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orange chocolate chip muffins to go

Posted by Stacy · 1 Comment 

Normally I don’t make muffins. Muffins are one of those in-between foods: not a bread roll, not a cupcake. I really like cake. I really like bread. I don’t really like muffins.

However, my dad and a friend just drove the rest of my earthly possessions from Minnesota to Southern California. When discussing dates and times with Dad, he oh-so-casually mentioned that Mom was sending treats, but they would probably run out about the time they arrived at my place. Subtle, Dad, subtle.

orange chocolate chip muffins

I sent them a good amount of caramel corn, but I wanted to make something else, too. Muffins were good car food, would freeze once they got to their destination, could be breakfast or a snack, and (most important) could be made with ingredients I already had on hand.

There was a single orange destined for my afternoon snack, about half a package of chocolate chips in the cupboard, and your basic flour/sugar/baking powder/milk/egg combo for the batter. Sold!

orange chocolate chip muffins

The chocolate chips I used were Ghiradelli, and while I normally like a darker chocolate with orange, I thought the slightly larger size of the chips combined with the stronger flavor was a little over-powering for the delicate citrus muffins. At one point I had considered tossing in some dried cranberries, and that may have been a better instinct. Mini-chips might be good, too, but I didn’t have any.

For sprinkling the tops I used Sugar in the Raw which is turbinado sugar; I like the coarser sugar for crunch. The crunchy sweet top and subtle orange flavor were quite good. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate in muffins, so I would have liked them better without, I think. The original recipe also has an optional addition of coconut which sounds nice, but A) I didn’t have any coconut and B) Dad doesn’t like it. Maybe I will try them again and see if I like muffins more than I used to…

orange chocolate chip muffins

Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins

Adapted from King Arthur Flour
Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup white, milk, or semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon orange oil OR zest of one large orange
coarse sugar for sprinkling

Directions:
1.) In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir in chocolate chips.

2.) In a small mixing bowl, combine milk, vegetable oil, egg, and orange oil or zest. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir for about 20 seconds. Lumps are ok — do not overmix.

3.) Preheat oven to 400F. Lightly grease or line with paper cups 12 muffin tins. Fill each cup 2/3 full of batter. Sprinkle the top with 1/2 teaspoon of coarse sugar.

4.) Bake at 400F for 18-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool in pan 5 minutes; remove to a wire rack and let cool completely.

orange chocolate chip muffins

January 18, 2010 · Tagged with , ,

breakfast, food

smoked salmon eggs benedict, part 3: hollandaise sauce

Posted by Stacy · Leave a Comment 

Hollandaise is often listed as one of the five “mother sauces” in cooking. I would also say it is one of the most delicious sauces in cooking. Kids won’t eat asparagus, broccoli or Brussels sprouts? They will if you cover them in Hollandaise. You can dip the leaves of steamed artichokes in it, or top breakfast hash with it. Just use it sparingly.

Hollandaise sauce isn’t hard to make, it’s just easy to ruin. People tout mixes (ew) or blender versions using melted butter as being easier, but I feel like that just dirties more dishes. All you need is a knife, a saucepan, a whisk, 20 minutes, and this recipe: 3-2-1.

3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 stick of butter (cold)

I did not get process photos because I was busy stirring and didn’t have my camera in the kitchen. Sorry!

Separate your eggs. Put the 3 yolks in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and whisk together.

Now to the side, take your stick of cold butter and cut it into tablespoon-sized pats. Stretch your stirring arm, and here we go!

Turn the burner on low — on my crazy stove, I only put it on warm. Add a pat of butter and stir until the butter is completely melted. Then add the next pat of butter. Stir until that pat is melted, and repeat.

It will take a while. You should be able to touch the pan without burning yourself, that’s how low the heat should be. If the pan gets too hot, the butter will overheat and cook the eggs giving you scrambled eggs and curdled sauce. That is not what we want. If the butter gets too warm, the sauce will start to separate. If that happens, remove the pan from the burner and whisk as fast as you can to try to save your emulsion. Turn the heat down before returning the pan to the burner.

Once all the butter is in, keep on stirring until the sauce thickens. It should be smooth and custard-like. Remove from heat and spoon over everything!

hollandaise sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

Makes enough for 6-8 people’s eggs Benedict, or 4 people’s eggs Benedict plus veggies the next day

Ingredients:
3 eggs yolks
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, cold

Directions:
1.) Place egg yolks and lemon juice in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Whisk to combine. Slice butter into tablespoon-sized pats and set next to the stove.

2.) Turn burner on as low as possible and add butter, one pat at a time, waiting until each pat is totally melted before adding the next. Stir constantly.

3.) When all butter is added, continue stirring over low heat (you should be able to touch the side of the pan comfortably) until the sauce thickens. Serve immediately.

4.) Store leftovers covered in the fridge for up to a week. To reheat: (in the microwave) Microwave in 5 second bursts, stirring well each time until sauce is smooth. (on the stove) Place in a saucepan over very low heat, stirring constantly until sauce is smooth. Or, spoon cold sauce over hot vegetables and it will melt over them.

Now we can assemble our eggs Benedict!

Slice your biscuit in half, lengthwise. If you made them earlier, you can toast it.

Put a slice of smoked salmon on top (ours came from Costco).

Carefully balance a poached egg on top of that. Cover in Hollandaise sauce.

smoked salmon eggs benedict

These photos are from a round of leftovers, so I put the sauce on cold and let it melt on my hot eggs. Shh.

smoked salmon eggs benedict

Yum.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, traditional eggs Benedict is half a toasted English muffin, Canadian bacon, a poached egg, and Hollandaise. According to Wikipedia, there are a number of delicious-sounding alternatives.

The biscuits, poached eggs, and sauce can all be made in advance and reheated just before assembly and serving, so don’t think you have to get up at dawn to prepare these for brunch! Serve with a nice citrus salad or juice to combat the richness of the dish.

Just be careful to whom you serve these, or you may find yourself hosting brunch a lot more often…

December 28, 2009 · Tagged with , , ,

breakfast, food

smoked salmon eggs benedict, part 2: poached eggs

Posted by Stacy · 2 Comments 

Poached eggs are one of those things that I am always surprised when people think they are hard to make. They are not. I eat them for breakfast almost every day — and my cholesterol is just fine, thank you.

The trick is to use fresh eggs. If you plan to poach eggs, try to buy eggs that day or the day before, preferably from the farmer’s market. There are some awesome farm fresh eggs at the markets in Minnesota; I have yet to find any within a reasonable distance in San Diego. If nothing else, take a minute and dig to the back of the egg case at the grocery store for the package with the latest “fresh by” date on it. Old eggs are just going to spread in the pan and frustrate you. Fresh eggs. Trust me.

You will need a pan filled with at least one inch of water. I use a small non-stick frying pan for easier clean up. In these pictures, I poached two eggs. I have the same pan in a larger size that I used to poach four eggs at once. Add your water and heat it over medium to medium-high heat until bubbles start to form. Some people like to add a splash of white vinegar, but I don’t find it necessary. I won’t judge you, though.

simmering water

It shouldn’t be boiling, but a little simmer is fine. The eggs will cool the water off a little anyway.

Grab your eggs. Some people like to break the eggs into a small bowl and slide them in from there. If you’re more comfortable that way, go ahead! I like to crack my eggs using the back of a knife which helps avoid bits of shell and such, so I just break them gently into the simmering water. But don’t dip your knuckles in the hot water when doing this. I’ve heard it can be unpleasant.

cracked egg

So, eggs. Crack. Slide gently into the water.

slide eggs into water

You can see a few bubbles on the sides of the pan, but our water isn’t super hot. I turn the heat down to medium-low at this point. The whites are already starting to set.

Now for the hard part: don’t touch them. Just let them cook. You can see my eggs are completely submerged. If the top of your yolk peeks out a little, don’t worry. Once the eggs are almost done, you can splash a little water on top of the eggs until the very top is cooked. This should take 3-5 minutes.

let them simmer

Now you can see the whites are mostly set. Use a spoon to splash water over the tops of any exposed yolks. You can skim the floaty bits out, too. These were a little too thin to fish out. The eggs aren’t quite ready, though. The problem is that once they look opaque, people want to pull them out, but the white next to the yolk isn’t cooked through, yet. Eww.

At this point, I take my slotted spoon and carefully dislodge the egg from the bottom of the pan. This will save us from the possibility of the runny delicious yolk leaking all over the pan later. I also lift up the egg to see if the white feels set. If the yolk looks “loose” in the surrounding white, it’s not ready. If the yolk itself jiggles a little but the white stays put, it’s done!

Now, if I have a bigger pan (or plan to make a second batch), I carefully scoop out the eggs using my slotted spoon and set them on a paper towel to absorb excess water — we don’t want soggy biscuits. Since I only made two, I carefully poured the water out into the sink, leaving the eggs there. Then I set them back on the warm (but off) burner to evaporate the water underneath. I’m lazy.

pour off water

When the bottom of the pan looks pretty dry, I can rescue my eggs to layer with my biscuits and protein. Yum. See how the white is solid around the yolk?

poached egg

Voila! Poached eggs. Simple and delicious.

We have biscuits, we have smoked salmon (courtesy of Costco and my in-laws), we have poached eggs. Tomorrow, we will drown this bad boy in Hollandaise sauce and die happy have some serious breakfast!

Poached Eggs

  1. Fill a saucepan with an inch or so of water. Bring water to a bare simmer over medium to medium-high heat.
  2. When bubbles have formed but water is not boiling, gently slide eggs into the pan. Reduce heat to medium-low.
  3. Leave eggs to cook for 3-4 minutes. Skim any frothy bits from the surface of the water.
  4. Use a slotted spoon to dislodge the eggs from the bottom of the pan. Lift an egg with the spoon to check if the white is set around the yolk. If the yolk moves easily, let the eggs cook another minute. If the yolk jiggles only in the center, the eggs are done.
  5. Pour the water very carefully out of the pan, or just scoop the eggs out of the pan with a slotted spoon onto a paper towel and pat dry.
  6. Serve immediately or move immediately into a bowl of cold water for up to 24 hours, then heat in a warm water bath before serving.

Poached Egg on Foodista

December 28, 2009 · Tagged with , , , ,

bread, breakfast, food

smoked salmon eggs benedict, part 1: baking powder biscuits

Posted by Stacy · 4 Comments 

One family tradition which my husband tries to apply to as many holidays as possible is having eggs Benedict for brunch. It used to be an Easter treat, then started expanding to Mother’s Day, birthdays that fell on weekends, then any Sunday we could find an excuse to eat brunch at home. Like being hungry.

We were planning to have eggs Benedict for Christmas Day, but my husband had to work early enough in the morning that it would be tough to fit a sit-down breakfast in before he had to leave for work, so we had it on Christmas Eve morning when he had an extra hour before work started.

Eggs Benedict is only complicated because it has multiple elements that must be assembled, and it uses Hollandaise sauce. All the individual elements can actually be prepared in advance and plated just before serving. I am breaking the process up into several posts for ease of reading.

smoked salmon eggs benedict

In honor of our first coastal holiday, we decided to use smoked salmon in place of the standard Canadian bacon (also because I eat salmon but not ham). You could also make it Florentine by using sauteed spinach, or replace it with a crab cake (yum!).

The other part we switched up is we replaced the English muffin base with a nice flaky biscuit. I have used refrigerated biscuit dough for this, but for this round I just made my favorite baking powder biscuit recipe. We have found that a biscuit is softer and tastier than most English muffins. To be fair, I considered making English muffins, but I was too tired.

Biscuits!

Like pie and tart crusts, biscuit dough starts with dry ingredients, then cold butter is cut into the mixture before the wet ingredients are added. The small pieces of butter melt in the oven creating pockets of air which create flaky layers in the biscuits. Yum. Flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder are the dry ingredients. For moisture, you can use milk, buttermilk, or water. I have nothing against buttermilk, I just never have any on hand. I realize you can mix milk and lemon juice or vinegar, but I just use milk most of the time.

This particular recipe is from King Arthur Flour. I use it all the time as a base for variations (I’ve used part whole wheat flour, added herbs and cheese, cut them or hand-formed them, etc.), and it’s an easy recipe to scale. The original recipe makes 12 biscuits. Often, I make 1/6 of the recipe and have 2 biscuits with soup for dinner by myself. For eggs Benedict, I slice each biscuit in half, so 1/3 to 1/2 of the recipe should be just perfect.

Also, I don’t have a biscuit-cutter, so while I normally divide the dough and hand-form them, I wanted a more uniform shape for these. I flipped a drinking glass upside down and used that for a 3″ diameter circle, and it was the perfect size for my base layer.

baking powder biscuits

My dough was a little thin, so I took the extra bits and smooshed them on the top of each biscuit. I didn’t quite get them as flat as possible, so they puffed into little hats during baking.

baking powder biscuits

Oops. Lesson learned.

Baking Powder Biscuits

Adapted from King Arthur Flour
Makes 6 biscuits

Ingredients:
1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons butter, cold
½ cup milk, buttermilk, or water

Directions:
1.) Preheat oven to 425F. Add flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar to a medium mixing bowl and whisk to combine. Cut butter into small pieces and add to dry ingredients. Cut into flour mixture using a pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add liquid all at once and mix gently for about 20 seconds.

2.) Turn the dough out onto a clean floured surface and shape gently into a rectangle about ¾ of an inch thick. Fold the dough into thirds (like a letter going in an envelope) and use a rolling pin to roll it back to about ¾ of an inch thickness again.

3.) Lightly dust a baking tray with flour. Use a round cookie or biscuit cutter to cut out circles of dough, or cut the dough into 6 equal squares, and place them on the floured tray. Bake 15-20 minutes at 425F until lightly browned.

baking powder biscuits

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December 27, 2009 · Tagged with , , ,