Ooo laa, laa, Hollandaise!

Barnegat bay flounder, with capers, "New Jersey Fresh" Asparagus and Hollandaise.

The Hollandaise sauce recipe is from Julia Child. Bless that woman for making classic sauces NOT intimidating. With the help of "The Way to Cook", I whipped up that sauce in plenty of time to serve it with lightly sauteed flounder (from the freezer - sauteed in butter and olive oil, with capers and lemon juice added at the end) and microwaved asparagus.

Hollandaise Sauce (rough directions adapted from Julia) (makes 1 cup)

In heavy saucepan, whisk 3 egg yolks until light yellow. Add 1 1/2 T lemon juice. Put on low heat. Add 1 TB butter. Whisk over heat. When egg yolks get thick, add another 1 TB butter and keep whisking. Take off heat. Then add more melted butter (about 1 stick's worth) a few dribbles at a time,whisking constantly. The sauce will stay emulsified, absorbing the extra butter. Add salt and pepper to taste, and more lemon juice if you like. Keep warm. Spoon that goodness over what you like. That's it!

B's Egg Thing

I adapted a "Crustless Quiche" recipe, which I got from my mother-in-law, Carol, many years ago, so that Nick and I could have a quick and easy dinner. The recipe from "Ma Bell" was supposed to feed 12 to 16 people, and included a lot of butter and significant amounts of cheese. My version is slightly leaner, and feeds four (or two hungry mungries - Nick and Me):

B's Egg Thing
Ingredients
4 eggs - beaten.
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup (or so) cottage cheese (I had some laying around and scraped out the container for this)
1/2 teaspoon each, salt, baking powder, and sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup shredded cheese (I had an old piece of parmigiano/reggiano, so I used that, along with some fontina, to make 1/2 cup)a pinch garlic powder
6 grinds black pepper

Instructions
Take a casserole dish (that holds about 1 quart), and melt 1 tablespoon butter in it, in the microwave. Smear the butter around to coat the dish.

Preheat oven to 400. (f)

Beat eggs, then add all other ingredients. Put into casserole dish.

Bake until done - around 1/2 hour, or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Basically, you're making a thick custard/pudding.
I served it with homemade rolled biscuits and a salad.

Since I rode my bike 14.1 miles today at a speed of about 12 miles per hour, it was an easy first ride of the season, but I'm pretty tired right now. I work out regularly with weights, and I run and walk, but biking uses different muscles. I understand from those who "know" that when recovering from muscle exertion, one should eat protein and carbs, and this egg dish with biscuits has plenty of both. And the salad (mesclun greens), provides the green nutrition.

I am riding the American Cancer Society "City to Shore" ride (60 miles or so) in July,and I'm also riding the Lutheran Charities Ride in late June. I am not sure how many miles I will ride in late June - either 35 or 50 plus. I find that having a specific goal, fitness-wise, helps keep me on track.

Calzone

Using a simple pizza dough and some simple ingredients for the stuffing, I made two very large calzones for dinner.

INSIDE THE CALZONE - STEP 1
Last night, I made a pasta topping consisting of sauteed onions, peppers, and italian sausage meatballs. (To make the meatballs, remove italian sausage from casing, wet hands so the mixture does not stick, then roll into balls and fry.) I made enough to have extra for tonight's calzone dinner.

THE BACK STORY
Nick and I mulched the garden today. We had 5 cubic yards of mulch delivered at 7:45 AM. By noon, the mulch was spread. So we felt we 'deserved' a good dinner. You know what I mean?

The DOUGH
Back in 1986, Cosmopolitan magazine gave this recipe for pizza crust. (I know - wierd that COSMO would talk about Pizza crust. but this was the 80s.) Here is the recipe, which I used tonight for calzone dough.
3 cups flour (Cosmo said regular flour - I say bread flour)
1 cup water (COSMO said 1 cup, I say 1 1/3 cups)
1 Tablespoon yeast1 Tablespoon salt
3 Tablespoons olive oil
Mix it all together. Knead, let rest.
I used half of this recipe for the calzones. The rest I refrigerated, to use tomorrow, for dinner (an italian type loaf.)

INSIDE THE CALZONE - STEP 2
I put the "Step 1 " ingredients in rolled out dough (two 12 inch circles, which was half the recipe above) then I added 1 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained, and 1 cup shredded mozzarella. I divided the ingredients among the two calzones.

MAKE THE CALZONE
Then, I flipped the dough over so that the ingredients are inside the calzones. I pinched the edges together, then slipped the calzones into a 400 degree F oven. I use a stone in my oven, but you can simply put them in on a cookie sheet.

Then...
BAKE (around 25 or 30 minutes) and ...EAT (the best part).

Simple but Yummy Easter Breakfast

I always like to make a little something special for Easter breakfast at our house, even though it was just Nick and me this morning.

On the menu - homemade cinnamon rolls, dyed hard-boiled eggs, orange juice, and coffee.


Hard Boiled Eggs
How simple it is to boil an egg, yet I want to share with you a great way to do this homely task, because I think it works really well, and until recently, I didn't know how great a result this would bring.
Start with cold water. Put it on heat, and put the eggs in while still cold. This prevents the eggs from cracking. Bring the water to a boil, actively simmer for about 1 minute, then turn the heat off. Let the eggs sit in the water for about 10 minutes. Drain, cool, and that's it! No green 'ring around the yolk' if you do it this way. My brother-in-law Ken gets credit for teaching me this method.

It being Easter, I dyed the eggs. Using the concept of 'resist' (familiar to all of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s in the form of 'tye dye'), I cut shapes of electrical tape, applied the tape onto the eggs, and then put them in the dye bath. The dye I used was very simple. McCormick food coloring, water, and vinegar. The food coloring at our house I bought back in 1986, and I have just run out of the red. I still have green, blue, and yellow, as part of the original box. A little food coloring goes a long way!

Cinnamon BunsThis is a long-standing recipe, which I make on New Years Day, Christmas, and Easter. I use the bread machine, on the delayed timer. This involves putting a raw, cracked egg into the machine, and letting sit overnight, and there are warnings against this (health caution), but I've never had a problem. Maybe it's because I use ice cold water, into which I put the egg. Water, egg, and the rest of the ingredients sit all night in the bread machine, which is set on the dough setting. When I wake up, I roll out the dough, put nuts, sugar, cinnamon and butter onto the dough, then roll it up in a cylinder. Cut the cylinder into bun-sized pieces, and put into a buttered pie plate to rise. Bake at 350 degrees, for about 30 minutes, let cool 10 minutes, and get ready for some serious noshing!

Here's what I put into the bread machine:
1 broken egg (no shell, of course)
a little less than 3/4 cup ice cold water
2 1/2 cups high gluten flour (bread flour)
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tablespoon yeast

Here's what I put on the rolled out dough before I roll it up:
1/2 cup walnuts
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, softened

I also happened to have some leftover crumb topping for muffins, which consisted of oatmeal, sugar, and cinnamon. I threw that in there too.

These are "more or less" measurements. It's not important to be exact. In my case, I had some butter that Nick had attempted to soften by sitting it on top of the radiator a few days ago, and it quickly had puddled into liquid. I used that in the cinnamon rolls, because it was no longer viable to use as regular butter, and I didn't want to waste it!

Whatever holiday(s) you celebrate this spring, happy celebrating!

Cheese Souffle

Tonight, Nick and I had fresh asparagus and a cheese souffle for dinner. This is my very first, ever, cheese souffle. I used my grandmother Eleanor's glass baking dish. Not ideal for a souffle, as the sides slope outward, so my souffle did not rise significantly, but it did rise. Besides, I did not have a souffle dish small enough for my two person version. Ok, I will say that this recipe was supposed to serve four, but it served two. At our house, we eat a lot.

I turned to Julia Child for the recipe. I used the one in The Way to Cook. Here's the basic method.

Separate the eggs. I used five eggs. Make a thick bechamel sauce, with 2 1/2 tablespoons butter, 3 tablespoons flour, and 1 cup milk. Add a bit of salt, pepper, paprika, and nutmeg. Whip the egg whites to stiff peak. After the bechamel cools, add the egg yolks. Then, fold the egg whites into the bechamel mixture, along with the cheese. The recipe said to use 1 cup of shredded cheese, but I used about 3/4 cup. Put into your buttered, prepared dish, then, put a collar on the dish, so the souffle has something to rise against, once it elevates itself in your oven. The oven is preheated to 375 F. Bake for around 35 minutes. My souffle was a bit weepy in the center, but that was not a bad thing, I don't think. Reminiscent of an omelet baveuse.

I served the souffle with a Pinot Grigio, a salad, some whole wheat bread (I used the basic whole wheat bread recipe from this book), and asparagus from California. I bought the asparagus today at the Reading Terminal Market, in Center City Philadelphia. Wow. $1.49 for a beautiful huge bunch! How great is that price? I read earlier this week, I think in The Wall Street Journal, (which I read every morning while commuting on SEPTA) that Asparagus is coming in huge quantities, thus the price, which is a full dollar lower than I am used to paying. So right now, I'm congratulating myself, thinking we ate pretty well at Chez Barbara. AND there's more! It took only about an hour to make this dinner, and it was all 'from scratch'. (I left work 1/2 hour early tonight, which gave us a head start on the deal.)

Getting to the Root

Root vegetables are comforting. I think I'm genetically coded at the most basic level to say "yes" and "good" when it comes to foods that store well and taste good. All I know for sure is that I like root vegetables. Potatoes. Carrots. Parsnips. Turnips. Onions. And so on.

Spring has come to the northeastern US, and there are still no green vegetables above the ground. Even the alliums are silent. But what we do still have are the root vegetables, noble sorts, who have kept well over the past hard and cold months of snow, ice, and rain.

Every Thursday evening, I stop to visit at a farmer's stall. He is from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and every Thursday, he's at Penn Center/Suburban Station, in downtown Philadelphia. He sells in-season produce and beef. He also sells free-range eggs (from happy chickens, my mom, Anne, would say). I buy from him. He's Daryl, from Rineer Family Farms. I like to support those who put heart and soul into the food they produce for sale.

This past Thursday, I bought beets, carrots, parsnips, and eggs. This post is about beets and carrots.

Carrot salad is a comforting food. Some like sweet, mayo laden carrot salad. I like mine more piquant. So here's a carrot salad I will serve tonight. I made up this recipe, and I'm not an expert. So feel free to experiment yourself!

Barbara's Carrot Salad

1 pound carrots, shredded.
1 lemon, squeezed.
1 small apple, chopped, with peel on.
1 stalk celery
salt
pepper
2 tablespoons neutral vegetable oil (I used peanut)
2 tablespoons sugar (more or less)

Shred the carrots. Put in bowl. Cut up the celery and put in bowl. Cut up the apple. Squeeze the lemon. Swish the apple up in the lemon juice, and add the sugar. Put the apple mixture in with the carrots. Add the oil, salt, and pepper. Cover, and refrigerate. (The apple will not get brown if you do the lemon juice treatment...the alternative is to use a Cortland apple, which do not oxidize brown).

Beet Salad

I had a beet salad at a catered work lunch, and I liked it so much, I was inspired to make my own.

Here's how. I adapted a recipe from the Craig Claiborne NY Times Cookbook, which I have had for years. My version was published in 1990. I use this cookbook a lot.



Boil around 2 pounds of beets whole. This will take around 4o minutes. Then, after they've cooled, peel and chop them. Peel 1/2 a red onion. Cut it into slices. Put the onion into the bowl. Add vinegar to taste, salt and pepper, and a little vegetable oil. Also, add some spices, such as clove or allspice. Chill and serve when chilled down.

Root vegetable salads seem perfect for this time of year. Not hot and hearty and long stewed, but...light and rooty.

Croutons

Got a stale piece of bread? You've got croutons for two!

Here's how. Cube bread. Heat skillet.

Put bread cubes in skillet. Turn heat to high. Spray liberally (or not so much, depending on your mood) with Pam (non-stick cooking oil spray).

Turn heat to 'medium'. Add herbs of your choice. Tonight, for me, it was garlic powder and "herbs de provence", which is a blend of lavender, thyme, and other 'typique' herbs of southern France.

Saute, stirring frequently, keeping heat to medium (depending on your stove and its heat), until all sides of each piece of bread are browned or golden.

Et, c'est fini! That is it! You have croutons from that stale piece of bread you were thinking of tossing. Serve and smile.