Good & Bad: Poaches Eggs & Fried Croutons vs. Food Network's Eggs Benedict

When it comes to creative food dishes, I struggle the most with breakfast. For some reason, my mind has latched on breakfast consisting of maybe a few basic foods: eggs, protein sides, and grains. Despite the fact that this obviously opens up limitless opportunities, I tend to be stuck thinking that my only option is eggs, eggs with veg bacon, or cereal. The last Good & Bad unintentionally showed off two unique approaches to a grain-based breakfast; this one, again unintentionally, highlights eggs.

Poached Eggs & Fried Croutons

This recipe was introduced to me by Hari, I think, and what caught my attention was the mushroom duxelle -- I'm sure this blog by now has highlighted my love for the fungi. Croutons are not something I keep in the house, so I knew I'd have to make those from scratch, but I don't usually back down from such challenges.

Food Network's Eggs Benedict

Ah, the classic Eggs Benedict. I had an eggs benedict of sorts at a diner that combined goat cheese and spinach with eggs benedict, and it was a match made in heaven. This isn't that level of creative, though -- this is just classic eggs benedict, done Food Network style. Perhaps it's unfair to use a professional recipe against something on a random blog... But this network is the same thing to feature Guy's Grocery Games, so I think it's a fair comparison.

Poached Eggs & Fried Croutons vs. Food Network's Eggs Benedict: GO!





Those poached eggs on top of the croutons may be the best poached eggs I've done. Seriously. I don't think I could replicate that with hours of training.

Now, how did these recipes fare? Both decently. The problem with the eggs & croutons was, once again, that it did not impress me. I was expecting a much richer taste from the mushrooms, and also was very apprehensive about cooking mushrooms for so long. Why do so many recipes call for cooking mushrooms for 10-15 minutes? What is the goal? I do not understand.

As for the croutons, well, you can see my stable of whole wheat being used there. I'm sure if I followed the directions and used french bread, it would have worked out better.

Now, for the eggs benedict... First off, that weird pink flat stuff is veggie bacon, Morningstar Farms to be exact. I really like their stuff; they make a wide variety of veggie meats, though their veggie burgers are meh. Their breakfast foods and BBQ veggie ribs are awesome though. And so how did they fare in this recipe? Pretty good! Like any eggs benedict, the hollondaise sauce is what makes the dish hit or miss. This was my first time making hollondaise, which is why it looks rather goopy and unattractive up there, but the flavour was pretty solid; as I recall the lemon juice and yolk weren't quite mixed as well as they could be, but it didn't really detract from the tastiness. I also think that's all on me and not the recipe; you should have seen my first attempt at homemade French-style ice cream.

So which wins? Really, they're both decent recipes. I'm more partial to the eggs benedict because it was just pure fatty comfort food, but I am sure if you used French bread that the other recipe would come out fine. But for me, it's hard to beat that combination of carbs, egg, and butter.

Poached Eggs & Fried Croutons: 6/10 (giving benefit of doubt)
Food Network's Eggs Benedict: 8/10 (note sure if the Hollandaise fail was them or me, but either way tasty)

Tschuess!

Good & Bad: S'More Stuffed French Toast vs. Bulgur Breakfast Cereal

So in between my lately very busy schedule of playing on virtual pet sites, running around at work, and annoying my cat, I've been cooking up storms of dinners and lunches and cookies to bribe my coworkers to love me (I'm QA. I have to do SOMETHING). However, I've also become piss-poor at socialization, which explains why this blog basically stopped updating.

But! I'm going to try and get back into it. To help me catch up, I'm going to do a series of Good & Bad posts. These posts are basically going to present two different meals, with one coming out as the victor. I'm going to keep them to, say, two breakfast foods rather than breakfast vs lunch, but otherwise, it'll be random glory.

So let's begin.

Food One: S'More Stuffed French Toast

Doesn't this recipe look and sound like indulgent perfection? I Know when Hari shared it with me I immediately made it my goal to find vegan marshmallows and recreate this recipe. I love sweets, especially chocolate, and so this sounded like some sort of amazing dream food.

Food two: Bulgur Breakfast Cereal

Putting this recipe right after one starring copious amounts of sugar almost seems unfair to me. But having a giant bag of Goya bulgur, I'm always looking for different ways to use it, and my body's opinions of oatmeal can be best summarized as "the toilet". So this recipe seemed intriguing.

S'More Stuffed French Toast vs. Bulgur Breakfast Cereal: GO!





Pictures are worth a thousand words each, especially if it loooks like you set things on fire before the photo.

Now, despite its charcoal top, you can see delicious melted chocolate oozing from the center of the whole-wheat bread. And as I recall (this photo dates to January!), it wasn't that the French Toast tasted bad. You can't really go wrong with chocolate and marshmallows. The problem was that it was underwhelming. There was a lot of set up and effort that went into making these things (and perhaps into just finding vegan marshmallows alone). Assembling the sandwich, dipping it into the egg mixture without the whole thing giving up, then actually cooking it, again without everything giving up? It's hard. Maybe too hard for me in the morning judging by the burn, but hard! So I wanted it to taste like goddesses singing outside my door, and it just didn't deliver.

The bulgur cereal, however? Very good and hearty. First off, it is the easiest thing to make, which is great if your morning function limits itself to pushing buttons and tripping over a hungry cat. It's also very versatile -- I didn't have the flaxseed it called for, so I just threw in white chocolate chips, because that's how healthy I am. I also didn't use raisins because I don't like them, but that's what's great about this recipe. As long as you have the basics of bulgur, water, salt, and brown sugar, I am fairly certain you could put pretty much anything sweet into this, and it'd work out. Also I just have a major softspot for "cooked" dried cranberries.

So between these two? The humble bulgur cereal came out on top for me. Simple, variable, doesn't require dipping sandwiches in batter and trying to fry them. That being said, if you tried it with smaller slices of bread, you may have much better results.

S'More Stuffed French Toast: 4.5/10
Bulgur Breakfast Cereal: 8/10
Tschuess!

Apple-Brie French Toast

So back in September, Hari visited. It feels like a million years ago -- we were still dating, I still had my best friend, I still didn't have insurance. It's only been a little over three months since then, but it feels like a whirlwind.

Some things don't change, though. Like me cooking.

Apple & Brie Stuffed French Toast

Hari linked me this recipe a while back, and I told him I would make it when he visited. I kept to my word.




Whole wheat bread doesn't make the most attractive French Toast.

I followed the recipe more or less exactly, except that I used whatever apples I had, not Granny Smith specifically. I'm one of those people who can't really taste the different between apple varieties. Or pears. Oranges and clementines taste different though!

But anyway. I'm not a fan of French toast. I associate with slimy bread and general "No". But this French toast? Fantastic. The apples and brie went very well together, and the whole wheat bread gave it some extra depth. It was also extremely filling. One French toast is more than enough for breakfast, trust me.

If I recall, making these was a trick and a half; the bread I was using was big and bulky, and the apples did not want to stay in between. This wasn't a huge issue, though, especially since I love sauteed apples. Once the cheese started to melt, things held together a bit better, but I would recommend cutting your bread in half to do this regardless, so you aren't struggling with batter, bread, and hot apples.

Overall, 9/10. Not a full 10 because it was a bit of a pain, and also extremely rich food displeases my digestive system. But it really was quite delicious.

Tschuess.

Roasted Portobello with Eggs

Spent most of today cleaning... Fun times as an adult!

Roasted Portobello with Egg

So I love portobellos, and so the idea of pairing them with eggs with tempted to me. Hence me trying out this recipe. It's extremely straightforward, and in a fantastic fit of laziness, I just microwaved some scrambled eggs to go with it.



The bowl I made them in perfect fit the mushroom. Which makes for a very amusing picture.

As for the dish?

Meh. So very meh.

The thing is, the mushroom had almost no flavour; you can't even tell I ROASTED it. Maybe I just got a freakish portobello, since they are usually fantastic, or maybe it should have had a marinade.

Paired with the eggs, it really wasn't the most fantastic meal. Maybe it would have helped if I made the scrambled eggs the nonlazy way, but since the two are cooked separately, then thrown together, I doubt it would have mattered much.

It's possible that it may test better with eggs with a liquid yolk, though; then maybe the yolk would give the portobellos a boost. Or just try marinating it. As it is, though, there are way better uses for portobellos.

5/10. Giving it some benefit of the doubt since microwaved eggs are not exactly gourmet or fantastic. Otherwise, though, not going to try it again.

And that's about all I have to say about that.

Tschuess.

Tempeh Fakin' Bacon

It's been a while. Sorry for that; I've been busy. Since I'm now SO backed up, I'm going to try and write quite a few posts tonight, and just set them to be posted later.

Today's recipe is from a site I used to go to quite often, years ago, but since have left since I have found it to go downhill, and also it's not nearly as effective as it claims.

Tempeh Fakin' Bacon

This website is Care2, and the recipe has this lovely picture of tempeh/tofu (it looks like a weird mix of both), while the recipe itself is super easy. It's also basically taken from here (though they do credit it), so I'll just let both of them be around.

So. I cut the recipe in fourths or something but otherwise, same recipe.



On a scale from 1 to 10, guess how much I recommend it just based on this photo alone?

That's right, it's pretty bad.

So this does take that bacon. And I quickly realized why. It tastes like pure salt.

Soy sauce is choked full of salt, especially apparently if you buy a rum-sized bottle of it for only about $2. Simmering the tempeh in soy sauce then did very little to make it taste like soy and a lot more to make it taste like salt. I'm VERY sensitive to the taste of salt, so I actually ended up throwing this poor tempeh away, as I just couldn't handle it.

Luckily, this is a very easy fix; just use either much less soy sauce and substitute a different marinade (maybe a vegan/vegetarian BBQ sauce? Homemade BBQ sauce is very easy to make. Or something smokey?) or use reduced sodium soy sauce. This may help save the recipe.

However, I am perfectly content to let Morningstar Farms make me some veggie bacon, even if it has a list of ingredients big enough to build a house, and skip this recipe. If you're vegan or just against foods with a huge amount of ingredients, though, perhaps try the modifications and tell me how it goes!

On its own, without modifications, I give this a 2.5/10. It had to be thrown away and was a waste of a great food (tempeh), but there is room for modifications and thus hope.

Bonus Photo!



Plum and chocolate ice cream. If you're going to make plum ice cream, don't use that much extra sugar! Ripe plums have plenty of it :)

Until next time...

Tschuess.

Chocolate Banana Breakfast Quinoa

I'm in a half-fog and my web browser is freaking out, so apologies in advance if this post has a few weird issues. I'll fix them as I catch them.

Chocolate Banana Breakfast Quinoa

For once I think I found this recipe instead of my (now) ex-boyfriend. Or maybe he did. I'm not sure even WE know at this point. By the way, that's an example of a GOOD food blog, in my not-so-humble opinion. One picture, only one paragraph of explanation (and it's actually fairly interesting!), and then the recipe. Stamp of Approval for presentation.

As for the recipe... I don't like almond milk so I just used normal dairy milk. Otherwise, same recipe. And, well...



No.

I love quinoa. But either this quinoa is awful, or this recipe is. I'm not sure if perhaps I boiled the milk too high, but as you can see it was very soupy, with the quinoa unable to absorb it all, and the flavour left much to be desired. As I recall, it wasn't even that chocolaty, while the texture and mouth feel of the dish was all wrong. I was so unimpressed I actually ended up throwing about half of it or so away.

Maybe the recipe does really need to have almond milk, but even then I believe the amount of liquid needs to be cut down substantially, or the cooking method for the quinoa changed. As it is, it becomes soupy, almost like a liquidy porridge.

My recommendations then are to not use dairy milk (don't know if it matters if it's almond or something else), cut the liquid down, and possibly add a bit more sweetener, to taste. That may save it, but I'm not going to try and find out.

3.5/10. It's no good if I have to throw the food out, but at the same time, I DID change the recipe, so credit given where it is due.

Until next time...

Tschuess.

Stir-Fried Egg and Tomato with Avocado

College instilled one weird OCD exception in me: soup foods are totally okay late at night so long as they are fast noodles. Right now it is Annie Chun's Kimchi soup, which is spicy and tasty.

This has nothing to do with today's food, so let's move on.

Stir-Fried Egg and Tomato with Avocado

Hari found a recipe on this website that disinterested me, as I recall. So then I found this and found it interesting. Today's recipe is based off of this, but not quite the same.

This is mainly because after a "flaming oil" incident when I was 15, I don't like to add oil to a hot pan.



So here we are.

Start off with a bit of oil in a pan. I recommend peanut oil as it's very good with heat. THEN heat it up to about medium, medium-high. At this point, we go back to the recipe's instructions. I used a whole tomato, chopped it up, and then added it to the pan and stirfried it until it was basically what they said.

I then took two eggs, cracked them in a bowl, and beat them well. Then I added a splash of 2% milk (I wouldn't add more than 1/8 cup), and then some goat cheese. beat it all together. I then added them to the pan with the tomatoes still in there, and removed the pan from the heat while stirring the eggs and scraping the bottom and sides.

Then once the cooking was slowed I put them back on the heat and basically just stirred them until they firmed up to a consistency I liked. Remove from heat, put in bowl. Slice up some fresh raw avocado and add it to the top.

It was quite a tasty, nourishing breakfast. Now for a few things.

First off, I DO recommend you listen to that website and remove the tomatoes and rinse the pan, THEN add the eggs. This is not due to taste or cooking, but to remove excess liquid. I had some unsightly liquid in the bottom of my bowl of eggs, and so to remove that, it's best to just separate the cooking processes. If liquid in the bowl doesn't squick you like it does me, then you can keep everything in the same pan.

Goat cheese really didn't add what I wanted to the eggs; you could barely taste it. Feel free to leave it out.

This basic recipe would likely go well with many other vegetables, including spinach, kale, MAYBE broccoli. It's very versatile and there are many options.

Oh and I don't know how adding the sugar works out since I didn't. My guess is it brings out the tomato flavour, I don't know.

Finally, you could probably translate this into a vegan recipe pretty easily by using tofu. I have made a pretty good tofu scramble in the past using a pile of dried herbs and some firm tofu. Perhaps someday I should add it to the blog so I'm not just stealing other people's recipes.

Speaking of this recipe, 8/10. It was good, and has great potential for modification.

Bonus Rating! So I was at the natural grocery again and I saw that they have this, except in a "one packet to try it" size.

For the love of all that is holy, DO NOT FALL FOR THOSE REVIEWS:



This is one packet, which is the equivalent of one serving, in 16oz of coconut milk (which is also gross btw). I needed a blender to stir it. The blender could barely even process it.



"Shake or dog poop, which could it be?"

The consistency was of a paste, and I wanted to chew it before swallowing it. When I could swallow it. I only tried twice. The flavour, oddly enough, was not BAD -- it actually tasted vaguely like the coconut milk it was in, basically. But I knew I wouldn't drink it so I brought it to the sink to pour it out.

IT came out like honey at first, then there was a little pop, and the whole thing slid out leaving barely any trace it was in the glass.

Food shouldn't DO THAT, guys. Please do not buy this. If you're starving and have no choice, use double the liquid it recommends. Garden of Life may like eating paste but it can't be good for you if you're already having food troubles and need to drink this instead.

Also bonus from someone who was pissy that someone dared give such a healthy, hippy product a two-star review:

"Your comment is your own personal opinion." (From here)

Unlike every other comment, which clearly is based in SCIENCE.

On that charming note,

Tschuess.

Kale with Egg and Toast

So I had a meal before this one that I photographed and everything... But I forget what it was like. It was a pasta dish, I know that much. So instead, we'll focus on what I made for breakfast this morning.

Kale with Egg and Toast

So my boyfriend linked me some recipe, I can't remember what. I was pretty "Whatever" about it, but it led me to find this recipe and another one I will try out later. Now, I'm neutral about most lettuces and greens, but I love kale. So a recipe involving mostly it? Yes, please.

I substituted the diced onions for diced pearl onions. Let me tell you, chopping frozen pearl onions in a blender? Way too amusing to watch. They hop around like popcorn before they finally get ground up. Also, I substituted vegetable broth for chicken stock. And I forgot about the lemon juice.



I was so ravenous that I took one rather bad picture before wolfing it down.

And now for the disappointment... It was kind of a bust. There are various reasons for this. First, the kale is too moist and thus this soaked straight into the toasted bread and turned it moist (ick). The kale, after being simmered in an absurd amount of broth (I used a cup less than stated, and still had almost all of the broth left over. Seriously. I poured it back into containers to save because some of that broth cost me $4/container), simply did not have the nice texture and flavour I associate it with. I'm not even sure I simmered it for the whole 30 min, either.

I couldn't even really taste the garlic or onion, not sure what the point of them being there was. I guess MAYBE the lemon juice would have rescued the kale, but why in the world would you simmer it for 30min only to give it a whole different flavour? A light saute or steam would yield a better texture and colour, and then you could just add the lemon juice after. I don't know.

We won't talk about the sad sunny side up eggs. I should have just fried them.

I don't know how this could be salvaged, or even if it's worthwhile. Suffice to say it's being removed from my recipe list, because I Know better ways to use toast, egg, and kale. (and in the case of the egg and toast, AT ONCE).

Overall rating: 4/10.

I made another disappointing recipe for dessert this evening, but that will wait for another time.

Tschuess.

Coconut Farro Porridge with Mango

So thanks to the New Wholes Grains cookbook, I discovered farro. It's this chewy grain thing that cooks pretty quickly and has a texture between pasta and rice. While trying to find recipes for it, I discovered this one.

Coconut Farro Porridge with Mango Strawberries

So I don't have mango, or coconut extract, which the original recipe here calls for. And I had to do some very funky math since I only had half a can of coconut milk, but I kept the proportions of everything the same, just that the coconut extract was replaced with vanilla, and the mangos with strawberries.



I love how my food never looks like their food.

So, how is it? It depends on how sweet you like your foods. I have a great love for things that are sugary -- one of my favourite cereals is Fruity Pebbles, so basically the more horrifyingly diabetes-inducing bad it is, the tastier I find it. That being said, the flavour and sweetness of this porridge is quite mild. The strawberries were a nice touch to keep it from just being bland. If you don't like your food to be incredibly sweet, and also like hot porridge, this meal will likely work out for you. But if you prefer loading up on sugar, you may want to stick with instant oatmeal.

My rating is 7/10, since everything went fine and it wasn't awful, just not my preference.

Tonight I'm making another recipe from my list, so stay tuned for that. Until then...

Tschuess.