Last weekend my neighbour (take a look at his blog here) gave me a wonderful gift – a treasure box full of goose and duck eggs from the birds he raises near his pond. I was so thrilled, I went straight to the kitchen and began to plan an egg based menu for the week ahead. Eggs are such a staple in my kitchen, I get a little apprehensive if our egg stock is running low. I know if I have eggs, I can quickly whip up any number of easy meals on busy weeknights when I’m running late or other dinner plans fall through – and I frequently do.
Continue reading “Duck Egg Quiche with Garden Vegetables”Tag: eggs
Clafoutis aux Framboises
There’s nothing that encapsulates the feeling of summer for me like a fresh raspberry. Each berry contains within it all the sunshine, light and floral sweetness of a summer afternoon. At my childhood home there was a split rail fence along which grew a long row of raspberry bushes. Starting in early July, my brother and I would wake up early and run out to the fence to pick the raspberries that had ripened overnight. It was a race – us against the birds – and we often lost, but when we would find a ripe, untouched berry, the reward was more than worth the effort. To this day, the taste of fresh raspberries brings me right back to those childhood summers.
Continue reading “Clafoutis aux Framboises”Pain Perdu (French Toast)
Our typical weekend breakfast rotation used to go a little like this: pancakes, waffles, French toast, eggs and bacon, on repeat. Recently, however, it looks more like this: French toast with berries, French toast with whipped cream, French toast with maple syrup, French toast with apples, etc. It seems like the kids ask for French toast almost every day. I don’t blame them – if there was a definitive list of the most heart-warming “Comfort Foods,” this would certainly be near the top.
There’s no shortage of recipes and variations on French Toast out there. It’s one of the most searched-for recipes on Google. Most of us have grown up eating some form of this treat, whether for breakfast or for dessert. French toast’s appeal comes from its ability to blur the lines between these two meals. In France, French toast, or pain perdu, is almost always served as a dessert. The name literally means “lost bread” because it was a way to salvage stale bread that would otherwise have gone to waste. But is French toast really? Mais non! Almost every country and culture has a method for reinvigorating stale bread with a mixture of eggs and milk. With most things that are falsely attributed to France (French fries, French doors or le French kiss) the adjective only serves to make this dish all the more appealing. Continue reading “Pain Perdu (French Toast)”
Coconut Meringue Cookies
My husband and I have never really been into the sappy Hallmark holidays. Mushy cards and sloppy romances were never my thing. On Valentine’s Day we play a little game, trying to out-do each other with the most inappropriate and ridiculously raunchy cards we can find, then we’ll watch a James Bond. Instead of flowers, or in addition to, he’ll often buy me a new record to add to our vinyl collection – The Beatles or Pink Floyd or something else he knows I love – and pick up some oysters on the way home. I’ll cook a big meal while he puts on the record. It starts with the oysters, followed by maybe steak with béarnaise sauce (he likes his meat just barely kissed by the flame), sautéed potatoes, butternut squash bisque, with a sweet little treat at the end.
My love language is music and his is food, so it works . Continue reading “Coconut Meringue Cookies”
Cocoa Meringues
I get oddly excited about recipes that require only the egg yolks. It’s similar to the way someone might start looking forward to their birthday cake a few days in advance, or how enticing a Friday evening cocktail becomes when you’re stuck at your desk on Wednesday, because when a recipe requires only the yolks it means there will be leftover egg whites, and one of the very best ways to use leftover egg whites is to make meringue cookies. Continue reading “Cocoa Meringues”
L’art de l’omelette
The omelette, like a work of art, is something that’s never fully mastered or perfected… but it gives me great satisfaction to try. Did Monet ever say, “I’ve painted my best garden,” and put away his brushes and easel? Did Van Gogh ever think, “I’ve perfected the Iris, let’s move on to more important things.”? Of course not. Instead, when one painting was completed, he picked up his brush and began again on a new canvas. Yes, the ingredients were the same – wispy petals, blade-like leaves on unruly stems – but Continue reading “L’art de l’omelette”
Eggs in tomato sauce (Shakshouka)
I come from a family of “food-hoarders.” You can’t blame them. For the generation that endured the Great Depression, food stockpiles were a necessity… and the generation after simply learned from their parents. But I’ve found that when food is hoarded, food is wasted. So, as to not fall into the same pattern, and to be sure nothing goes to waste, I’ve set a few rules for myself: 1.) do not buy something until it’s actually needed. Continue reading “Eggs in tomato sauce (Shakshouka)”