Eggs Benedict

I made the most beautiful, picture perfect eggs benedict for Kevin for his father's day breakfast. I so wanted to take a picture because I never make anything that's picture perfect, but my camera batteries were dead. So were the backup batteries. Sad.


Hollandaise
4 egg yolks
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
pinch cayenne (I actually used a bit more than a pinch by accident, but it was quite tasty)
2 tsp warm water
1 stick butter, melted
Add all ingredients except butter to a food processor. Turn on processor and slowly drizzle in melted butter. Serve warm over toasted english muffins topped with canadian bacon and poached egg.  

Frittata

Finally, we rested upon an oldie but goodie for a meatless Monday dinner. Frittata is an old standby for us. It's particularly awesome since Kevin feels very confident making it without consulting me at all! It works for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, parties, everything. And it's a nice fridge cleaner - put in whatever leftovers you have and viola! your fridge is cleaned out and you have a lovely meal. Also, frittata reheats surprisingly well in the microwave, so you get the extra bonus of yummy leftovers. Before you start, make sure whatever pan you are using can be used on the stovetop and in the broiler. 


Veggie Frittata
olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 small zucchini, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 broccoli crown, tops only, chopped
3 cloves garlic
8 eggs
splash milk
1/2 cup asiago cheese
1 handful grape tomatoes, sliced in half
In cast iron skillet, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add onion, zucchini, pepper, and broccoli and saute until slightly softened. Mix in garlic and let cook for a minute or two. In the meantime, whisk eggs with a splash of milk, salt, and pepper. Add eggs to pan and stir. Continue stirring for a minute or two. Once the eggs are about half set, form eggs into the pan and then leave it alone. Cook frittata until the eggs are almost completely set (they can still be a little runny on the top). Top frittata with cheese and tomatoes (I've also made it where I serve the tomatoes raw on top of the cooked frittata and it's tasty that way too). Place under broiler until brown and bubbly on top. You can serve the fritatta in the cast iron or remove it to a serving plate. Cut it like a pizza.

Pancakes

Drat! I ran out of pancake mix on a snow day forcing me to find another recipe for homemade pancakes. Honestly, I know it's not in fitting with all the other stuff I insist on making from scratch, but I prefer the mix (Trader Joe's Multigrain Pancake Mix ROCKS). You know why? Because every recipe I've tried for making them from scratch seems to involve me beating eggs until my arm falls off or includes way too many ingredients for my liking. So, this morning, I went looking for something easy, something basic. What I found was a Food Network recipe from How to Boil Water. I made a few changes since I'm a fan of using whole wheat flour and lowering the amount of sugar in recipes whenever possible. The resulting mix was delicious and I'm thinking it might replace the box.


Whole Wheat Pancakes
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tblsp baking powder
1 tblsp brown sugar
grated fresh nutmeg (To your taste. I didn't put in nearly enough for my taste in this batch.)
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup whole milk
1 banana, mashed with a fork


Mix flours, baking powder, sugar, nutmeg, and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix eggs and milk. Combine bowls and mix until batter forms. Add banana and mix to incorporate. You know the drill from here - cook the pancakes over medium to medium high heat until they're whatever beautiful color you like.

Kevin's Breakfast Potatoes

This recipe has been contributed by guest blogger, Kevin Holler, my loving husband. He’s been working on this recipe for years. Literally. It’s taken a lot of work, so I should be understanding about the length of his post, but really? Did it need to be this long? It takes longer to read than to cook and eat the potatoes. What a dork! ~J

I’ve been on a breakfast potato quest for many years now.  Really an embarrassing amount of years.  And I make potatoes every weekend.  So really I should have had a perfected recipe after about 8 weeks, right?  My problem is a combination of wild technique changes, and poor (or no) record keeping.  I also concentrated on ease of preparation, which isn’t always helpful.  I also experimented with par-boiling for a while, and decided that it is unnecessary.  Makes for yummy potatoes, but very mushy.  This recipe is good - maybe even really good -  but for as long as I have been working on it, they should really be the world’s best potatoes.  Honestly though, the best potatoes can be purchased at Ms. Shirley’s on Cold Spring Lane.  I don’t know what they do there, but I am a big enough man to admit they are better than mine.  I am also a big enough dork to admit I have contemplated getting a job there, just long enough to learn how to make them.  It finally took a pow-wow with a professional cook to figure out the last couple of “tricks” I needed in my recipe, so thanks to him.  Also, he recommended a “drawn” (or clarified) butter-margarine mix, and they’re probably even better that way, but I haven’t tried.  My second favorite (also better than mine) potatoes are McDonald’s.  I swear. They’re amazing.

 Anyway, onto the recipe!  (I have duplicated these consistently, so I feel comfortable with the recipe and process.)

Breakfast Potatoes

Equipment  and ingredients:

Round breakfast skillet, I use cast iron

Two baseball sized white potatoes (you know the ones, not russet, but more or less the same shape as a red potato, but not red). Other potatoes can be used, but the results are a little different, not better or worse, just different.

Bowl of salty water

Salad spinner or colander

One med-large onion

2 TBS Butter

Delicious fat from breakfast meat

Peanut oil as necessary

Salt and pepper

Spatula that you know and trust

Shred potatoes into salty water, and let soak, anywhere from 1-15 min, I don’t think it makes much difference. Drain, rinse well, and drain again. Spin with a salad spinner if you have it, but squeezing out into a colander works well, it’s what I did this morning.  This step is important, because it removes some of the starch from the potato.  Not doing this step yields really tangy, weird, and not so good potatoes.  You can do this right before you cook, or any time before. (Refrigerate or freeze if you do it more than a few minutes before.)

Cook whatever breakfast meat you are cooking and leave the grease in the pan. Add two tablespoons of butter and enough peanut oil to completely coat the bottom of the pan.  If the butter does the job, no additional oil is necessary.  Chop more onion than you think is necessary.  Add to the fat/butter mixture. Add a heavy pinch of salt and cook on low until the onion is soft and lightly  browned.  I think of this as flavoring the fat as much as cooking the onion. Remove the onion from the pan, but leave as much fat as possible. Turn the heat up to medium.  Mix the onion into your shredded potatoes. The oil is ready when you drop one shred of potato in and it immediately starts sizzling. Drop your potato and onion mixture right into the middle of the hot oil, and enjoy the sizzling deliciousness for 2 seconds, then gently spread the potato out so it completely covers the bottom of your pan.  Wait a beat or three, then use your spatula and pull the edge in all the way around the rim of the pan, about an inch or so, until you have a more or less a round patty of potatoes.  I’m always impressed with how perfect of a circle this makes. Pinch of salt and grind of pepper on top, to taste. 

Flip the potatoes when the bottom is a beautiful golden brown.  Try to flip this perfectly - like a pancake.  If you pull this off kudos to you - I never do. I always end up flipping one half at a time.  Reassemble as gently as you can back into a patty.  Salt and pepper this side also.  When the second side is golden brown, you are finished.  I usually take a couple of sample tastes before I remove, to make sure I have the crunch-to–soft potato ratio right, as well as enough salt.  Take a few more bites that you pretend are test bites, then remove and serve.  

If you try this recipe, let me know how it turns out for you!