Tarragon, Scallion & Crème Fraîche Egg Salad

Tarragon, Scallion & Creme Fraiche Egg Salad SandwichGrowing up, my mother would religiously (pun somewhat intended) boil off a dozen eggs every year on Good Friday.  We’d color them, put them in our Easter baskets, and come Monday morning, toss them all in the trash.  Well, not quite all–I’d usually work up the courage to try one, gag, and vow to never subject myself to another and one of my brothers would inevitably hide a couple in my closet to be discovered later in the week.

Needless to say, we were not a hard-boiled egg family.  I thought everyone one like us, I thought everyone realized just how disgusting hard-boiled eggs were.  I didn’t realize plenty of people were raised loving egg salad sandwiches and most siblings would fight each over a deviled egg instead of seeing them as something only to be eaten on a dare.

A year or two ago, I made a conscious decision to give hard-boiled eggs an honest try.  I cracked open my “America’s Test Kitchen” cookbook and taught myself the proper way to boil an egg.  I started adding them to salads.  At first, I found them challenging.  Then I found them satisfying.  I even started to crave them and, eventually, I came around to what used to be my worst nightmare: egg salad.

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Bacon, Leek & Crème Fraîche Frittata

Bacon, Leek, and Créme Fraîche FrittataMy Sunday got off to such a promising start.  I rolled out of bed at a leisurely hour, made coffee, and whipped up this frittata.  Matt and I made plans to spend the day playing tourists in our own town and checking out a museum.  Little did I know we’d get a ride home from our fun little date in a tow truck and our “cheap” outing would end with a 4 figure bill.  Oh well, at least the day started on the right foot.

This frittata isn’t anything earth-shatteringly original, just a few ingredients that, when treated with care, come together to make a very good brunch.  The eggs are blended with crème fraîche which yields a frittata that is light and tender with a subtle creamy tang.  The delicate eggs are accented by salty bits of bacon and sautéed leeks.  Hopefully, a month from now, it’ll be the piece of this past Sunday that sticks out in my mind.

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Polenta with Leeks, Endive, Pancetta & Poached Eggs

Polenta with Leeks & Poached EggI’ve always been a big fan of polenta, but with how miserably cold it’s been this winter, I’m turning into a complete fiend.  I think I could eat polenta morning, noon, and night until the day comes (probably sometime in late May) when I can step out my front door without seeing my breath and wearing fewer than 10 layers of clothing.

My latest go-around was a bowl of very creamy polenta topped with sautéed leeks and endive, crispy pancetta, and a runny poached egg.  It makes an excellent stick-to-your-ribs sort of breakfast, a great just-came-in-from-shoveling lunch, or an excellent I’m-going-to-find-comfort-in-this-warm-bowl-of-polenta-while-I-sit-on-the-couch-wrapped-in-an-afgan-bemoaning-the-fact-that-I-live-this-freaking-tundra dinner.

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Sausage, Fennel & Gruyère Miniature Egg Stratas

Sausage, Fennel, and Gruyère Mini Egg Stratas Pecan and apple pie aside, if I had to choose just 1 thing to load my plate with on Thanksgiving, it would be the stuffing.  I mean, as a carb-aholic what’s not to love?  And you can have so much fun with it!  Herbs, sausage, nuts, veggies, I can’t wait…

…except this year, I won’t be spending Thanksgiving on American soil.  I doubt I’ll have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner unless I figure out a way to cook turkey and stuffing on a 2 burner cooktop in a teeny studio apartment.  But I couldn’t let a year go by without experiencing the essence of Thanksgiving so I concocted these stuffing-inspired egg strata muffins.  They’re made with sausage, sautéed fennel and onions, Gruyère, and toasted bread, soaked overnight in a rich egg custard.  They walk a thin line between strata, savory bread pudding, and something Matt refers to as “cowboy breakfast” and the rest of us simply call “egg bake”.  And for me, they taste exactly like everything good about the holidays, wrapped up into 1 neat little package.  

So, of course, it tastes good, but here’s the other reason everyone loves strata: it’s assembled the night before you serve it, which means you get to brunch without busting out a mess of bowls and pans first thing in the morning.  And if that’s not good enough, these mini stratas bake in half the time of a big strata.

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Oyster Mushroom & Potato Salade Lyonnaise

Salade Lyonnaise with Oyster Mushrooms & Potatoes

So far, 2013 is going pretty well for me.  We’re only 2 weeks in and I’ve already accomplished several of my goals for the year:

I have a clean, organized office.

I’ve been doing more than sit in the sauna when I go to the gym.

I’ve actually been keeping up on laundry and making the bed.

I’ve been baking bread.

I finally learned how to poach an egg.

Yes!  Now I can make a real salade Lyonnaise instead of copping out and insisting that “it tastes better with a fried egg, anyway”.

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