Archive for the 'eggs' Category
We played hard today. Awake at 6:30, we organized the basement (or disorganized it in an attempt to begin organizing), cleaned out a couple church sales (which contributed to the already dire basement situation), made peanut butter puffed wheat squares for my niece’s yard sale and lemonade stand, played in big buckets of water, jumped on the trampoline, had pizza and drank lemonade squeezed fresh to order using an antique juicer my sister picked up somewhere. It was the best lemonade stand in Calgary, with its pyramid of fresh lemons, sugar and pitcher of ice water, handmade signs, chocolate cupcakes and puffed wheat squares. I wish I had my camera.
Afterward, W slept right through dinnertime, woke up at 7 and still refused to get out of bed. I doctored up the leftover fusilli from last night, baking it with cheese to bring him up to share in bed. He had a meltdown that it wasn’t eggs and toast, so after briefly trying to explain that I wasn’t running a restaurant (it seems he doesn’t quite grasp the concept of eating out yet) I finally relented and made bageleggs.
We grew up with bageleggs. My mom started making them in Toronto, where there were bagel shops on every block. When we moved to Calgary in the late 70s, there was not a bagel to be had. My Toronto dentist had told me if I ate a bagel a day I would never need braces, and for awhile I thought this stupid new city where everyone wore cowboy hats and didn’t have swimming pools at school or know what a bagel was would force me into a headgear for a big chunk of my precious elementary school life. Then we found Bagels & Buns on 17th Avenue.
You make a bagelegg by slicing a bagel in half and putting it cut side down into some butter and oil in a hot skillet (a bit of both to keep the butter from burning, and because butter is delicious and oil is good for you) and breaking an egg into the middle. (Sometimes, when you get one of those bagels with hardly any hole, you need to tear it open a little.) Baste the top as it cooks, or flip it over easy; my method of choice. I haven’t had a bagelegg in years, and forgot how much I love them. The bottom gets all crunchy, and the sides of the bagel hole protect the yolk from breaking until you want it to.
(Of course I ate my way through half a pan of puffed wheat squares before we even got to the bageleggs.)
Puffed Wheat Squares (Plain or Peanut Butter)
1/4 cup butter or non-hydrogenated margarine, or 1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. vanilla
8 cups puffed wheat, or 7 cups puffed wheat and 1 cup salted peanuts
Lightly spray the inside of a large bowl with nonstick spray. Put the puffed wheat (and peanuts, if you’re using them) into the bowl and set it aside.
In a small saucepan, combine the butter, corn syrup, brown sugar and cocoa over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour over the puffed wheat and stir to coat evenly. Press into an ungreased 9” x 13” pan and refrigerate or leave at room temperature until set. These are easiest to cut at room temperature.
Makes 20 squares.
Per Square (without peanuts): 106 calories, 2.4 g fat (1.5 g saturated fat, 0.7 g monounsaturated fat, 0.1 g polyunsaturated fat), 21.2 g carbohydrates, 6.2 mg cholesterol, 0.9 g protein, 0.6 g fiber. 20% calories from fat
Buttery Chocolate Corn Pop Squares: Replace puffed wheat with an equal amount of Corn Pops cereal. Fat content remains the same. (These are SO GOOD.)
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May 03 2008 | breakfast and cookies & squares and eggs and snacks | 2 Comments »
Happy Eggs Benedict Day!
Yesterday, being Eggs Benedict Day Eve (I’m not sure who chooses these days, or who makes them official?) we had eggs Benny on the Eyeopener. I made a classic version of hollandaise sauce, which is dead easy to do in the blender; it’s really like mayonnaise - blended egg yolks with melted butter drizzled in, and a bit of lemon juice. Three yolks and a cup of butter to 1 tablespoon of lemon juice is the ratio; you really could not get any more high fat than hollandaise sauce if you tried, which is probably why people don’t generally make it at home. When you order it at a restaurant you don’t witness (nor take part in) the use of cups of melted butter. Not being an accomplice absolves us of at least some of the guilt.
I went to Big Fish this past weekend and had crab eggs Benedict (they also do steak eggs Benedict), which reminded me of the crab cakes Benedict I wrote a recipe for in Homemakers’ magazine years ago. Crispy crab cakes topped with a poached egg and hollandaise. So I made them in the studio yesterday, and when Mike heard what I had done, he (rightly) told me that not making some for him as well would be just grounds for divorce. What judge wouldn’t take his side?
Using crab cakes as a base instead of the English muffin-back bacon combo was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. Use any crab cakes you like, top with a poached egg and drizzle of hollandaise. I used a can of crabmeat, drained and bound together with a bit of minced yellow pepper, about a handful of breadcrumbs, one of the egg whites left over from the sauce, a squirt of grainy mustard and spoonful of light mayo. I wish I had some panko to fry them in, but I just doused them with flour and fried them in a skiff of canola oil. Here’s a link to the original Homemakers’ recipe. (One of my very first assignments. I was completely ecstatic.)
Hollandaise is a room-temperature sauce, since it’s made with melted butter that would congeal if it was too cold and egg yolks that would scramble if they got too hot. Some recipes heat it gently in a double boiler, but the easiest method I find is to whiz 3 egg yolks (and if you have it, a tablespoon of half & half) in a blender until it’s foamy; then with the motor running drizzle in a cup of melted butter that has been heated until it’s bubbling (I do this in the microwave) but not browned. About halfway through, dribble in a tablespoon of lemon juice. The mixture will thicken to the consistency of slightly runny mayonnaise. Serve it just as is. People tend to get funny about the use of heated but not necessarily cooked through egg yolks in their hollandaise, which I think is funny considering no one thinks twice about the runny yolk of the poached egg underneath it.
But this is the recipe I think you should have - a lightened version of hollandaise sauce that was one of my biggest food challenges ever. In this hollandaise, white bread is soaked in water and lemon juice and whizzed until smooth with the other ingredients, acting as an emulsifier and giving the sauce body in place of the traditional egg yolks and large quantity of butter, for a savings of more than 50 grams of fat (mostly saturated) and about 450 calories!
Lightened Lemon Basil Hollandaise Sauce
1/4 cup water or milk
1 to 2 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 slice of white sandwich bread, torn into pieces, or about 3/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup butter, melted
Salt to taste
2-3 fresh basil leaves
Pour water and lemon juice over the bread crumbs; let stand for about 5 minutes until the bread absorbs all the liquid and becomes mushy. In a blender or food processor, mix the soaked bread until it turns into a paste. With the motor running, drizzle in warm melted butter as thin a stream as possible and process until mixture thickens slightly. Taste and add salt if necessary. Add basil leaves and pulse a few times until the basil is chopped and incorporated.
This is what full-fat hollandaise looks like after cooling in the fridge - it has the spreadable consistency of frosting and the texture of soft, whipped butter. (When it has congealed the fat content becomes obvious.)
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April 16 2008 | eggs and seafood and vegetarian | 4 Comments »
I swear, if you write out what you make for dinner, it always sounds fancier than it actually is.
We had the day off taping, which isn’t to say it wasn’t a crazy day, but at least I was with W and around home for a lot of it. Since we’ve been making an average of 8 recipes per day (with several takes per recipe) I swore I wasn’t going to cook today. But then trying to decide what sort of take-out to get got to be too much work, and I realized that I had a bunch of asparagus going quickly downhill in the fridge.
I know I’ve said this of many dishes before, but frittata truly is the easiest, fastest meal you can make using whatever there is in the fridge. Provided you have eggs, of course.
I drizzled the asparagus with oil and got it started in a 400 F oven for about 10 minutes while I chopped up a couple of tomatoes and potatoes (unpeeled, of course). Heated up my skillet (are you getting tired of seeing my cast iron skillet yet? it’s the best for frittata) with another slick of oil and quickly tossed the tomatoes about in it. I just like cooking off a bit of the excess juice, so that they don’t make the eggs runny. Some garlic would have been good, but I was too lazy to peel it.
I took out the asparagus and added it to the pan, put the potatoes on the sheet, drizzled with oil and popped it back in the oven. Whisked 3 eggs and 2 whites with a bit of milk (liquid creates some steam, which makes your eggs fluffier) and poured it over the veg in the pan. Once the edges started to set but it was still wet on top and in the middle, I scattered some cheese overtop - any kind would work - some crumbled feta or goat cheese stirred into the eggs would have been fantastic - and popped it into the oven right beside the potatoes.
Everything was done in about 20 minutes, and as a bonus we’re set up for some cold frittata sandwiches on toast for lunch tomorrow.
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February 27 2008 | eggs and one dish and vegetarian | No Comments »
Confession: this was lunch, not dinner. Does it count that it was the most memorable meal of the day, and in fact one of my favorite meals of all time? Because we went to Mike’s mom’s for dinner, and my thinking is if you don’t have anything nice to say, maybe stick to the lunch story.
Sue went back to Vernon at about noon, so before she left we poached some eggs from the market - todays’ eggs came from one of the colonies, but when the lamb farmers are around we get our eggs from them - so big they have to be staggered in their carton and it’s impossible to close the lid, most of them with a double yolk, each the size and color of a plump dried apricot. I had just baked a crusty loaf of no-knead bread, which we toasted and buttered thick slices of and slid the softly poached eggs on top. (Note: I do not add vinegar to the cooking water when I poach eggs. I don’t like my eggs tasting vinegary, and the ragged whites don’t bother me one bit. Did you know you can pre-poach your eggs, and keep them in a dish of their cooking water in the fridge? Reheat them by slipping into a pan of simmering water for a few seconds. Which isn’t to say poached eggs are so high-maintenance they require advance preparation, but it’s good to know if you’re ever cooking for large numbers, or want to do a few at a time to stash in the fridge for a small child.)
There is really no better combination than a good quality egg, good bread and butter, sprinkled with crisp, flaky salt. We shopped at The Cookbook Company yesterday, and because when I teach classes part of my payment comes in the form of store credit, we decided to go and be frivolous, picking up things like $12 smoked Maldon salt and fig-caramel sauce. You wouldn’t think that your choice of salt would make one iota of difference here, but the crunchy flakes were wonderful.
I am a fan of crunchy pan-fries, but when I eat a large pile of them for breakfast, inevitably as an accompaniment to some bread product, I feel like I swallowed a sack of potatoes afterward. The very best company to a poached egg on toast, in my humble opinion, is a fresh bunch of spinach, lightly sautéed in a little butter and olive oil, with a clove of garlic. Heaven.
Add a small knob of butter and a drizzle of olive or canola oil to your skillet, get it hot and as everything is melting, slice a clove of garlic in. Swirl the pan around until the foam subsides and everything starts to turn a pale golden color. At this point, if you want just the flavor of garlic to delicately adorn your spinach (or kale, or chard), you can pull out the slices of garlic; because it hasn’t been crushed, they will be easy to fish out and won’t burn. Otherwise, just rinse your spinach and tear it roughly into the pan; the water left clinging to the leaves is enough to help it wilt, which will take all of about a minute. No vegetable side dish could be faster or easier. Sautéed spinach would also make a fantastic omelet or panini filling, along with some grated cheese.
All told, this meal came out to around $2 for all three of us. Not bad.
I’d like to mention here that all of these photos are authentic, of our actual plates of food as we are eating them, or before beginning; Mike is getting used to not being allowed to start eating until after I’ve had sufficient time with his dinner and my camera. (The exception: last week’s party, for which I forgot my camera in the chaos, and so instead used photos I already had of the same food.) The photo up top I stopped to take mid-bite, and then when Sue got up to answer her phone, I pulled out my camera and took a picture of her plate, without rearranging anything:
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February 17 2008 | eggs and veg and vegetarian | No Comments »
By happy coincidence, I flipped on Nigella Express yesterday just in time to see her snipping rolled-up corn tortillas into a hot skillet to brown and crisp them before adding a slurry of egg, tomatoes and chopped fresh chilies. Hey, good idea, and using things I happen to currently have in my kitchen. I don’t usually keep fresh corn tortillas on hand, but when I do I’m always looking for new ways to use them, since they come in a 50-pack. (Tomorrow, the rest are going into the freezer, to resurface later on in the year.)
So, since Mike is playing an afternoon show and heading straight out afterwards, I’m cooking for one. Well, one and a half, but the half just downed a whole wheat tortilla spread with peanut butter and wrapped around a banana, and close to his own weight in dried apricots (thankfully we’ve just passed the diaper stage). I’m in just the mood for a bowl of spicy eggs with lots of crispy bits, so thought I’d give Nigella’s recipe a whirl - the only thing I’m missing is the black satin wrap dress. I’m not convinced this is the best choice of outfits when cooking something that splatters anyway.
It was fast, it was easy. Although I have toasted many a corn tortilla, it never occurred to me to cut them into strips first. The long, thin pieces browned quickly, and I bet they’d be fantastic on a salad. As for the jalapeno, it doesn’t make things as hot as you’d think. (And I’m sorry for the recurring theme - but I had a bag in the fridge since researching that article on chilies, and I hate wasting things, even when it’s a jalapeno pepper that cost all of 6 cents.) To turn the heat down a bit, remove the seeds and membranes, which account for about 80% of the capsaicin - the substance that makes chilies burn. If you do, you can get away with using a whole jalapeno for 2 eggs (if I can do it, so can you - I’m a wuss when it comes to spicy food). Halved grape tomatoes go perfectly into eggs without watering them down with excessive juice. Beyond the tomatoes, this would have been fab with any number of toss-ins: mushrooms, chunks of asparagus, bits of ham…
I did resist the urge to smother it in cheese. Until halfway through, that is, when I remembered the chunk of queso fresco (fresh cheese) I had acquired at La Tiendona market awhile ago (along with the corn tortillas) and forgotten in the depths of the fridge. It would really be a shame to not use it before it goes slimy. And creamy, salty, ultra-meltable and almost feta-esque queso fresco would really go well with the spicy-soft eggs and crispy shards of tortilla. It was like a breakfast burrito bomb exploded deliciously on my plate. Perfect Saturday afternoon couch food.
Spicy Scrambled Eggs with Crispy Corn Tortilla Strips (for one - bump up the ingredients as necessary for the number of people you want to feed)
Canola or olive oil, for cooking with
1-2 small corn tortillas
1 jalapeno or small red chile pepper, seeded and minced
a small handful of grape tomatoes, halved
1 chopped green onion (optional
2 eggs
salt and pepper
Heat a good drizzle of oil in a skillet set over medium-high heat, and cook the tortilla strips, tossing them about occasionally, until golden and crisp. Transfer to a plate. Add the jalapeno and tomatoes (the juice will make them splatter) and cook for a minute, until the tomato begins to soften and darken on the edges.
In a small bowl, beat the eggs with a fork, adding a drizzle of water or milk if you like. Add to the hot pan, along with the green onion, if you’re using it, and some salt and pepper. Gently push the eggs around in the skillet, allowing the uncooked egg to run underneath the cooked egg. Turn the heat off while they are still slightly runny, and allow them to finish cooking with their own heat; you want them to be nice and creamy, not hard and curd-like which is how overcooked scrambled eggs often end up.
Add the crispy tortilla strips to the pan, toss to combine them, then transfer to a wide, shallow bowl and eat on the couch.
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January 27 2008 | eggs and one dish and vegetarian | No Comments »
Most often when I make rice, I make extra just so that I can have it in the fridge for fried rice or rice pudding. The grains are more separate when the rice is completely cooled, so it’s a perfect use for leftover takeout rice, and makes a great fridge cleaner.
Tonight I had: 6 mushrooms, an egg, the very last bit of shredded turkey, a couple green onions and a handful of frozen peas. Yes, you can make a yummy dinner with this.
Get a large pan really hot and drizzle it with a drizzle of canola oil and sesame oil. Fry the mushrooms until they release their moisture. If you have a bit of grated ginger or garlic, add that too. Add the rice and cook until it and the mushrooms are starting to become gilded around the edges. Throw in your chopped chicken, turkey, pork or tofu (shrimp are good too, but add them at the very end to avoid overcooking) and a handful of frozen peas.
Push everything to the side and crack in an egg; stir it up a bit with your cooking implement to break the yolk, and then stir it into the rice, making it scramble right into the mixture. Cook for a few minutes, stirring now and then, and add a glug of soy sauce too. A small dab of curry paste is tasty as well - or a large dab, if you’re going for curried fried rice. Curried fried rice with shrimp is my Dad’s favorite - all this, without the egg yolk or mushrooms.
In under 6 minutes. Now that’s fast food.
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January 11 2008 | eggs and grains and one dish | No Comments »
I wasn’t even drinking last night. Maybe it was the Sundayness of today, it being the first normal, school-night Sunday in weeks, that made me crave bacon & eggs all day long. I wanted to go somewhere with all-day breakfast, but with W in tow that usually means Mike and I taking turns chasing him around the restaurant after his food keeps him busy for maybe 5 or 10 minutes. (No, not all at once.)
It turns out nothing else can satiate a bacon and egg craving, so I made some, with back bacon I had leftover from making breakfast for Ralph Klein on BT last week - I did a bacon trio: side, back and turkey. (No one went for my blind taste test idea.) The eggs I bought on Friday from the lamb stand at the Crossroads market are so big they don’t fit side by side in their carton, and so far every one has had a double yolk. Most of the time they end up as poached eggs on toast, but today I cooked them in the last drizzle of roasted garlic olive oil (a new product from Tapeko I’m trying out), after cooking the bacon, of course.
Bonus: most people associate back bacon with Bob & Doug, rather than with leanness, but Canadian back bacon has far less than half the fat of the strip bacon we’re used to seeing with eggs.
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January 07 2008 | eggs | No Comments »
We played hard today. Awake at 6:30, we organized the basement (or disorganized it in an attempt to begin organizing), cleaned out a couple church sales (which contributed to the already dire basement situation), made peanut butter puffed wheat squares for my niece’s yard sale and lemonade stand, played in big buckets of water, jumped on the trampoline, had pizza and drank lemonade squeezed fresh to order using an antique juicer my sister picked up somewhere. It was the best lemonade stand in Calgary, with its pyramid of fresh lemons, sugar and pitcher of ice water, handmade signs, chocolate cupcakes and puffed wheat squares. I wish I had my camera.
