I love eggs and eat them often for dinner. Usually, I eat eggs when I’m being lazy, but I decided to make a slightly fancier egg dinner. It was simple to make and delicious. If you want a healthier meal, simply omit the hollandaise sauce. I took this opportunity to learn how to poach eggs properly and I tried Julia Child’s Blender Hollandaise Sauce recipe. See my post on How to Poach an Egg here.
I love love love eggs. So, I’m well practiced at soft boiling, scrambling, and making sunny side up and over easy eggs. I even stir fry and steam them in Chinese dishes (recipes in the Asian – Other Asian Foods category). But I never poach them. So when I watched Anne Burrell poach eggs on the Food Network, I figured it was about time that I learned this technique. So I did some research online and pooled together some tips for poaching eggs. I was very excited to learn (from Anne Burrell) that poached eggs can be made ahead of time. Apparently, restaurants do this all the time. So you could easily make several batches of these one day in advance if you’re having guests over for brunch or dinner.
Pictures above: From my Poached Eggs with Asparagus, Prosciutto and Hollandaise Recipe here.
After I discovered that lima beans aren’t bad in a soup (recipe here), I tried eating them whole in a succotash. I was surprised at how much I liked this simple combination of lima beans and corn. This healthy side would be great for a picnic or a barbecue. I paired it with tilapia. My recipe was inspired by the Snapper with Succotash recipe from the Everyday Food magazine subscription that a good friend of mine gave me. This is a simple, one pot meal. One pot meals are perfect for weeknight dinners and this dish cooks in just a few minutes. It was a bit too healthy for me, though, so I added a creamy lemon and dill sauce (recipe here). I wish I could have taken a picture of the sauce poured over the fish, because it looked very pretty, but I accidentally dropped my camera into the sauce and broke it. 😦
These are perfect for entertaining. They taste great, they’re easy to make and they look incredibly elegant for lasagna. Since the lasagna is rolled into individual portions, these are great for pot lucks too.
Picture below right: Before going into the oven.
The texture of tilapia makes it very easy to handle and the thin fillet allows it to cook very quickly so it’s perfect for a quick and easy weeknight dinner. Since it’s such a mild fish, I like to pair it with more flavourful dipping sauces like honey mustard, tartar sauce, or ketchup. I buy tilapia fillets in bulk and freeze them separately. They defrost in no time since they’re so thin, which is another reason I use them for my lazy meals.
Ed used to order chicken parmigiana in restaurants all the time. He hasn’t ordered it since I started making it at home a few years ago. If you want a healthier version, coat the chicken breasts with just one layer of bread crumbs and simply bake the breaded chicken in the oven first. Be sure not to overcook it. Then add the sauce and cheese and throw it back into the oven until the cheese melts.
I caught 4 fish ice fishing at the 2010 Winterlude Festival in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. They were all brook trout weighing between 1/2 to 1 lb each. I steamed the largest fish whole (link to recipe here), pan fried the smallest one until the skin was crispy, and baked the last two small fish in parchment. Baking fish en papillote steams the fish in its own juices along with vegetables in a parchment paper envelope. This is also called fish al cartoccio. The best part about this cooking method is the easy clean up. It’s quick, easy, and very healthy. The fish comes out very moist and sometimes I use this method just to cook my vegetables alone. This is great for entertaining too.
A very nice coworker of mine gave me her pizza stone. It totally made my week 🙂 So for my first time using a pizza stone, I decided to make a “gourmet” pizza. If you don’t have a pizza stone, see the post here for baking instructions using metal pizza pans (link here).
I received a comment asking for pictures of my steaming equipment and technique. So here I show you how I steam food, I discuss other methods of steaming, and I go into detail about the steaming equipment that you’ll need for each method.
Steaming food is very commonly done in Chinese cooking. It’s a very healthy way of cooking as it maintains a lot of the nutrients in vegetables and reduces the amount of oil that you use. It results in tender veggies and moist and juicy meats. I steam cook vegetables, dumplings, whole chickens and fish, pork spareribs, a specific Chinese egg dish, etc. (You can do a search for some of these recipes on my website.)
This is my version of chicken cacciatore. I cook the chicken just until it’s done because I personally don’t like the texture of slow cooked meat. Also, this method cuts the cooking time drastically.
For Valentine’s Day, 2010, I made rosemary lamb loin chops with red wine sauce, wilted baby spinach and whipped potatoes. The link to the recipe for my whipped potatoes is here.
For the spinach, I just heated a tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat and added 3 large handfuls of baby spinach. I cooked them until wilted.
See below for my simple red wine sauce recipe.
This vodka pasta recipe differs from others where you actually light the alcohol on fire (as opposed to slowly simmering the sauce). It’s a very easy and quick recipe and tastes really really good. Just be careful not to get burned (or set your kitchen on fire) because the flames come up pretty high.
Cooking with Alison 