Thank you Hardee’s.
I used to make a weekly Saturday morning pilgrimage to my local Hardee’s for these until the price went up, the quality went down and finally they disappeared from the menu.
The two-fer sausage and egg biscuit first attracted me. The price couldn’t be beat. They tasted great. It was a reason to get out of bed on a cold Saturday morning. A cup of coffee made drinkable by several packets of half and half completed the purchase. Both the biscuit and the coffee remained warm during the quick drive home. The slow Saturday morning pace continued while munching the warm sandwich, sipping the similarly warm coffee and browsing the day’s news and a blog or two. As the seasons rolled by it proved to be a perfect way to gradually work into the normal Saturday chores; helping with the laundry, garbage management, cleaning gutters or other periodic maintenance, perusing the evening’s movie listings, and just generally unwrecking the house from the normally too busy week that precedes the weekend.
The two-fer specials rotated on what seemed a monthly basis. Sometimes it would be a bacon egg cheese biscuit that would make it home. That wasn’t much of a sacrifice. And it pleased the other half of the household. Thanks to the insidious marketers, sometimes a few months would go by without a biscuit special. In those cases the habit had become so entrenched that the extra dollar or so per sandwich was gratefully paid.
One Saturday a new special appeared on one of the large paper posters pasted on the inside of the windows facing the roadway. The posters served as public address announcements, corporate attempts at art, enticements to stop at the restaurant and reasons for car insurance premiums to rise as numerous drivers, while reading the posters, casually drove into the backs of other cars that had stopped at the red traffic signal on the corner. Two-fer fender repair?
The new special turned out to be a breakfast wrap – a two-fer breakfast wrap. Now, Hardee’s was only about 5 to 10 years behind everyone else in putting a breakfast wrap on the menu. But this was part of the retro charm that also made the Saturday trip worthwhile. Hardee’s, at least my local clone of Hardee’s, is a throw back to the time when almost universally, fast food restaurant service was a poetic dance of mass confusion. It’s not that this characteristic can’t also be found at most other fast food restaurants, it’s just that the local Hardee’s has so perfected the art. Appreciating the choreography, while either waiting in line to place the order or waiting out of line to receive the order, perfectly complemented the slow motion pace Saturday morning had become.
The wraps came in two flavors, a bacon egg cheese wrap and a sausage and gravy wrap. The sausage and gravy wrap was a good idea gone bad. It was hideous. By default then, the bacon egg cheese wrap became the new Saturday morning standard. Not only was the wrap, at least initially, a two-fer special, but it also offered some needed, for us, nutritional benefits. At about half the calories of a bacon egg cheese biscuit, the first benefit is obvious. The other nutritional qualities stem from the first. Half the calories generally means there’s also about half of everything else that’s bad for us. Chief among the reduced bad stuff for this blood sugar challenged household, was the reduction in carbohydrates.
As mentioned above, eventually all good things end. When the wraps left the menu a void was created. Going back to the biscuits was the natural choice to fill the void. However now the benefits of carbohydrate reduction were too well understood to us. Going back was not an option.
This recipe filled the void. Now the wraps are not only a Saturday morning routine, but since they can be made ahead, frozen and warmed quickly in the microwave, they‘ve become an any day routine. The only thing missing is the Saturday morning fast food restaurant entertainment. I wonder if Hardee‘s would mind if I hooked up a web cam from there to here? I promise to only use it on Saturday.
How does this recipe compare to the Hardee’s product? Better. Of course the ultimate best is when freshly made, just removed from the pan and cooled just enough so as not to burn the mouth. The bacon adds a nice bit of saltiness. The onions add a surprising touch of sweetness. The cheese sauce adds both creaminess and a touch of sharp flavor. The toasted tortilla adds crispness. The eggs mediate it all together (I felt obligated to say something about the eggs). Creamy, crisp, salty, sweet, sharp and mediated; who would have thought so much could come from such simplicity?
1/2 medium onion diced
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
12 to 14 – 6″ flour tortillas
1 pound bacon
Cheese dip (in a jar) – your favorite (ALDI – Clancy’s Cheese Dip used here)
1 – 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
Fry the bacon as you normally do and set aside on a clean plate. Break the eggs into a mixing bowl and beat with a fork. Mix in diced onion, salt and pepper to the beaten eggs. Add 1 tablespoon oil to a heated frying pan. Add the beaten eggs and cook the eggs scrambled. Remove the scrambled eggs to a clean bowl.
Lay out 5 or 6 tortillas on a clean counter top. With the back of a tablespoon sparingly smear some cheese dip on one half of the tortillas. Place a small dab of cheese dip on the edge of the tortilla opposite the smeared side. The small dab will help seal the tortilla when folded. Spread about a tablespoon of the beaten eggs on the cheese sauce side of the tortilla. Place a cooked bacon strip on the eggs. Fold over the cheese sauce side of the tortilla so that the edge lands a little more than half into the tortilla. Fold the dabbed edge of the tortilla over to cover the rest of the tortilla. Lightly press the folded tortilla down to help seal the wrap. Basically the tortilla is now folded in thirds with the cheese, egg and bacon trapped in the folded tortilla. Place the folded tortilla with the seam side down on a clean counter. Repeat until all the tortillas are filled and scrambled eggs are used up.
Place 1 tablespoon of oil in a medium hot large frying pan. Place several folded tortillas in the pan, seam side down. Brown the folded tortillas for a minute or two. Turn the folded tortillas over and brown the other side for a minute or two. Remove the browned tortillas to a clean plate. Eat them while still warm and toasted. The wraps can be stored frozen, removed as needed and heated in a microwave (see picture below). Hardee’s listed their product at 260 calories.
Assembled and Folded
Pan Toasted
Ready For Eating
Ready For Freezer
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