Poach Pod Eggs

DH has no health issues. The man has no blood pressure, pulse, or cholesterol in his body! He can eat anything in any quantity. But does he? Oh, no. He has a built-in radar for portion control. And he claims to be watching his fat and sugar intake. He is invisible sideways and yet weighs himself every day. He tells people he exercises 5 hours a day so he can eat the food I make.

Given that he is a health nut, I try to cook healthfully for him. He does love eggs, so he was one of the first to applaud eggs being removed from the “bad for you” foods list the Food Gods designate every other day. But I don’t make eggs often. Eggs have been more of a company thing around Chez Moi. I use dozens in baking and my quiches (See a previous post for my fab recipe, she says modestly.), but not so much to just eat. Why is that?

Well, first, we eat few fried anythings, so eggs would be on that no-no list. I grew up with fried eggs. Fried in the leftover bacon fat so they were especially tasty. I thought there were only two ways to make eggs—fried and coddled. No, I don’t do fried. I’ve spent years in therapy trying to repress those memories.

I do remember Big Ma making “coddled eggs” when we were sick. Only time she’d do it. It almost made being sick worth it.

When I grew up, I learned that coddled eggs were poached eggs. I figure Big Ma called them “coddled” because she had to treat them so gently as she’d slide them into the boiling water and ever-so-carefully so as not to break the yolk lift them out and onto a piece of waiting toast. Good eats, those eggs! But, it was so hard, there’s no way I’d do them.

Fast forward to my life now. Somebody else’s mother made coddled eggs. And somebody else realized these took skill and experience to pull off. Since, they say, Invention is a mother . . . or something like that, somebody else figured out how to make poached/coddled eggs without breaking yolks all over the pan and without all those stringy little white threads (that we’re told is where the real nutrition is) messing up the water. Cleaning the pan is not a problem with somebody’s invention.

Do you know about Poach Pods? Well, I love them. I can give DH poached eggs any day he wants them now. I don’t even whine about the extra work. (See his normal breakfast is to pull out two kinds of high fiber cereals and add blueberries and strawberries with the milk. No sugar, of course.)

But back to Poach Pods. They are little silicone pouches that sort of look like bra inserts. You Pam them a little, put them into a pot of boiling water, break in an egg, and wait for them to be the doneness you like. Lift them out, pour off excess water that bubbled into the pouch, and slide it onto an English muffin or toast. They clean up in a snap, and the water pan is just water so it air-dries, and I am done.

I love gadgets. Have I mentioned that before? But Poach Pods are more than a gadget. They make DH think I really care.

[You can buy Poach Pods in catalogs or from Amazon at http://amzn.to/w6th1]

Tweat Tweets

I have been having the best time tweeting recipes @good2tweat, one of my two Twitter accounts. (The other, just in case you’re interested, is @RomanceRighter.) My “tweats” are a fabulous word puzzle for a word freak like me. I have taken to trying to convert everything I cook. Impossible, you say? Well, you’re right. But the fun is in the trying! 140 characters and that includes spaces and punctuation.

I was inspired in this new endeavor by Maureen Evans, author of Eat Tweet, the first to ever tweet recipes. I’m going to shut up now, and what follows are some of the “tweats” I have finished. More show up at Twitter, and some others will no doubt show up here later.

Hpy ckng!

Caramelized Veggies: Toss carrots, tomatoes, onions, parsnips, celery, and potatoes c EVO. Roast at 500° for ~35 min or until brown.

Gelato 2cmlk/1c cr+4egylk/.5csug Beat egz/sug 2 froth Wrm mlk/cr 2 foamy Slo por egz n2 mlk Ck 2 thck Sieve Chil ovnit N2 icecr mach Srv~4

[Re gelato recipe here: add in mint flavor + choc chips, ribbons of caramel, pecans, or other favorites to flavor it up for yourself.]

Savory Butter Plse n mini fd proc .5cbtr/3T bell pep/1grn onion/1clv garlic. Srv 1T on cookd meat. Sprd bread or Portbell shrooms n grill

BldMry 1.5oz vodka/.5c tom jus/2t lmn jus/Wrcstershr+Tabsc 2 taste. Mix c 1c ice+s+p. Shake & strain n2 glass of ice + celery stlk+lmn wedg

Black Bottom Cupcakes-pt 1 Mix 1.5c flr/1c sug/.3c cocoa/1t bs/.5t salt/.3c oil/1T vinegar/1T van. Beat. Put n muf pan ~18 1/3 full batter

BlackBottomCupcakes-pt 2 Mix 1c cr ch/1 egg/.3c sug/1/8t salt+1c choc chps. Top batter c 1 heaping t cr ch mix. Bake 350° 30m +/-

Lftovr prime rib, mash taters, grvy, peas/carrots? Shepherd'sPie! Layer meat, grvy, vegs. Cvr c mash pot & bake til bubbly and brown top.

Yorkshire Pudding 2cflr/2cmilk/4egz/2t salt+2T bf fat. Heat fat 2 bbl @400°. Blendr flr/milk/egz/salt. Por n2 pan. Bk til puft n gldn ~30 m.

CreamPuff Shell: Boil 2c H2O/1cbttr. Str n 2c flr. Cool. When cold+6egz 1 at a time. Beat 5 m ea. Tspfl on grsd pn aprt. Bk 425°~15m

CreamPuff Fill: 3T flr/1T cold milk Mix 2 smooth+1c cld mlk. +1 btn eg/1c sug+1t van Boil til thick Cool Slit puff, fill c 1t Sprnk pwdsug

Bruschetta Spaghetti 8 Roma tom/3 minst grlc clv/1 sliced grlc clv/2T evoo/3T chopt basil Mix. + 2T Asiago. Toss c 1# al dente whl wht pasta

Quik Marinara 2cns diced tom c garlic n basil/sm can tompaste/.5 onyn/4clv garl mnced/2clv garl slced/1c rd wine. Sim 2hrs. + 5T frsh basil

Leftover spaghetti? Saute 3 chopt grn onions/2 minced garl clv/2 sliced garlic cloves in 3T evoo. Fry til gar/onyns soft. Toss c hot pasta

Now you try it! Choose a fam fave dish and “tweat” it in comments.

Good Eats or Good PR???

So many of my writing friends have confided, that, like moi, they sometimes feel like frauds. They claim to be authors, but this niggling doubt, this negative editor-in-the-head hoots in laughter which they try to quiet before the whole world hears. That same guy lives in the side of my brain where cooking happens.

I claim the identity “author” loudly and often. Mostly that is to reassure myself, not necessarily to inform anyone else. But I have recently come to consider the same fraudness might be taking over my cooker identity as well. Yikes! I need these guys to move out of my head so I can do what I do.

Now, to be fair, I have never claimed “chef”, Heaven forbid. I don’t even claim “cook”. I call myself a “cooker”. A good cooker, or so I tell everyone.

I always offer to have the party at my house. I love hosting meetings. It is a chance to shine, to bask in the warmth of their admiration, that I, a busy writer, takes the time to whip up delectables simply because they showed up at my house.

I take cookies to play rehearsals. Partly it is to clean out the stuff from my house so I don’t get even fatter, but, truth be known, I like that they like my food.

And who would argue that I cook well? Surely not the people I’ve worked my PR magic on, telling them how much I love to cook, telling them how I develop recipes, showing off my cookbook collection, asking them to sample potential Pillsbury Bake-Off entries!

So, am I as good a cooker as I claim, or is it smoke and mirrors, the kind of PR Madison Avenue has trained me in so well? Say something often enough, and people will come to believe it is true.

I just had one such meeting at my house. People said they loved my quiche, but was it the golden mound they saw emerge from the oven sitting beside two kinds of muffins that convinced them it was wonderful? Or was it, really, the food?

Here is my basic recipe for quiche. Try it and tell me what you think. Am I a fraud good cooker?

Sharon’s Quiche

1 piecrust

1 ½ c Asiago cheese, shredded, divided

8 strips crisp bacon, chunked

3 c fresh spinach (or 1 c cup asparagus, broccoli, etc.)

3 green onions

1 c chopped mushrooms

8 eggs

2 c heavy cream

1 t nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400°. Put piecrust in pan and sprinkle bottom with ½ c Asiago cheese. Put bacon pieces over cheese. Put veggies on top of bacon.

Whisk together eggs and cream. Add nutmeg. Mix in ½ c cheese. Pour over veggies. Sprinkle last ½ c of cheese over the top. Bake for 1-1 ½ hours until risen, brown, and done in middle (insert knife to check when middle doesn’t jiggle when you move pan).

Mongolian Hotpot--The Girlfriend Test

Well, that’s what we called it. Sounded foreign, exotic. If the label alone scared off the girl, all the better. Who needs vapid genes? I go for intrepid every time. When one has sons like Brooklyn and Chicago, one needs to be watchful. Like their father (except in one notable instance), they go for cute.

Before Brooklyn met and married London and when Chicago was still living at home, we had a test for new girlfriends. Or rather I had a test. DH could care less. Is she cute? Can she carry on a conversation? Stuff like that is all he cares about. He might diss the girl later, but he wasn’t into testing her limits. I definitely was. After all, this could be the future mother of my grandchildren. What’s she made of?

Okay, I’ll admit that starting the test when the boys were dating at 16 may have been, well, premature, but that meant that I had perfected my testing skills by the time things were likely to get serious.

In the interests of supporting mothers of sons who are dating, I am sharing this simple test with you. Two words. Mongolian Hotpot.

I have absolutely no memory of where this originated. Maybe we had it at a restaurant and I said, as I usually do, “I can make that!” Or maybe people in a novel I read dined on it. Beats me.

The upfront work of prepping veggies is a bonus. You get to spend more time grilling the girl than slaving away in the kitchen. All is done before the little thing arrives. That allows lots and lots of conversation before dinner. By the time the sweat beads appear on her trembling little lip, you are ready for the final test: Mongolian Hotpot.

Simply put, I heat broth of some flavor with onions, carrots, and mushrooms and let it cool down. I strain out the veggies and it is ready to reheat again to boiling in a fondue pot set in the center of the dining table alongside the plate of veggies and bowl of brown rice.

Also prepared in advance are the veggies: green onion stalks, whole mushrooms, bean sprouts, spinach leaves, celery and carrot matchsticks, and thin slices of chicken, shrimp, and beef. Put a loaf of bread out, and voilà, dinner is served.

Each person skewers what heesh would like to start with and lets their fork sit in the boiling broth until done to taste. Sometimes one loses one’s food and has to go fishing for it. And of course, your food comes in contact with others’ food, and might be considered, by the squeamish, to be contaminated. How well does the young woman cope with the fishing and the touching? I watch. What does she choose? I watch. Can she carry on a conversation while fishing? I watch.

London passed the test, even though she is not an adventuresome eater, so we welcomed her into our family. Chicago has a new girlfriend, Minnie, whom I am eager to test. Could it be why Chicago has not brought her home yet? Nah? He doesn’t know about the test? Does he?

What Makes a Recipe a New Recipe?

Nancy the Nun, DH’s sister (I mean really—she’s a sister sister!) was visiting us recently from one of those states with old mountains—Tennessee, Kentucky, you know, one of them. And I was cooking away. It’s what I do.

Of course one tries to do one’s best to feed one’s sister-in-law sister. Who knows what pull she might have for, er, later? So I was whipping up something I am trying out for a possible entrant into the Pillsbury Bake-Off (PBO)and she asked what I thought was a naïve question.

In my previous professional life, the term “naïve question” meant a question asked by someone specifically to stimulate thinking and thoughtful response. A planned question. It was purposeful and not really meant to elicit a specific answer.

Now, that’s not what Nancy the Nun’s question was. She just was curious and wanted to know. She didn’t really care that she kick-started my aging brain.

She asked, “What makes a recipe new? How do you know?”

Beats me!

I am always inventing culinary experiences that I call new recipes. But are they?

So here’s what I told her. Chime in below in the comments section to enlighten me if I misspoke.

I look around in my cupboards, refrigerator, freezer, counter tops—wherever food might lurk—and decide what’s for dinner. Or what I might want to enter in the PBO. I put it together in what my taste bud in my head thinks will be a delectable combo. (Mostly I’m right—mostly—hey, everybody can have one or two or . . . well, some less successful experiences.)

I have on occasion gone to www.allrecipes.com and typed in ingredients to see what their recipe bank suggests. But that is rare. Typical behavior for me? Wing it!

Do I know if my recipe is original? No. But I call it original because my proportions and ingredients are unlikely to match another’s recipe exactly. Could I hunt for it to see if it’s original? Probably. The web is amazing that way. Still, why go to the bother?

Unless you are entering your recipe in the PBO, that is. My guess is they have a whole team of scourers (not cleaning people) who search the All Recipes site and others hunting for those who have ripped off other peoples’ work.

They exist, sadly. We see them in these blogs all the time. I work hard at giving credit where credit is due. But, I may inadvertently claim something as mine that is not.

After all, cookies will have flour and sugar and butter in certain proportions. Is it plagiarizing to take a basic cookie recipe and change the additional ingredients and then call it your own? I don’t think so.

Basic chemistry requires proportional cooking. That can’t be copyrighted. Ideas can’t be copyrighted. Only text. And making a significant percentage of change to textual ingredients should be okay to claim originality. Right? Or do you think I’m wrong?

Food Porn

Who would have suspected I would succumb? Searching for sites that showed luscious curves, moistly exposed. Artistically displayed against a background meant to enhance their wares. Food porn. A field I was only vaguely aware of until I began connecting, social-media wise.

Did you know what a big deal it is? I mean, all of us foodies have heard about “food stylists”, those guys/gals who stage food for magazine shoots. Sure. And the rumor is it isn’t even food. Just painted plastic meant to look like food. But I never believed that. Like Santa, magazine food is real food. How could they fool an amateur like me?

But “food porn” is the term all over the foodie sites referring to the sinfully richly displayed recipes my virtual friends are making. And they enter these photos in contests and send them off to magazines for publication. Who knew?

Typing “food porn” into Google yielded 19, 900, 000 hits! Wikipedia offers a definition. “Food Porn Daily” (at http://bit.ly/1w7ftl) is a site telling you everything you need to know about it. And the pictures. OMG! Stop licking your screen!

A quote on their site from The New Yorker says it best: “The point is to get very close to what you are filming, so close that you can see an ingredient’s ‘pores’ (You should believe the dish is in your living room), which then triggers some kind of Neanderthal reflex. If you’re flicking from channel to channel and come upon food that has been shot in this way, you will be hardwired as a human being to stop, look, and bring it back to your cave.”

Well, we all do know that this is one area of food in which I have little interest in pursuing—except as a voyeur. There is something delightful about coming across a photo of Oreo Smash in its blue bowl that makes we want to bite into my computer screen. (Visit Amy’s “Very Culinary” blog at http://bit.ly/19jPGA and scroll down.) That is one beautiful picture.

Or happen upon Recipe Girl’s Fudgy Caramel Brownies (at her blog http://bit.ly/EU6pg) and tell me you didn’t almost stick out your tongue to catch a drip of that caramel.

Do you think you could get your family to eat green chips? Take a look at the Crispy Kale Chips (at Laura’s Best Recipes at http://bit.ly/10KDoy) and tell me you don’t think they look tempting.

Or Ethan Adeland’s “Tastes Better with Friends” (http://bit.ly/a5NbMI) Potato Leek Soup photographed in a snow bank and his astounding Cherry Snowball cookies from his grandmother’s cookbook. Yum, yum!

And Reader, these are merely a few of the food porn opportunities that await. You’ll be bringing a fork and spoon to your computer once you discover food porn sites. And telling people that you, a highly respectable parent/teacher/crossing guard/librarian/contractor/file clerk, are into porn—well the look they’ll give you will just be the cherry on the top of your delight!

Correction Alert! Wild Cinnamon and Cup Cakes

I added more to the previous post than was needed. Drop the "e".

The microwave chocolate cake recipe belongs to Ethan Adeland at "Tastes Better with Friends". You can follow him on Twitter @EthanAdeland

My apologies to you and Ethan. I really hate to spell someone's name wrong. My bad. My really, really bad!