Happy New Year

Here it is, a brand new year! And, New Years Day means the local diner is closed which means B doesn't get to purchase their Eggs Benedict, better known to us as a bennie. Lynn to the rescue.

I figured, how hard is it to make a bennie? Eggs, sauce, muffin and Canadian bacon. Of course, I've never poached an egg before but that makes this a good learning experience. I had all the ingredients having decided last week to do this. I don't normally have Canadian bacon so that was the only purchase needed. I did go on the Internet to find a recipe because I was not sure of the timing. I also tweaked it a bit. I have found that preparation of any recipe old or new is easier if you have ALL the needed ingredients ready to go. So, first I got the pans out and decided to use the induction hot plate for the cheese sauce as it immediately drops the temperature so much better than my electric stove. Muffins defrosted and in the toaster, bacon laid out in the pan, water with vinegar on for a simmer and eggs, milk, cheese, flour and mustard out with butter in the pan. Cracked the 4 eggs into 4 small saucers since from what I remember seeing on cooking demonstrations, you slide the eggs into the simmering water. All set to go....wait, the water doesn't look deep enough! So, I added some water and then, of course, had to wait for it to boil to be turned down to a simmer. As I waited, I made the cheese sauce and after tasting, added more cheese. That was turned to low as the water simmered I heated the bacon and slipped the eggs into the water. Now I expected this to look kinda icky and had seen chefs swirl the water to keep all the egg together. That didn't work. So I was seeing 4 globs of egg with all this white stuff floating around and was concerned most of the egg white was floating not staying with the yolk. Well, moved on to toasting the muffins, making sure the sauce was hot enough, and also the bacon. At 3 1/2 minutes I turned the eggs off and started dishing up. Using a strainer spoon, I scooped up the egg and YES, there was quite a bit of white. Plopped it on the muffin with ham and added the cheese sauce. Quite pretty and when the second plate was done, we ate. Naturally no pictures first time around. But it did look really nice. One egg was a bit runny the others were soft cooked. I'd cook them 3 minutes next time and try to take them out in the order I put them in - first in first out. I told B this didn't mean we would stop eating at the diner on Sundays! But, it was a fun learning experience and one I will repeat.
Hope your New Years is happy and healthy!

Rain and Ice Cream

When we got up this morning it was muggy but the sun was out. The forecast said rain in the afternoon and they were right!

After breakfast out, I had French toast, we came home and while I was busy, I think – what did I do? Well, I got a load of laundry done, washed the master bath floor and cleaned the shower, cleaned up around the house, emptied the dishwasher and made sure the kitchen was clean. I also read a book – now I mean I speed read it. I didn't like it and after the first chapter I just hit several pages every so often and in a rather short time, finished it. And having finished I'm glad I speed read it – dumb book. I also spent time with B as we put together the weekly email we send out to the members of the community we are in. And then it was 11 and then we looked at The View. We really do enjoy that. Then lunch and a trip to the library to prepare for the book sale tomorrow. Touched base with several people at the library and shelved books and cleaned up the area. When I came up (the book sale area is on the lower level) it was raining – HARD. So I decided not to go to the Farmers Market in town and went home. And it was almost 3 so that meant time to feed Honey. After doing some more stuff around the house, I read the mail and got ready for dinner. And here I am at 7:00.

Honey was funny today. She is not fond of the rain. She enjoyed playing in the snow but for some reason she does not like water. So, she needed to go out and the rain was really heavy. Thunder and such but that doesn't bother her – but she really didn't want to go out. However she clearly needed to go out... and so we attempted to entice her out and she looked at us like “you have to be kidding”. Well, during a lull in the rain, she did head out and yep, she really needed to!!! Then we all relaxed.

Tonight we are having ice cream for dessert. I ran out of ice cream several days ago and refuse to pay nearly $5 for a container of ice cream that at one time was half a gallon but is now less. I did make a blueberry coffee cake that was good but we both wanted ice cream. I remember home made ice cream when I was a kid. Mom would make the base cooking it on the stove. We would put it in the churner with ice and salt and crank away. The best part of it was when Daddy would remove the paddle which I got to lick. Soft serve on a paddle. Then it would go in the freezer to “cure” and later be eaten. Well, we don't make our own but we are partial to Turkey Hill. The local store had it on special this week (finally) and it was $2.00. So I got a vanilla bean and a mint chocolate chip. Then this morning we got 2 vanilla bean on the way home from breakfast. Guess what we are having for dessert??? YUM...

I'm not Ree Drummond!

I was just reading blogs today. There are a lot of them out there on a lot of topics. Some are religious, many are family oriented and are often about younger children and their antics. And then there are the food blogs. I post recipes on occasion and I had thought (briefly) about doing this as a food blog. What I find interesting is that many of the blogs I read have adopted the breezy style of Ree. Now Ree Drummond is the author of the cookbook PioneerWoman's Cooks. She has been blogging for a while and I just recently became aware of her blog. It's quite good and not only has great recipes but interesting and well written posts on her life on a cattle ranch. She also takes great photographs of her family and real life on the ranch. To check out her blog it's at http://thepioneerwoman.com/ As I read other food blogs today, I noticed that many of them were attempting that same breezy style. Maybe it's part of food blog 101 but the similarity hit me. More often than not, their attempt does not make it - the breezy "cute" comments sound forced and don't fit. Just give the recipe...don't try to be cute or copy someone else. Back to Ree, she has just published another book about how she met her husband - she is one busy lady!
   Other than my blog reading, it was an uneventful day. We had blueberry pancakes for breakfast that were quite good! A mix and fresh blueberries. We had used Mrs. Butterworth's syrup a bit ago on pancakes and I found it too thick. So today we tried Log Cabin which was, we both felt, better. However, the best is real maple syrup which will be on the table for our next pancake or waffle meal. Tonight we are having tacos a quick and easy meal. B got some nice tomatoes the other day so we will have them along with the chips, onions, lettuce, cheese and taco meat sauce. YUM  See not cute or breezy :)
   It's cloudy but the temperature got up to the upper 30s/low 40s and some of this messy snow/ice melted. Cold temperatures this week starting tonight but no snow in the forecast for the week - at least not yet!