Hollandaise Isn't Hard

I told you I was going to show you a fabulous way to use those leftover egg yolks.  So, I don’t know how many horror stories I’ve heard about hollandaise disaster.  The truth is it’s pretty easy to make, as long as you follow a few simple rules, which I am going to teach you. 

What you’ll need:

4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons water
½ cup (1 stick) butter
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

Place your egg yolks, lemon juice, and water in a bowl.

Whisk it until it gets foamy and light in color. 

Next, you need to melt your butter.  I like to do it in a measuring cup for easy pouring. 

Just microwave it until it’s just melted.  It’s ok if there are still some unmelted bits.   Set it aside and let’s go back to the eggs. 

Rule #1:  Make sure the mixture never gets too hot.  Place the mixing bowl over some barely simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water.  Keep a towel handy so that you can move the bowl off of the heat if it starts to get too warm. 

Rule #2:  Don’t stop whisking.  You want the mixture to become very light yellow and fall in ribbons.  It will probably take about 3 - 5 minutes of fast whisking to get to that point.  When you do, begin drizzling in the melted butter. 

Rule #3:  Add the butter very, very slowly.  Then continue with rule #2.  Whisk, whisk, whisk.  When you’ve reached hollandaise-ville, it will be silky and thick. 

Now is a good time to add your salt and pepper.  I also like herbs in mine.  Fresh parsley, dill, or chives would be fabulous.  I didn’t happen to have anything fresh, so I sprinkled in a little pinch of dried dill. 

If at any point your mixture starts to look slightly curdled or the butter starts to separate, that means your sauce has gotten too hot and is breaking.  Don’t panic.  Immediately remove the bowl from the pan, throw in a couple of ice cubes, and whisk like crazy.  Hollandaise sauce is a fabulous addition to vegetables or fish, but my favorite use is for breakfast.  It’s fabulous on any omelet, but I think the ultimate, all time best dish ever created for breakfast, is eggs benedict.  Granted, I don’t make it the way tradition dictates.  I use ham rather than Canadian bacon, and I scramble the eggs because I’m not big on poached.  However you make it, you’ll be glad you did. 

Seriously, is there anything better?  I could eat that for any meal of the day. 

What’s your favorite thing to eat for a special breakfast?

Carroty Carrot Muffins

One of these days I'll figure out wake up early enough in the morning that I can actually sit down and eat a piece of toast for breakfast. I've never been much of a breakfast person though. This is not to say tht I don't like breakfast foods, or don't eat breakfast. It's just that I need to be up and about for a while before I eat something.

Sleep is a precious commodity in my world. I will take sleep over most other early morning activities. That's why I've got my morning routine down to a 17 minute science. Really sucks on days when the the overnight low was below -20 (i.e. every night from now until April) because I have to get up four minutes earlier to run out in my pajamas to start the car before I start getting ready. And there are still mornings when I'm ready to go before the car is. 2 more years of school. 2 more years. 2 more. 2 ...

Carroty Carrot Muffins

What You Need:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup ground flax seed

• OR 2 cups flour

• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c carrot juice (or orange juice or milk)
• 1/2 c vegetable oil (I used peanut)
• 1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 c honey
• 1 1/2 c grated carrots (at least)

Nope, no sugar at all. And no dairy. These will never be entirley vegan though (even if you did use some kind of egg substitute) because of the honey. Poor little worker bees, working so hard.

What You Gotta Do:

Preheat the oven to 350. (and yes, I really did remember)

In a small bowl, combine the flour, flax seed, baking soda, baking powder, and the salt.

A whisk works well for this.

In a large bowl, dump in everything else except the carrots.

Whisk this all together. The spices really contribute to the colour.

Tip the floury stuff from the small bowl into the wet eggy stuff in the large bowl. Mix this with a whisk. Yes, I know I'm making muffins which only need to be just-mixed. It is possible to merely stir things with a whisk.

What you can't do with a whisk really, though I suppose if you really wanted to you could probably pull it off, is fold. Fold the grated carrots into your just-mixed batter.

The balance of my bag of baby carrots only made for about 2 cups of grated carrots. This recipe can definitely take more than that.

You should end up with enough batter to generously fill 12 muffin cups. (I think I may try this as a snack cake next time. The texture is soft and cake like.)

Bake them for about 20 minutes at 350. Then let them cool a bit before you try taking them out of the pan. If you use the paper cups, you can get them out right away, but I prefer my muffins without cups.

These are fabulous with a bit of cream cheese on them.

This recipe is decidedly not sweet, but it's also not savoury. You could add chocolate chips, dried fruit (I'm thinking chopped apricots would be very tasty in them), or even nuts (weirdo).

You could probably even top them with cream cheese icing and pass them off as a carrot cake. Sneaky.

How do you hide vgetables?