Hangover Hash: Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party #6

I think your body gets moving amnesia.  That is I never seem to remember how stressful moving is until it smacks me in the face (ugh, and back) again.  Maybe it was the rapid fire move in and move out every semester in the first two years of college that have given me the ability to black it out and think of it positively until I'm in the throws.  The place is coming together little by little, but since my room is slightly smaller this time around and I am missing one last bookshelf to put the little things away I feel like I'm living in a large treehouse surrounded by trinkets.  Tea light holders, camera equipment, beach reads, belts and sunglasses in cloth shopping bags, they all still need homes.  And even though the kitchen is together, the concept of making yet another mess in the place is daunting.

But this recipe, oh it was worth it.  It solves the ever present problem - what to do with leftover french fries?  This has been floating around in my head ever since a ladies beach weekend when we were all making breakfast after wine and barbecue the night before.  Some of the ladies had brought home their leftovers, including fries and delectably smoked meat, and wanted to put it in their breakfast.  The fries didn't turn out as hoped and the idea of fry-based hash popped into my head to solve the problem (and has been floating around ever since...).

The worst part about leftover fries is how soggy they are, so I thought I would use rendered bacon fat to bring them back to life.  After cutting them into home fry sized pieces, I added them to a pan of onions and bell peppers also cooked in the bacon fat.  After the fries had been revived I added super spicy salsa, avocados, the crisped bacon, and a little cheddar cheese.  Topped with a sunny-side egg with a delicious runny yolk, this breakfast will cure anything that ails you!

Ps Ladies, this recipe serves two so it would be perfect to seal the deal with that new guy the first morning he stays over (get it, girl).  This is my answer to engagement chicken, the "be my boyfriend" breakfast.

This week's hosts for the linky party are:

Tracy at Busy Vegetarian Mom

Robyn at Robyn's View

Angie at A lil Country Sugar   

Sarah at Everything in the Kitchen Sink

Michelle at From Calculus to Cupcakes

Marlys at This and That

Lois at Walking on Sunshine

Lindsey at Family Food Finds  

Cindy at Cindys Recipes and Writings

Keira at Luscious Delights

Tami at Food Forays

R Dawn at Spatulas on Parade

Amber at Mama's Blissful Bites

Ericka at Chef Picky Kid

Meyer Lemon and Basil Pudding Cakes

I am a proud DC biker.  I know everyone probably hates me because of my two wheels, but I love my morning commute slash exercise complete with the bike version of car singing.  In that I pop in my headphones and belt it out because I don't really care who hears me.  I ran into a giant obstacle to my commute when my trusty U-lock broke.  I tried to use a cheap-o one and it literally broke 24 hours later.  So, I put my pride in my adorable bike basket and rode down to Georgetown to get a new lock, mainly because I love sifting through the Dean and Deluca down the street.  On this trip, I grabbed a few meyer lemons on the cheap when I was waiting to check out.

Meyer lemons are a cross between a lemon and an orange, smaller and sweeter than a typical lemon.  I have always heard great things but had never tried the baby lemons.  Excited about my purchase, I took to pinterest for a way to use this incredible ingredient.  I ended up finding a recipe from Williams Sonoma for lemon pudding cakes.  It looked like a lot of sugar was added to balance the lemon, so I toned down the sugar content and created a basil simple syrup to add to the egg whites instead of straight sugar.

It was a surprising texture, with a fluffy top from the whipped egg whites and a thick almost curd like pudding at the base.  Sweet lemon flavor and anise flavor from the basil, definitely recommend you try this.  Makes me want to make curd, stay tuned!

Homemade Mayonnaise

I feel like normal people don't go to "hey, I should make mayo" when they have leftover egg yolks.  But after the meringue cookie experiments I had some leftover and mayo was on my culinary to-do list.  I pulled out my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and got to blending!

I'm in the camp of if it can be done with a food processor, I'm going to use it.  In this instance, I really wish I had a stand mixer.  It would have made buzzing up the yolks and drizzling the olive oil easier.  But no matter, still got a great product.

The whole thing came together in a matter of minute.  First blitzing the egg yolks, adding the flavorings, then adding the oil slowly until a thick mayo comes together.  It's a great blank canvas for any mayo, which I'm still trying to figure out since one person cannot reasonably go through one 3 cups of mayo in a week... suggestions welcome!

Spinach and Artichoke Strata

Over Christmas, I was finally introduced to the wonders of strata.  There is a new bakery by my parent's house and we had a surplus of bread laying around as well as extra bacon from the butcher behind our house (spoiled, I know).  The bread was going stale so I made some french toast and a big pan of strata!  Basically a strata is like a savory bread pudding, with layers of bread, veggies, and cheese topped with a savory egg custard.  A new french bakery opened in my neighborhood, so I decided to grab a baguette and give it another go!

Because strata is a great way to use up leftovers, I stuck with that theme while constructing mine.  I had two lonely slices of bacon, opened packages of frozen artichoke hearts and spinach, half a container of sliced cremini mushrooms, and asiago cheese leftover from an attempt to stuff a deboned chicken thigh.  All beautiful ingredients that needed a home, and the deliciously fresh french bread was the perfect palette!

A custard of egg and milk is poured over the layers and allowed to mellow in the fridge over night.  This is the step is what makes this a perfect brunch dish!  I let it come to room temperature, while the oven was heating up, and baked it off in about 30 minutes.  Cheesy and eggy with crispy bacon on top?  This one is a winner!

Exam Week Bacon Scrambled Eggs

It is that time of year again, midterms!  This being my last midterm season as a student as well as it coinciding with my last spring break, I am having a little bit of "senioritis."  So, I thought I would motivate myself with a bit of college nostalgia: my favorite exam time comfort food of slowly scrambled eggs.  My junior year I was living in my first apartment and had a little dinky electric stove that took forever to heat up.  As frustrating as electric was compared to the ridiculous Viking gas stove that lives in Baltimore, it made me appreciate slow stove top cooking.  And the best application for slow stove top cooking is scrambled eggs.  I would always make these during exam weeks because I would get tired of delivery and wanted to feel like I was cooking something without taking my usual sweet time.

Slow low heat is essential for creamy scrambled eggs.  There is a method that I have yet to attempt in which you scramble the eggs in a double boiler, just as you would melt chocolate.  While it's on my culinary to do list, you can get just as delicious results on very low heat in a non stick pan.  The point is to avoid any burnt pieces in the final product.  The Kitchn recently did a post on using chopsticks to stir the eggs during cooking to create small and tender curds and it was a revelation to these eggs!  Light, fluffy, and pulled just before completely done; these eggs are the perfect 10 minute comfort food.

I do my eggs just like my Dad, a splash of cream and a pinch of sugar.  If you want your comfort food a little more comforting, fry up two slices of bacon in the pan first to act as the fat instead of butter or cooking spray.  This left amazing little specks of bacon fat throughout the eggs!  I let my pan cool before pouring out excess fat and turning it back on low heat to scramble.

Tomato Basil Carbonara

Let's call a spade a spade.  Carbonara is basically stove top mac and cheese with bacon.  Oh heck yeah!  Creamy thickened egg yolks loaded with parmesan cheese and an underlying flavor of bacon beats the box mac and cheese any day of the week.  Best part?  It comes together in the time it takes to cook the pasta!  For my version, I added a note of sweetness and acidity with cherry tomatoes and basil.  This is me pretending to be healthy by adding vegetables, but really I just wanted some down and dirty comfort food.

Carbonara is an Italian dish consisting of egg, cheese, bacon, and black pepper.  Bacon fat is used to saute the onions, garlic, and any other vegetables while the pasta is cooking.  When the pasta is done egg yolks, cheese, and cream are whisked together and quickly combined with the bacon and veggies on low heat, being careful to not scramble the eggs.  The pasta is added to the thickened sauce, adding starchy pasta water to thin the sauce.

Done in 15 minutes, the perfect out-of-the-box weeknight comfort food!

Gruyere and Speck Souffle

I have seen so many cooking shows and books and articles telling me not to be scared of souffle.  And I'm not one to back away from a challenge, especially in the kitchen.  I read a whole bunch of recipes and articles until I figured out what I wanted my souffle to be, picked up a set of baby ramekins, and dove right in!

This souffle contains gruyere cheese, asparagus, and speck ham.  Speck is kind of like prosciutto, but has a pronounced flavor of juniper berries.  You can even see the pieces of juniper berries still in the slices.  I had gotten sick of prosciutto (yes, I realize how ridiculous I am) and wanted to try something new.

Not Prosciutto!

The most important technique in souffle construction is tempering, which is the slow addition of one substance into another substance to make the two more equal.  In this case, the hot thickened milk will be added slowly to the beaten egg yolks to bring them up to temperature before adding it all to the hot milk, avoiding scrambled eggs.  Another example is thoroughly incorporating one quarter of the fluffy egg whites to the thick souffle base to lighten the texture and allow for easier addition of the rest of the whites.  These are crucial steps to ensure a light souffle without chewy bits of egg yolk.

So here it goes, guys . . . Nervous?