Eggs Benedict

By Somer

Sometimes you want a nice big breakfast for dinner.  Usually when that particular craving is upon me, I make a big stack of pancakes and eggs over-easy or I whip up some French toast.   Tonight, I wanted something a little more decadent.  I wanted something where I could really flex my baking/cooking muscles and prove (to myself, at least) what a great cook I can be.  Yes, I’m bragging.  I made Eggs Benedict 100% from scratch.  I made homemade English muffins and I made homemade Hollandaise Sauce.  I made perfectly poached eggs and caramelized the ham to perfection.  As a side, I made homemade hash browns.  I rocked it.  Here’s how:

In my Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book (every beginner cook needs one of these) there is a recipe for English Muffin Bread.  Most of the bread recipes in this cookbook are infuriating because the bread never turns out quite right.  This bread recipe was no exception.  The loaf was always rock hard and extremely dense.  So it occurred to me one day to make English Muffins out of the recipe.  It took a couple of tries to get it right, but I’ve got it.  And you know what?  It’s really easy and I LOVE English muffins for breakfast.  Here’s the recipe with my modifications:

Cornmeal

6 cups AP flour

2 packages active dry yeast (4 1/2 tsp.)

1/4 tsp. baking soda

2 cups milk

1/2 cup water

1 Tblsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

Sprinkle enough cornmeal on the bottom of two baking sheets to make a thin coating.  Set aside and preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl combine 3 cups flour, the yeast and the baking soda.  In a medium saucepan heat and stir the milk, water, sugar, and salt until warm (the temperature to look for is between 120 and 130 degrees F.  However, if your mixing bowl is cold or if you refrigerate or freeze your yeast and it is still cold, you can go a little warmer in order to ensure the activation of the yeast).  Stir the milk mixture into the flour mixture.  Stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.

On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to a thickness to 1/2-inch thickness.  Use a large biscuit cutter (3 inches) to cut out rounds and place them on the baking sheets with the cornmeal.  Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with cornmeal.  Cover the pans with clean dish towels and let them proof (rise) for 45 minutes in a warm, draft-free place.  Once the dough has risen, place the pans in the preheated oven and bake for 10-12 minutes.

At the 10 minute mark, check the muffins.  When the tops are a light brown, take a butter knife and tap the tops.  If there is a hollow sound, that means the muffins are done.

The next thing to do was prepare the Hollandaise Sauce.  Hollandaise Sauce is one of those things that gets a bad rap for being overly difficult to prepare or that it can all go wrong very quickly.  I don’t know about that.  It’s not hard to make and it’s not something that takes a long time to prepare either.

I love to get Eggs Benedict from a local Restaurant here on the East Side of Seattle called The Original Pancake House.  I am always a little disappointed with the dish because the Hollandaise sauce is painfully bland.  I don’t like bland anything so I decided to make my own.  Since I am a beginner with this recipe, again, I went to my beginner’s cookbook, the Better Homes and Gardens.  Here’s the recipe:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 beaten egg yolks

1 Tblsp. lemon juice

1 Tblsp. water

salt

white pepper

Cut the butter into thirds and bring it to room temperature; allow about 45 minutes.

In the top of a double boiler combine egg yolks, lemon juice, and water.  Add a piece of the butter.  Place over gently boiling water (upper pan should not touch water).  Cook, stirring rapidly with a whisk, until butter melts and sauce begins to thicken.  The sauce may appear to curdle at this point, but it will smooth out when the remaining butter is added.  Add the remaining butter, a piece at a time, stirring constantly until melted.  Continue to cook and stir for 2 to 2-1/2 minutes more until sauce thickens.  Immediately remove from heat.  If sauce is too thick or curdles, immediately whisk in 1 to 2 Tblsp. hot water.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Say hello to any cook’s best friend.  Meet Mr. Double Boiler!  Ok, so it’s a glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.  This is a perfect double boiler.  DO NOT go out and buy a double boiler pot.  They are overpriced and they only come in one size.  If you use the bowl over the pot trick, you can have a teeny tiny double boiler or a big one!  Just remember to always make sure the water NEVER touches the bottom of the bowl and that the water is simmering gently and not boiling.

All that’s left to assemble Eggs Benedict are poached eggs and ham.  Those are pretty straight forward.  I can offer a couple of small tricks for poaching eggs.  First of all, put about 1 Tblsp. of white vinegar in the poaching water.  It helps to stabilize the egg whites and keeps them from spreading.  Also, crack the eggs individually into small dishes before adding them to the water so that they can be dropped in gently.  Other than that, I’m sure you can figure out the rest.

To assemble the Eggs Benedict, split and lightly toast an English Muffin.  On the bottom piece of the muffin, place a thinly sliced piece of ham.  Top with a poached egg and Hollandaise Sauce.  Replace the top part of the muffin and add more sauce.

Now simply introduce this lovely dish to your face and try not to eat it too fast.  It’s delicious.  Enjoy!

Heritage House Blueberry Muffins

By Somer

Taste of Home is a fantastic cooking magazine.  I just recently ended my subscription with them due to the fact that I had about 20 magazines stacked in my kitchen and each one of them contained at least two recipes that I wanted to try.  I am now in the process of getting all of these recipes together into one place (via Word document) so that I can eliminate some clutter in my house.  But I digress.

I first became familiar with the Taste of Home magazine shortly after my grandmother died.  My mother was executor of her estate and all of her mail was forwarded to our house.  One thing sent to us was a Taste of Home magazine.  I tried a few of the recipes contained therein and absolutely loved them.  Readers send in recipes and that’s how they are shared.  The recipes you find are like your mother’s recipes or grandmother’s recipes.  That speaks to me and I love it.

Inside of this first magazine sent to my deceased grandmother was a recipe for a blueberry muffin from a small restaurant in Chesaning, Michigan called the Heritage House.  Instead of bread baskets at your table, guests were served baskets of these blueberry muffins.  The story intrigued me and I tried the recipe and was delighted at the outcome.  What I got was something that was not as dense as muffins sometimes are but was moist and fluffy, like a good cake.  And also I adore blueberry muffins.

Bonnie’s Blueberry Muffins

Heritage House, Chesaning, Michigan

TOH Collector’s Edition 1997

2 cups AP flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 Tblsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Additional melted butter

Additional sugar

I’d like to insert a quick note about ingredients before we get started here.  When baking, if you expect a superior end product, then you must make sure that the ingredients are superior.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that you must buy the most expensive ingredients, but you must make sure to get quality.

For instance, this recipe calls for ground nutmeg.  Instead of buying the little jar of nutmeg powder, buy whole nutmeg and use a microplane to make it a powder.  The taste is much more pungent and fresh.  Also, when using vanilla extract, use real or pure vanilla extract instead of imitation.  It costs a little bit more, but I use a generic brand that is not much more than the imitation stuff.  The flavor is much more superior and you do notice a difference.

Depending on the time of year, you can either use fresh or frozen blueberries in this recipe.  A bag of frozen blueberries is a staple in my freezer.  I use it for making blueberry pancakes and muffins all the time.  I love blueberries.

If you are using frozen blueberries, measure out the 2 cups needed for this recipe and rinse them well.  Then pat them dry and place them in a bowl.  Sprinkle with 1-2 Tblsp. of flour to make sure that the berries become suspended in the batter and don’t sink to the bottom.  You only want a very thin coating of the flour on the blueberries.  No more.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  In another bowl, beat eggs.  Blend in milk, butter, nutmeg and vanilla;

pour into dry ingredients and mix just until moistened.  Make sure not to overmix.  If you over mix this batter, the gluten in the flour will activate and you will get a tough muffin rather than a fluffy muffin.  Fold in blueberries, gently.

Fill greased or paper lined muffin cups two-thirds full.  Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.  Brush tops with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar as soon as they come out of the oven.

YIELD:  1 dozen

As a side note, it seems that the Heritage House of Chesaning, Michigan is no longer in business.  That’s a shame.  But I hope that you enjoy the recipe as much as I do.  Enjoy everybody!

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and Garlic Bread

By Somer

On tonight’s menu in my house was a quick and easy Spaghetti with Meat Sauce.  This is a weeknight meal that can be prepared very quickly, but it’s also nice enough to serve to company.  This is actually one of my go-to dishes to serve to company that I maybe don’t cook for very often and want to impress.

The part of this meal that wasn’t so quick was the garlic bread.  I made Italian bread form scratch and then toasted it and made garlic bread.  The recipe I used can be found here at Great Chicago Italian Recipes.  I figure if you’re going to make Italian bread, you need to ask an Italian how to do it.  This recipe was actually great.  The only things I’d like to add are that before you bake the bread you should whisk an egg white and 1 Tblsp. of water and brush it over the dough, and to follow these little tricks that I wrote about here (that’s right, you smart-ass loyals from merrywifeofcanon….I’ve been cheating on you with another blog and I didn’t tell you about it!)  The thing is, bread can be really tricky but the reward of warm fresh bread is so worth the effort.  But it does take some practice.  I’ve made loaves that resembled bricks more than bread.

Anyhow, here’s the fresh Italian bread.  It turned out great.  Now to make it Garlic Bread Isplit it in half horizontally and cut slices.  I then drizzled extra virgin olive oil over the slices and placed them 3-inches away from the broiler and let them toast.  Keep an eye on them because it goes fast.  When the slices are toasted and golden, pull them out and, while the are still hot, rub a peeled garlic clove on the tops.

This is the best way to make garlic bread.  The garlic melts on the hot bread and the aroma and taste of garlic is fresh and much better than any prepared spread or garlic powder.  And it’s easy.  If you were to use store-bought Italian bread, you’ve got a quick garlic bread.

Now, let’s talk about the main dish.  The first thing to do is get out a dutch oven and fill it with water and set it to boil.  Always use a big pot to make pasta so it can swim around and cook better.

When the water starts to boil, add a good handful of salt to the water and a Tblsp. or two of olive oil.  The salt is to season the pasta and the olive oil keeps it from sticking together and clumping.  Get that water going before you start on your sauce.  Your sauce will be done before your pasta.

For tonight’s pasta I used ground turkey for the meat.  It’s heart healthy and contains less fat.  However, ground turkey can tend to taste very flat (not that it really matters in this case as it is simply a part of a flavorful sauce) and the best thing that I know of to give the meat a little extra taste is 1 Tblsp. of Worcestershire Sauce for every pound of meat.  It gives the meat a little depth of taste that otherwise wouldn’t be present.  Get that turkey in a skillet and start browning it.  Add the Worcestershire Sauce and salt and pepper to taste.

The base of this sauce is simple canned tomato sauce.  I used to use the brand name stuff in a jar until I realized the versatility of canned tomato sauce.  I use it in braising liquids, sauces and soups.  The best part is that I got these cans on sale for $0.88 a can.  You can’t beat that.  Just dump those two cans into the skillet with the browned turkey (if there’s a lot of liquid in the skillet, drain it off before adding the tomato sauce.)

I know that this looks like a lot of spices, but you only use a little bit of each and they all lend something.  1/2 tsp. of red pepper flakes, 1/2 Tblsp. garlic powder, 1/2 Tblsp. onion powder, 1 Tblsp. brown sugar, 1/2 Tblsp. dried parsley flakes, 1/2 Tblsp. dried oregano, 1 tsp. dried basil, and 1/2 tsp. dried thyme.  If any of these look weird to you, it might be the brown sugar.  I know that some people use white granulated sugar in tomato sauces, but I actually hate that taste and prefer brown sugar.  A tomato sauce is a dark taste anyway, so the brown sugar helps with that while cutting the acidic taste of the tomatoes.  Stir the mixture well and cover and let simmer on Medium Low heat until the pasta is cooked.

I know that portioning out pasta can be tricky.  Honestly, I don’t have any witty suggestions for how to accurately portion out pasta.  I’ve done it so many times that I can tell by sight.  I can tell you that a pound of pasta will easily feed four big eaters…I don’t think that helps though.  Just remember that in your hand, the pasta will look like it won’t be quite enough.

The pasta needs to cook for about 8 minutes or so.  Pick a strand out when it starts looking cooked and taste it.  That’s the best way to gauge the done-ness of pasta…take it out and chew on it.  This whole dish will prove to be more successful if you taste it.  This recipe is set to my personal tastes and that may not fit exactly with your personal tastes.  Get a spoon and taste the sauce once it is heated through.  If it’s not quite right, play with the spices and experiment.  That’s a big part of what cooking and creativity in the kitchen is.

But there it is!  A fancy, quick meal that can put the dullness of your day behind you.  This sauce will serve four people, but it makes fantastic leftovers as does the bread.  Just wrap the bread in aluminum foil and throw in in a warm oven to reheat.  Enjoy!