I never knew I could do that.

- Yeah, well I didn't either 'til my makeup lady showed me, from her Sicilian mom.

I was like, "This is so cool."

Now, I'm just gonna say one thing 'cause I talked to some Neapolitan pizza people.

They say, "Oh, that's not authentic pizza," but Italians tend to do that anyway because it's very, very thin, and they like their dough to be a little craggy and have little holes in it, but you and I, since we're pizza-rolling-impaired, (laughs softly) Thank you so much for joining me!

- Bye, Sara.

Thank you.

- Bye, David.

Hope you try pizza soon.

(light, breezy music) Hi!

We're cooking from the pantry today, and now, we're gonna be making breakfast for dinner.

We're gonna be making Waffles Benedict with ingredients that you have in-house right now.

So, bet you didn't know you could have waffles for dinner.

You can make savory waffles.

Duh!

Why not?

So we're gonna be making flaxseed waffles, so not only are they tasty and crispy, they're also good for you.

So, let's start with the flour.

I've got regular all-purpose unbleached white flour, and we want three-quarters of a cup of this unbleached white flour.

I just level this off, you don't wanna pack it, all right?

That's not how you measure it.

You sprinkle it in and you level it off, and that's what you wanna do.

So, flaxseed, I'm sure you've heard about it.

It's high in Omega-3s, it's high in fiber, it's just good for you.

So we're gonna put a quarter cup of the flaxseed meal in here, and let me just say that if you wanna start adding it to your recipes, for every cup of flour, you can substitute one quarter cup of the flour with flaxseed, like we did here, so we have three-quarters of a cup of flour, and a quarter cup of flaxseed meal, meal.

I have to keep saying meal 'cause it's the finely ground stuff.

All right, I'm gonna make some room for myself here.

This is a very basic savory waffle recipe.

You can get wild after this.

You could add herbs to it, you could add spices to it, you can have fun with it, but I just hope you think about this 'cause why not?

It's like having just something crunchy underneath the rest of your dish, and I'm gonna talk about what else we're adding to this.

So here we have a teaspoon of baking powder, and then, we're gonna add some sugar and some salt.

Here's a quarter teaspoon, and I'm using table salt 'cause it dissolves better.

Otherwise, I use kosher salt, but for baking, I use table salt.

And a little bit of sugar, you could leave it out, but the sugar here, I think, acts as pointer-upper.

And then I'm just gonna whisk this all together.

OK, I'm gonna get some milk.

So we need a half a cup of milk.

Here we go.

Yes, and then, an egg.

One lone egg goes in.

OK. And some butter.

Now what I did with the butter is I put it in a little saucepan, and I cooked it 'til it got nutty and brown.

This is a way to add extra flavor.

If you don't have time, just melt it, don't worry about it, but I like that little extra nuttiness.

So I'm gonna add this to the rest our liquid ingredients.

Here's another right-handed tool, the bane of my life.

Here we go, we're just gonna do it left-handed.

OK, and in it goes, and we're gonna just mix it.

It's OK if there's a few lumps, don't worry.

By the way, if you wanted to, you can use whole milk, you can use skim milk, you can use one percent milk.

It's the milk of your choice.

OK, don't over-beat it, Sara.

You don't wanna over-beat it 'cause you don't wanna develop the gluten in the flour which will make it tough.

OK, that exciting moment has come, so we're gonna put the batter in there.

This is a non-stick version you can get, and it's a scant half cup.

You can get the regular version, but you're just gonna need to put a little butter on it, or a little oil.

I'm just gonna spread it down a bit round a bit, and then, we put the top on, and just read the instructions, one of those things we all hate to do.

And it's gonna take about five minutes, so while that's doing it's thing, I'm gonna get the rest of my Waffles Benedict ready.

OK, so what's another part of Waffles Benedict?

You need a little bit of bacon, a little bit of ham, and that's what I've got here.

This is Canadian bacon, and contrary to what people think, Canadian bacon is not bacon as we know it.

It's actually smoked pork loin, which is one of the leanest cuts on the animal, so this is not fattening!

OK, there we go.

So I just browned it up, and in the fat that's left in here, we sauteed it in a little bit of olive oil, I'm gonna add some frozen spinach, about a box and a half that we've defrosted and squeezed.

I'm gonna season it.

A little salt.

And then we're gonna add, now this is my cheating, four ounces, this is for four people, so that's half of a package of the third less fat cream cheese, also known as Neufchatel.

And I often use this as a little, sort of, cheating trick if I want a creamy sauce and I don't feel like making a creamy sauce.

So there we go, see how this is getting all nice and creamy.

And once this is basically mixed, you could also, by the way, add a little bit of nutmeg if you want.

Nutmeg and spinach is a match made in heaven.

OK, I wanna check my waffle, I think it's done.

Hang on.

OK. Ooh, look at that cute little guy.

I probably should've spread him a little more to the corners, but yeah, there we go, oh wow.

Isn't that fun?

Now this is gonna be enough for two people.

Here, these guys should go over here, let me transfer these here.

What you do with your waffles is you make them and then you can just keep them warm in the oven, but I'm gonna make a bunch more and put just a tiny bit more batter in there.

I'll get one started right now, and I'm gonna cut them in half, so one of these big guys is gonna feed two people, but you do pop them in the oven just to keep them warm, so here we go, let's get another one in there.

(light, breezy music) I had this very cute Australian chef many years ago on my show, and he did this poached egg, this no-fuss way I'm just about to show you.

I'm gonna get my eggs ready.

Always helps if it's a cute Australian chef who shows you, right?

Get my eggs ready 'cause you don't want to be breaking these right into the pan, that's for sure.

So as many people as you're doing, and you can make these ahead of time, I will explain that in a minute, and reheat them.

This is boiling, it's just water.

There's nothing else in here.

I am going to lift the lid, I am going to turn off the water.

Might as well put that on there, and then, in goes one, two, three.

OK, 'cause there's gonna be three of us.

I have two friends who are gonna be joining me very soon.

Put the lid on and just wait for about three or four minutes until they look firm.

Alrighty!

Magic again!

Thank you, cute Australian chef!

Look at that.

See?

Isn't that perfect?

No muss, no fuss.

I'm just gonna put it on a towel just to dry it off.

You can cook, oh this guy cooked a little further.

I'll take that one, I like mine runny.

I know we're supposed to eat them well done, so if you're under five, over 80, or immune-impaired, eat them well done.

If not, I say, don't worry about it.

Only one in 20,000 is contaminated.

All right, so I'm gonna go get the waffles out of the oven.

- [Tom] Hi, Sara.

- Oh hey, you guys!

- [Amy] Hey, Sara!

- Hi Amy!

Hi Tom!

Boy, you're not gonna believe what I have for you, something very special.

We're having Waffles Benedict.

Yum yum.

But Tom, can you open the champagne, darling?

- [Tom] Sure.

- [Sara] And pour it for all of us.

Are we OK with eggs for dinner?

Oh, you sound like you've done that before.

That's practiced!

Here we go.

So I have to layer these, guys.

Let me just grab my knife.

I hope you're hungry.

- Oh yeah.

- [Sara] All right.

Oh Amy, - [Amy] Yes?

- [Sara] can you grab me the plates?

- Sure.

- And I'm gonna...

I haven't quite decided how I'm gonna organize these.

We have to do this sort of designer style.

It's just regular plain waffles but with flaxseed.

You're gonna get a nice, nutty taste.

So first goes Canadian bacon.

I don't like cheese, maybe we should put two.

That's all right, we're all gonna be plenty full by the time we're done.

- Absolutely.

- And then we're gonna top it with this wonderful creamed, quote unquote, creamed spinach, OK. Then, finally, my egg.

- [Amy] Oh, that looks beautiful.

- I'm gonna give this to you and you can sit down and I'll take the other plates.

- Thank you.

- OK, take a glass of champagne too, you must.

OK, let's all sit down and dig in.

So, you gotta try, tell me what you think.

Ah, and break the yolk.

Have you ever had savory waffles for dinner?

- I never thought of having waffles.

- [Amy] Savory, sounds great.

- [Sara] You can just have so much fun.

As I said, I'm just getting myself into trouble thinking I could have a waffle bar and have people, "What would you like on your waffles?"

(Amy laughs) So here's a question.

Would you have noticed that there was anything unusual, like flaxseed meal in that waffles?

- Not at all, not at all.

- [Sara] They just taste like good, crispy, yummy waffles, but it's healthy.

(Amy laughs softly) - [Amy] Mm, it's fantastic.

(Sara mumbles) - [Sara] Thank you for joining me for my Waffles Benedict.

- Thank you.

- And thank you all for joining me today, and you see, if you have a stocked pantry, you have dinner on the table.

I'll see you next time for Sara's Weeknight Meals.

Now sip.

- Cheers.

(light, breezy guitar music) - [Sara] Sara's Weeknight Meals continues online.

For recipes, helpful tips, messages and lots more, visit us on the web at saramoulton.com /weeknightMeals, and got to our YouTube channel, Sara's Weeknight Meals TV.

Funding provided by: - [Voiceover] Subaru builds vehicles like the versatile Subaru Forester, with Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive and plenty of cargo room.

A recipe made for whatever the day brings.

Subaru, a proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals.

- [Voiceover] Family-owned and Indiana-grown, Maple Leaf Farms is a proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals, providing a variety of duck products for home kitchens.

Maple Leaf Farms duck helps inspire culinary adventures everywhere.

Maple Leaf Farms.

- [Sara] And thanks to the generous support of: