Eggs Benedict w/ Smoked Salmon

Today was my first time ever trying to poach an egg. I used the directions in The Silver Spoon on how to poach an egg. We didn't have white wine vinegar so I used rice vinegar. I thought red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar might make the egg white a funny color. The first time I poured the egg into the boiling water the egg white went everywhere and became really frothy in the water. I reread the directions and it says to "plunge" each egg into the water. Brian worked on plunging and his poached eggs looked more like the real deal. It was fun.

For the hollandaise sauce I also used the recipe from The Silver Spoon. I think I can improve on the hollandaise, but I'm not sure how. Maybe it needed a little salt or more lemon juice.

It was great making a wonderful breakfast from stuff we had on hand. (Okay, Brian did have to go get some smoked salmon. But it was only a short block a way. Oh the joy of New York City!)

Assembling the Benedict:

toasted english muffin
smoked salmon
poached egg
salt & pepper
hollandaise sauce

I served it with a side of fresh tomato slices and orange juice.

Delicious!

Rating: 6
(Good, but the hollandaise sauce needs improvement.)

The Silver Spoon, p. 354 (directions on poaching eggs)
The Silver Spoon, p. 59 (hollandaise sauce)

Tacos de Salpicon de Pescado (aka Fish Tacos)

Yesterday I really wanted fish tacos. Good fish tacos are so hard to find in Manhattan. The only place we have found that we like is all the way in SoHo. We have traveled there just for the tacos at times. Since I love a good fish taco and I can't find a decent one in my neighborhood I have been experimenting some.

I made homemade pico de gallo salsa (I learned how from Marilyn). Red snapper fillets. (The new fish guy at Fairway had never skinned a fish and was a little embarrassed by the pieces of fish when he had finished. I assured him it was for tacos and that's why I asked him to do it--I hate skinning a fish.) I lightly floured (salt and pepper too) the fish and fried it in rippling (not smoking) grapeseed oil. Brian lightly fried the corn tortillas in some canola oil which made them a little more pliable and tasty.

Assembling the taco:

tortilla
spread a little cilantro sour cream
fish
pico de gallo
shredded cabbage

It was so good! I think I needed to add a touch more salt in the end, but excellent overall!

Rating: 9

The basic fish part of the recipe came from Williams-Sonoma: Savoring Mexico. p. 46

Fast Favorites

To continue the celebration of the gas being finally turned back on I made a batch of my wonderful oatmeal chocolate chip cookies yesterday afternoon. The original recipe came from the Quaker Oatmeal box a long time ago (when I was a kid) and is no longer printed on the box. The recipe is the one my mom use to always use but I have since made some modifications to hopefully make it a tad bit more healthy. I reduced the butter and sugars a bit and use whole wheat flour, extra oats, and nuts. They are delicious cookies and Brian claims they are healthy enough to eat for breakfast. No doubt they are an improvement on Cocoa Puffs! Here's my recipe; it makes about 2 dozen.

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (I use Ghiradelli's 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate)
1/2 cups walnuts or pecans

Bake at 375 for about 12 minutes.

The one problem with baking yesterday was it was so hot and humid (92 degrees, 65% humidity) that the oven made our little apartment so hot the rest of the day and the humidity made the cookies really chewy. (I like chewy, Brian likes crunchy.)

Another reason for oatmeal cookies yesterday is we have TONS of oatmeal in the house. A few months ago for some of my science classes we made pinhole cameras. I had asked each kid to bring their own oatmeal box, but they didn't follow directions and brought coffee cans, food boxes, etc. In order to make sure the cameras worked I went out and bought 20 small round boxes of Quaker Oatmeal, emptied them out and turned them all into cameras. Now I'm stuck with a whole lot of oatmeal. Here's a link on how to turn your oatmeal box into a pinhole camera (and some cool photographs): users.rcn.com/stewoody/

For a quick snack we made our favorite hummus. We found the recipe in The Figs Table (one of our favorite cookbooks) a couple years ago. We love the hummus, it is easy and we can usually make it with what we have on hand. Although last night we didn't have our usual whole wheat tortillas (Trader Joe's handmade are the best and the only whole wheat tortillas I like.) for dipping so we used blue corn tortilla chips which weren't as good. Brian just used the chips as a spoon to eat the hummus. The recipe is Quick White Bean Hummus and we usually throw in a can of white beans and a can of chick peas (Goya brand). Although just using the white beans is delicious and makes the hummus lighter than the traditional chick pea hummus.

Rating 10
(Both on the cookies and hummus; recipes we make this often have to have a 10!)

The Figs Table, p. 68

Penne with Saffron

Tonight we made our first recipe from our new cookbook, The Silver Spoon. Penne Gialle or Penne with Saffron. It was excellent. Tonight was a semi special occasion--our cooking gas was finally turned back on after being off for almost three months. Cooking on one little electric burner is not the Carini way.

Back to the penne. We set the pasta water on the stove to boil and realized that the pasta didn't need to be cooked ahead of time, but rather cooked in broth like risotto. It was fun, easy, and tasty. We used saffron threads instead of powder, and we could have put in a little less than we did. The butter sauce was rich and creamy. Isabella loved it with a side of peas.

Rating: 8 (1-10 scale)

The Silver Spoon p. 295