Which came first?

The egg poacher or plastic wrap?

Hmmmm, I am unsure about that one. We had a egg poacher when I was growing up and it had 3 'divots' for the eggs. It had that old 'brown' non stick coating that got scraped off from using a knife to scrape around the egg edges. That was the first way we learned how you don't use metal with non-stick surfaces. Now they are making the silicone forms for you to drop into hot water. Those puppies are NINE bucks for only two! Then they have the plastic containers for the microwave....can you say EXPLOSION?

Trust me when you try this way you will be not only amazed but wondering what took so long for this information to get around?

I found this trick on Dutch Girl Cooking. Kay has many great recipes yet she's limited a few times since she lives in the Netherlands...but she writes often keeping her American friends in mind.

The poaching set up:


Have a small dish and line with plastic wrap. Spray with non-stick spray or brush with vegetable oil.








Crack egg in dish and gather around plastic wrap edges.









Clip around gathers ends. Don't worry about whether or not there is air or not. You can get these clips in a bag from Amazon. I have also seen them at BBB but they aren't sold online.






Gather your chicks on a plate until the water comes to a boil.









Gently place them in the boiling water. Roll them a bit with tongs. Don't obsess about this....they will roll right back. Set timer for 2 minutes. These were large eggs and 2 min was perfect for a 'runny' center.






When the are done, use your tongs to place them on a dishtowel. Keep them close together to keep them hot while you prep your plates for the eggs.







Open the clips and gently take out your eggs. There will be a nice rounded side and a 'not so nice' side. Put the rounded side up.

Here I am using a Arnold's with some bacon slices for a little Eggs Benedict Twist....no english muffin or canadian bacon...but this works!



Of course you have to have the hollandaise! Scroll down to the bottom of this post for another incredibly EASY way to make hollandaise!


Oh, a thing of beauty!




No Fuss Poached Egg
from Dutch Girl Cooking

Egg(s)
*Plastic Wrap for each egg
**Clip(s)
Oil or non-stick spray

Bring enough water to a boil to fully immerse the egg and drop it into the water. Flip it over every minute or so and cook it for about 3 minutes, depending on the size of the egg. My egg was fairly large so I had to boil it for 3 and a half minutes. (I had large eggs and they were perfect @ 2 minutes)

*You can use a ziploc bag if you want but if you poach alot....this could get costly and your egg will be oblong. Shapes are only a concern when you consider what you are putting it on. My mexican dish the oblong was fine....on a round muffin for egg benedict the plastic wrap would fare better. Whatever works for you!

**If you don't have these clips, you can certainly use butcher's twine. The plastic coated 'twisties' may melt ....dunno

Insanely Easy Hollandaise Sauce

3 egg yolks
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
dash hot pepper
1/2 cup butter

Add egg yolks, lemon juice, pepper sauce to blender. Blend about 5 seconds.

Melt butter in microwave until very hot and bubbly. With blender running with egg yolk mixture, pour in bubbling butter in a steady steam. (This is when you turn and remove that little clear knob on the blender top; to keep the mixture from splattering when you add while blending.) Blend until thickened about 30 seconds. Serve immediately!

Great breakfast! I love this cool way to poach eggs! So glad I didn't buy those stupid silicone egg poachers. Thanks Kay!

OMG, this is one of the most controversial posts I've ever written. Half of the comments are rejected from the rudeness!.... so unnecessary.

Be aware of my career.....I am a F.A.C.S. teacher....so I've poached many eggs. This is a suggestion for it to be 'easier' for those who many have difficulty. Am I not allowed to provide alternatives to people? Is comprehension of reading difficult these days?

I am thrilled you that many of you are the master of poached eggs. Realize that so am I. I have to teach to all different levels of cooks in my job....same here. Exactly, what do you accomplish by telling me "Poaching eggs isn't hard" you might as well add YOU IDIOT at the end of your comment.

Those who opt to be "Negatively Anonymous"....you will not be posted.

Dust off that grill...

Pretty soon many of us are going to be grilling maniacs! Cuz summer will be soon upon us and we don't want to heat up the kitchen from the stove being used right? Well I am here to help!

I stumbled upon something I cut out from Kraft over eight years ago that I think we all could use...BBQ sauces with a twist.

So whether you baste your meat, marinate or just use it as a dipping sauce here are some flavor poppin' variations:

BBQ TWISTS

BASE: 1 cup ketchup OR plain BBQ sauce (you got it on sale)

Pick your style below and add to your base of ketchup or plain BBQ sauce...

Southern Style: Add 1/2 tsp. hot pepper sauce and 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
Curry: 2 tsp. curry powder
Mexican: 1- 1/2 tsp chili powder and 1/4 tsp garlic powder
Sweet Onion: 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar, 2 Tbsp dijon mustard and 1 Tbsp. dried minced onion
Southwestern chile: 1 can chopped green chiles, drained
Orange: 2 Tbsp thawed orange juice concentrate, 1 tsp. orange zest and 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
Asian: 2 Tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 tsp minced ginger, 1/4 tsp. garlic powder and 1 Tbsp sesame oil
Cranberry: 1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
Sweet Pineapple: 1 (8 oz) crushed pineapple, drained
Jerk: 2 tsp. allspice, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, juice of one lime, 2 tsp. ground thyme, 1 tsp. minced ginger, 2 cloves garlic minced, 1 tsp pepper, and 1 habanero pepper minced
Honey Mustard: 1/4 cup honey and 2 Tbsp dry mustard

I'm being very Saucy today....

I did an experiment with my 6th graders today. It was a small class so no one would notice if someone became missing or anything....KIDDING.

We made 3 types of sauces today and the group who didn't get food poisoning passed. Hahahaha. Ok enough with the jesting (it is April Fool's Day after all).

Seriously, I wanted my small class of 12 to experience new sauces and different types of pastas. All they know is jarred sauce and spaghetti or macaroni. Since there was 3 cooking groups the sauces we made were meat/tomato , alfredo and pesto. None of them had ever eaten pesto about 3 of them had tried alfredo sauce. With my encouragement the pesto group used cheese tortellini, the alfredo sauce group used orzo and the meat sauce group spinach fusilli.

Of course with our 43 minute time constraint we looked for some 'easy' sauces on allrecipes.com.

Here is what we used:

Easy Alfredo Sauce II
(adapted from allrecipes.com)

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 c. grated parmesan cheese (and we grated it fresh too!)
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp. salt
white pepper

In a medium bowl, beat softened butter and parmesan with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add cream a little at a time, until mixture resembles softly scrambled eggs. (and it DID too!) Toss with hot pasta.

Teacher's notes: When we tossed this with the hot pasta, we did it back in the hot pot and turned on the heat for it was a little 'soupy'. Since we had the time....I had the student keep stirring until it thickened. I think 3/4 c. cream would have been fine. Or some added flour while it was beaten in bowl.

Kids reaction: "This is just like white macaroni and cheese!"

Easy Pesto
(adapted from allrecipes.com)

1/4 cup almonds (we used walnuts)
3 cloves garlic
1- 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/2 c. olive oil
1 pinch ground nutmeg (we omitted this)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c. parmesan (I didn't realize until later this didn't have parmesan and added it while hot)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place nuts on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes or until lightly toasted.

In a food processor, combine nuts, garlic, basil, olive oil, nutmeg, salt, pepper. Process until coarse paste is formed. (I put aside some pasta water in case it was too thick but it was just fine consistency)

Teacher's Notes: I was shocked that this sauce was the overall winner of all three sauce flavors. I thought for sure that the strong flavor of the basil was going to be too much for them.....wow.

Students Reaction: "Man, this is off the hook!" Translation: It is really good.

Lastly, sorry there aren't any pictures today....I know how VISUAL you are now! I was so busy running from kitchen to kitchen that snapping pictures was near impossible. And I forgot!

The last one which was the meat sauce will have to wait for it until next week. The 8th graders are making Lasagna and will be using the same meat sauce recipe...so you will have to tune in next time! I promise pictures for that! The kids are digging their pictures up on the web!

Fusing recipes with your own taste

The best thing about having the skill of cooking under your belt and CREATIVITY in your blood...is taking a recipe from another source and adding your own creativity to it. Sometimes I see a recipe and I don't like a certain ingredient or I have everything in the recipe except for ONE item and I need to substitute....all sorts of reasons to change a recipe sometimes.

It's funny.... some inexperienced adults I run into won't cook something for they don't have one thing in the recipe and they won't even attempt to make it....

Novice Cook: "Oh I saw this cool chicken recipe and I didn't make it because I didn't have those red pepper flakes."
JennyMac: "Do you have black pepper?

NC: "Yes"
JM: "Did you have cayenne pepper?"

NC: "Yes"
JM: "You could have used any one of those to substitute in the recipe. It's not like you didn't have CHICKEN, you know."

NC: "Really? I didn't know. I thought you have to follow a recipe exactly."
JM: "Nope, there are no rules to cooking (not baking, but that is another conversation). Of course, if a recipe tastes badly and you didn't follow it exactly....you don't really know if it was the recipe or your change...but in your case...one small spice that adds ZING...you can keep tasting it until it's to your liking"

NC: "Wow, I should have called you."
JM: *Smiles, with thought bubble.....hmmm, sounds like they were just looking for an excuse to NOT cook*

Oh well. I am not looking to be everyone's 'phone a friend' when they have cooking questions. LOL

[Amazingly enough, I do get more requests for people wanting me to fix their clothes!!! And I am not talking about my close friends.... out of a staff around 80-90 people...occasionally staff I rarely ever see brings me their mending issues. Can you believe that? I always tell them "um you know, pretty much all dry cleaners do this type of stuff." Then they stammer a bit and say "OH, but I would PAY you. I didn't want you to do it for free" Thinking to self....'they want to pay LESS, is what they want' So depending on the mending I do it free of charge...call me stupid but that is just me.(sorry, I draw the line at zippers, I have SOME limits)]

So back to my point of creating recipes that reflect your own tastes. I love the taste of peanuts, sesame oil and hot pepper (plus and minus other ingredients). So many names for this combination: Thai, Satay, Chinese, etc. I am using this recipe starter that I saw on the Food Network on the Cooking for Real Segment and I raised an eyebrow when I heard Sunny keep referring to this recipe as reminesent of her visit to Hawaii....I was like "WTH, that is a first!"
So here was what I pasted and used as a base for the sauce and grilling the Chicken.

Ingredients

• 1 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken stock
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon red chili flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 pounds chicken tenders
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• bamboo skewers

Directions

Combine peanut butter, stock, lime juice, soy sauce, fish sauce, (NOTE: HMM, I don't see this on the ingredient list up there, but I added 1 tsp.) hot chili flakes, cayenne and honey in a small saucepan (I also added a few shakes of sesame oil). Stir to combine and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When peanut butter has melted, season, to taste, with salt and pepper and remove from heat.

Preheat grill.

Skewer chicken tenders, brush both sides with oil and season with salt, pepper and allspice. Grill chicken until it is browned on both sides and cooked through, about 4 minutes per side. Serve with peanut sauce. (Because of the chicken on skewers, some parts of the chicken weren't directly on the grill and took longer to cook. I eventually had to take some foil and cover the skewers for those parts of the chicken strips to finally cook. ( I had my grill on high and it took about 7 minutes per side, they were very moist.)

JennyMac's "TWEAK":

Boil your choice of noodles for your base. Today I am using fusilli (the long type, reminds me of Oodles of Noodles). Bring water to boil and add some chopped garlic. Cook until 'al dente' add your veggie into the pasta if you want. Drain. Toss hot pasta and veggies with butter. Serve with the above recipe and plate.

Tonight's Menu:

Grilled Peanut Chicken with Garlic Butter Fusilli

The sauce made more than we needed. I would prepare only have of the above recipe. I would have preferred the sauce to be a little thinner...but I guess this was better because it didn't drip. LOL. What DEFINITELY needs to improve is my picture taking...But the food tasted great!!!

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Uh mommy, can you do something about that garlic smell on your breath?