{FFWD} Creamy Mushrooms and Eggs

Are you someone who struggles with tastes or textures? Do you cringe if your food touches? If so you might not like this dish. However, if you are willing to try new things, even if it makes your tum a little jittery, you might find that this quick little dish an enticing treat. 

This was a dish that Dorie whipped up before some guests arrived one time. She only had white mushrooms at the time but said that it would be delicious with a variety of types. Since I glanced at the recipe before leaving for the grocery store I only purchased Baby Bellas. Since mushrooms are one of the 4 foods I do not usually choose to consume (the others are black olives, tuna, and cottage cheese)  it didn't really matter to me what kind went into this dish. 

A fun new venture in this recipe was poaching eggs (Ruffly Poached Eggs to be exact). I ate a poached egg in Eggs Benedict once on a cruise but had never before attempted to make them myself. What do you do when you only have press and seal saran wrap and your crafty children have absconded with your kitchen twine? You wrap the top of a snack size zip lock bag with camouflage duct tape of course! I think I have lived in the south too long...feeling a little rednecky...or is that McGyver-y? 

This came together pretty quickly. First I started the water for the eggs. Once the water was almost boiling I tossed the eggs into the water. When you look at the pics you might notice no runny yolks make an appearance. I let them go a little long on purpose so they were really more like a soft boiled egg rather than poached. I do not have a family that is fond of runny yolks. Once the eggs were in the water I started the garlic and shallots in butter and olive oil.  (The recipe did not call for garlic but I added it anyway...shh!) The mushrooms were added next and I was amazed by how much they shrank. I added the heavy cream (a little extra so the sauce would be extra saucy) and let it boil. I convinced Munchkin to make some toast for me as the base. She did great with the first two pieces but the second two were too light. I toasted them again and burned them. The dog was happy. At the end I added in some rosemary..it was supposed to be fresh but I didn't buy any so dried had to suffice.

I do have to admit I almost committed an act of thievery in preparing this dish. The recipe called for fresh mint and my next door neighbor just showed me her chocolate mint plant yesterday! But alas, I just left the mint out and thought maybe I should ask before pillaging my sweet neighbor's garden.

My hubs and I stood in the kitchen as we ate this. His aversion was the slightly wobbly egg and mine was the plethora of mushrooms. Part of the reason for standing in the kitchen was so that our kiddos could not see our reaction to our first bite of Creamy Mushrooms and Eggs. I have to admit I was completely surprised by this. There was, of course, a very strong mushroom taste to it but the rosemary and garlic made it quite tasty. My hubs said that it actually tasted really good it was just getting over the texture. From the other room Munchkin said "Can you make this again tomorrow, only without the bread"? Little Man also did not like the bread. He did eat some of the mushrooms and a couple of bites of egg. I made him eat a banana though since not much made it past his lips.

All and all a win in our house! Make sure to check out the other cooks around the world and how they did with this recipe this week.

{FFWD} Financiers and Cod and Spinach Roulades

Welcome back to another edition of French Fridays with Dorie. Surprise, surprise, I am running late on posting. Last week's recipe was Financiers which sounds like they should be in a bank. Dorie even describes them as little golden nuggets. I baked mine in a mini bundt pan though so they were bigger than a golden nugget...at least bigger than any golden nugget I have ever seen. :)

The Financiers got favorable reviews from my family. No surprise there since to me they tasted quite a bit like Swedish Visiting Cake. My kiddos were thrilled to take these tender little cakes in their lunches for the next couple of days. Many bakers added a little treat like fresh fruit inside and I think I will do the same if I make them again. Bobby said a drizzle of chocolate on top would be good too. I am inclined to agree. :)

This week's recipes was Cod and Spinach Roulades. A roulade is:

A dish cooked or served in the form of a roll, typically made from a flat piece of meat, fish, or sponge cake, spread with a soft...
A florid passage of runs in classical music for a solo virtuoso, esp. one sung to one syllable. (dictionary.com)

Obviously this dish falls under the first category. One of the items needed for this was preserved lemons. I could have made them myself but it would have taken several weeks. So off I went on another journey to find an ingredient. There is a high end area in Middle Tennessee called Green Hills. I have a love hate relationship with that hoity toity area. I love the stores: Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Pei Wei, Godiva. I despise the traffic. If I am going down there I have to make sure I have other things to do so I only have to go once in awhile. Thankfully all of the stores I wanted to check were fairly close together. I checked Whole Foods and Trader Joes with no luck. I went into the mall to pick up my free monthly piece of chocolate from Godiva (oh yes you must go sign up right now) and then remembered Williams Sonoma was in the mall as well. As luck would have it I was able to find the lemons there! All in all it took me an hour to find preserved lemons, unlike the week and half I spent looking for rose extract. :)

I came home and started to put this recipe together. There are three parts: the optional sauce, the filling, and the fish. You can make the roulades up to 4 hours ahead of time and the sauce a day ahead of time. Once I got everything together I realized our school had a spirit night that included karaoke at a yogurt shop. So, my roulades spent the night in the fridge. I don't know if that was the problem with these or it I didn't process them long enough but my husband said it was a little like fish grits. All of us liked the sauce, my daughter really liked the fish and my little guy barely touched it. We all thought the roulades tasted good but the consistency left a lot to be desired. So, I am glad I made these (I got to use my awesome new steamer basket again) but they will probably not make another appearance. The sauce might. Now off I go to find some recipes that include preserved lemon. :) Don't forget to check out the LYL to see how other cooks liked this recipe.

{FFWD} Pierre Hermes Olive Sables

My husband and I have been married for 15 years and we have known each other for 19. That is over half my life. Last year he discovered that I don't like olives. I am not sure why he didn't know before. It probably has something to do with ordering pizza with black olives on it for the last 19 years. I just pick them off. Why don't I insist on the kind of pizza I want? I do on occasion but it doesn't matter that much to me. Pizza gives me horrible heartburn so I usually only eat one slice anyway. This just goes to show though that there is always something new to learn about your spouse, even after ordering pizza together for 19 years....18 years we were just friends the first year we knew each other and didn't really hang out outside of class.

Usually my posts include me stating that my hubs doesn't really like something that went into a recipe and then is usually pleasantly surprised. Well, the tables have turned. Since I despise black olives I was hesitant to try these. However, I popped one of these tender little cookies in my mouth and I was pleasantly surprised! :) My girl said they tasted like sugar cookies and my little man just kept eating them. I did think they needed more salt; I thought the olives would make them saltier. I also kept wondering how these would taste with dried blueberries instead of the olives...hm I see another post in my future.

One of the required ingredients was the yolk of a hard boiled egg. Lucky for me, Easter was Sunday so I had plenty of hard boiled eggs to work with. You had to grate the yolk to be added into the mix later. That was rather messy but done easily enough. I threw the wrapped logs in the freezer and baked them later yesterday afternoon.

This morning I took a bag of these down to our local coffee shop to hand out as samples. Later this afternoon a friend of mine that works there said they were delicious and people would taste one and take another. I don't think they will last long. :) Make sure to check out the LYL to see how other French Fridays with Dorie cooks liked this recipe. You can find the recipe in Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan.

Easter 2012

 I realize this post is a year late, but better late than never right? Last year the egg hunt was right around the time the Hunger Games came out. I was up high while the kids went to hunt. I got a text from my hubs that said "May the odds be ever in your favor!"  Both kids ended up with quite a haul.

 Our annual pics by our tree turned out really cute and it was a nice day for a quick shoot before church. We went with Bobby down to the church where he plays guitar.

Egg decorating is always a fun activity. :) We seem to end up with a different kit every year. :) Coming up...2013. :)

{FFWD} Lemon Steamed Spinach

Way back in 1929 there was a comic strip that introduced Popeye to the world. He gained popularity when  he hit the silver screen and the popularity continued to grow. I remember watching Popeye as a kid and I am sure that has to do with the cartoon that came out in 1978. Popeye.com has all the history you could want to know about this iconic figure! One thing I remember about the cartoon was Popeye popping those cans of spinach open and downing that yucky looking vegetable to make him strong. To be honest, even with that example, I had zero desire to eat canned spinach, or any spinach for that matter. To be even more honest I don't think I had ever actually bought spinach before this recipe called for it...unless I needed it for another recipe.

At the beginning of February I saw a post about Cook the Books: Asian Dumplings. I got the book at the library and had grand intentions of making several recipes and jumping in on the Cook the Books challenge. I even went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and bought this nifty bamboo steamer basket with some of my Christmas money.

Time got away from me, I had to return the cookbook, and I still hadn't steamed anything. Luckily for me I had a recipe for French Fridays with Dorie that included only 3 ingredients: spinach, lemon zest, and olive oil.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to used this new contraption in my kitchen! I was a little confused because it did not come with directions but I was able to find several places online that gave some specifics. One person instructed to line the basket with lettuce leaves to prevent sticking. I figured since I was making spinach that I didn't need to line the basket.

I tossed the spinach and arugula mix into a bowl, zested the lemon, added the olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Before steaming, Munchkin and I kept snagging bites. Delicious! Just the zest and oil alone made this tasty.  The steaming part was incredibly easy in my bamboo steamer basket and it steamed the spinach perfectly.

Once this was steamed I asked for reviews from my 3 food critics. Munchkin loved it, my hubster said "it was much better than he expected it to be", and Little Man said "Why does spinach taste like leaves"?  I really liked this a lot and it think that it will make another appearance in the future. Gone are the days of thinking spinach is just slimy and from a can! Check out the LYL to see how other chefs around the world liked this recipe!

Cookies with Brother

I know I mentioned it is spring break around here but that is for the kiddos, not me. I still had to go teach a class. It was a fun class but it still meant I was away from my kiddos. My hubster was able to bring some work home and work on it on our limping along home computer. While he was working Munchkin and Little Man baked several dozen extra rich double chocolate cookies. I am sure that was not the actual title of the cookies but they were delicious! Did I mention my kiddos are 8 and 10? They rock! :) If they keep this up they will be food blogging before too long!

Spring Break 2013 and 4 Images

 It is spring break around these parts and we are not doing much. Last week we had lunch with friends at Chickfila. My sweet friend Beth and I spent 2 and half hours chatting and letting our far too large for the playground children play giants in the playground. I know, I know we were those moms. But, our kids are well behaved and don't go around knocking over tiny children on purpose. And if there had been little tiny kids in there we wouldn't have let them play in there anyway.

I have grand ideas of the things I would like to do on spring break like: head to the beach, fly to an exotic location, go to Disneyworld. But, alas, those things are not happening this spring break. My kiddos have been quite happy just staying home and playing together...for the most part. They are hoping for a blizzard. The snow flurries we have had the last day and half are just not cutting it.

I believe spring will be here soon!

 Last March June had an image a day challenge. This year she scaled back to 4 themes for the month and you could submit your images to her Art and Writing Facebook Page. The themes were: Practice, Inspiration, Belief, and Creativity. Thinking about the 4 themes was a little challenging to me but I think they stretched me and I think I got some fun pics to go along with each theme. This has also been part of my spring break fun. :)

The clouds inspired me to take this shot out of my window when I was stopped at a red light.

Practice makes perfect!

A simple shot of a blue jay in my tree that I got a little creative with.

Outside of sleeping in and staying in PJ's all day what do you do on spring break? I think we will have lunch with more friends this week. I also need to get a couple of runs in for half marathon training  Munchkin is practicing for solo and ensemble festival. Little man is playing with his toys and we are all reading a bunch. Maybe next spring break we will find someplace to put our toes in the sand. :)