Category: Breakfast

Creamed Asparagus on Toast – Béchamel the Creamy Mother Sauce


Sauces are the core of great cooking.  They add flavor and moisture to food and can elevate an average meal to exceptional. We have done 2 of the 5 french mother sauces (tomato and hollandaise) and now I am going to show you a few things you can do with a béchamel sauce.

Béchamel is your classic white sauce.  It is the base for creamed eggs, alfredo sauce, cheese sauces, and is found in greek pastitiso and moussaka. When you master this quick and easy sauce you can eliminate many processed food from your pantry and make a wide variety of flavorful meals.

Yes this is a butter and milk based sauce and contains all of the calories that would indicate.  However if you are going to eat food with a white sauce base you are better off to make it yourself.  Commercial white sauces which claim to be better for you because they are low in fat are loaded with sodium, modified vegetable fats, preservatives and simple carbohydrates. Many health researchers will tell you these sauces are worst for your weight and overall health than a homemade white sauce.  From a flavour standpoint there is no comparison, commercial white sauces taste like salted wallpaper paste.  If you are going to enjoy a white sauce you are always better to make it yourself.

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp Butter

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

2 Cups of Fox Hill Cheese Milk (If using regular milk add in 1/2 tbsp more butter)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp fresh nutmeg

Finish seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

Yields about 1.5 cups of sauce.

The foundation of béchamel is butter and flour, this cooked together is called a roux.  You need to melt the butter over medium heat and then add the flour and stir with a whisk.  A common mistake here is to just add in the milk, you don’t want to do that yet.  You need to cook the flour, so whisk over medium heat until the roux turns a golden, almost brown color.  This is a blonde roux, there are darker ones but for a white sauce we stop the cooking here.  This process toasts the wheat a bit, if you don’t do this it will rob your sauce of flavor and add a starchy taste to it.

Once your roux is golden, slowly add in the milk and whisk until it is smooth, heat until it starts to bubble and then remove it from the heat, add in the salt and nutmeg.  You can add more milk if you desire to thin the sauce.

This sauce can be used as is, but I usually add different flavours to it depending on what I am making.

Creamed Asparagus on Toast

This recipe uses a basic béchamel sauce with a few little twists.  Prepare the béchamel as per the recipe above with the following changes.

  • After you melt the butter add in 1 tbsp of minced onion then after they soften, about 1 min add in the flour for the roux.
  • When the milk is added add in 1 tsp of dried mustard and 1/4 tsp of tabasco sauce.
  • When the sauce starts to thicken add in 3 tbsp of fresh grated parmesan cheese.
  • Season with salt and pepper to taste

Preparing the Egg:

I like my boiled egg in this dish with the yolk firm but not dried out.  Take one or two eggs per person, place them in cold water, Bring to a boil over high heat then reduce to medium low for 6 minutes.  Drop into an ice bath until you can handle then peal the eggs.

Preparing the Asparagus and Plating:

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.  Trim the lower 1/2 inch of asparagus off.  Allow 4 to 5 spears per person.  Salt the water with 1 tbsp of salt and then drop in the asparagus for 3 minutes.  Allow to dry for a couple minutes on a clean tea towel and then place on the toast, top with the béchamel and a boiled egg cut in half.  Season with a pinch of sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

This is one variation using the Béchamel mother sauce.  It is also the base for a great cheese sauce, which I will use to make spicy macaroni and cheese, and nice garlicky Alfredo sauce or any herb based cream sauce, like the one I used to make my Dill Lemon Creamed Eggs with Foxhill Cheese Milk” href=”https://timskitchentable.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/dill-lemon-creamed-eggs-with-foxhill-cheese-milk/” target=”_blank”>Dill Lemon Creamed Eggs on Toast.  Master this mother sauce and say good by to all of the starch salt and chemical filled processed food that will harm your health and rob you of flavour.

Thanks to my local farmers for producing the high quality ingredients I used in this recipe:

Milk:          Fox Hill Cheese

Eggs:          Evans Family Farmers Market 

Asparagus:     Taproot Farms

The First Spring Greens – Dandelion Greens


I can admit it, last year in my CSA I was totally unprepared for the spring onslaught of greens.  Collard greens, beet greens, kale, and swiss chard kicked my ass last year.  I could not get past the bitterness, was not sure how to cook them and was not happy at all with the results.  I watch a lot of Food Network and noticed that people from the Southern USA go crazy for greens, I could not for the life of me understand why.  Southerners, the guardians of BBQ, corn bread, mac and cheese and everything bacon, cannot be considered culinary martyrs.  If they are eating this stuff then it has to taste good.

I paid particular attention any time anyone on Food Network cooked greens, I also did some reading and discussed green preparation with a few of my twitter friends.  The first thing I learned was don’t be shy about cooking greens.  There are amazing nutrients in these greens, but they are locked up and cooking them well makes the nutrients easier for us to absorb.  Also cooking them leaches out some of the bitterness, they will still have a bitter flavor, but don’t be afraid of that, we will balance that with other flavours.

Bitter ingredients beg for fat, spice, sour and sweet.  Not to cover up the flavor but to balance it.  Now I know some people will question the use of fat here, but as was pointed out to me by Halifax nutritionist Kristine Elliott (@FeistyForks for twitter), many of the nutrients in greens are fat soluble so they will be absorbed much better if they are cooked with some fat.

My first greens this year are some of the most bitter, so it was exactly what I needed to get my green preparation down cold.  Greens were a major fail last year in this house, but the following recipes were very well received and I feel like I am ready for my spring greens.  Here are my two dandelion green recipes, and this approach will work for other bitter greens as well.

Initial Preparation:

Ingredients: 

6 cups of dandelion greens

2 tbsp sea salt

1 tbsp cider vinegar

Heat a stock pot about half full of water to a rolling boil, add in 2 Tbsp of salt and 1 Tbsp of cider vinegar.  Place the greens in the water for 12 to 15 minutes.

Drain the greens thoroughly and you can use them in one of the two following recipes.

Dandelion Greens with Bacon and Balsamic Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

1 batch of boiled greens

2 strips of thick cut meaty bacon

1/2 a small onion fine dice

1 tbsp sesame seeds

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp honey

Salt and Pepper to taste

Dice the bacon into 1/4 inch dice and render the fat off, cooking until crisp, remove from the pan and reserve.   In a saute pan heat up keep 2 tsp of the bacon fat and, add in the chopped onion and sweat until it become translucent, add in the sesame seeds.  Add in the drained greens and stir, separating the greens and mixing in the onion and sesame seeds.    Add in about 4 turns of fresh ground black pepper.  Saute until the greens are very hot and any excess moisture has cooked off.

While the greens are cooking make a dressing.  Dressings are a simple ration of 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar.  For this I used 2 tsp of olive oil, and 1 tsp of walnut oil to 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar.  I added in a 1/2 tsp of Dijon mustard and 1 tsp of honey.  Stir this together and add it to the greens.  Once it is hot add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Sautéed Dandelions Greens with Garlic and Red Chili

Ingredients:

1 batch of boiled greens

2 tsp of olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 a small onion fine diced

1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

1/2 tsp dried crushed red chili

1 tsp of argan oil (or sesame seed oil)

1 tsp of white wine vinegar

1 tsp of honey

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a saute pan, add in the onion, crushed red chilies and garlic and sweat them off.  In another pan toast the sesame seeds until golden.  You want this toasted flavor, it will replace the smokiness from the bacon in the first recipe.  Add in the sesame seeds and greens to the pan and cook until they are very hot and the excess liquid has cooked off.  Mix the argan oil (or sesame oil), white wine vinegar and honey and then add to the greens.  Cook for a few more minutes then add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Argan Oil: 

This is a new product to me.  I am trying to expand my inventory of healthy oils to use in sauces, dressings and dips.  Argan oil is an extremely healthy oil rich in essential fatty acids and vitamins.  It is produced out of Morocco and using this oil is not only healthy but also humanitarian benefits. The tree that produces the nut is endangered and UNESCO has hope that the expansion of sales of this oil in developed nations will encourage the cultivation and preservation of this tree.  It is a tree that does well in the harsh North Africa climate so it would be very advantageous to have groves of this tree.   The purchase of this oil also supports the women of the Berber tribe as they produce and sell this exclusively.  This is an amazing product, very nutty and rich.  It will add a lot of flavor to your veggies and salads.  Though I use predominantly local ingredients if I am going to send money over seas for a product that cannot be cultivated here, this is a great product to use.  I encourage you to hit the Halifax Market on International Day (Every Friday) and drop by the booth where it is sold.  There is a very nice young man there that will tell you all about this fantastic product and give you a taste.

Thanks to my local suppliers:

Dandelion Greens, Onions :           Taproot and Noggins CSA

Garlic and Bacon:                              Active Life Farms

Eggs Florentine with Tomato Basil Salad


I got a beautiful bag of spinach in my first week’s CSA share and decided to use some of it for my breakfast today.  There is no chance that if I bought spinach from my local factory food outlet it would be fresh and beautiful a week later, but with farm fresh food you get a lot more time to use it up.  I steamed off the spinach in 1/2  a cup of boiling water covered until it just wilted.  I then drained it and squeezed out as much liquid as I could returned it to the pot added a punch of salt and 1/4 tsp of balsamic and set it aside.

Now when I think of spinach for breakfast I think eggs florentine.  This is a poached egg, served over steamed spinach on a crispy english muffin topped with hollandaise sauce.  Now don’t be afraid of hollandaise, it is a great mother sauce that can be the base for many delicious toppings, and if you pay attention you will get it right.

Hollandaise Sauce

Hollandaise is an emulsified sauce, and one of the French mother sauces.  An emulsified sauce is just a sauce that combines fat based flavor with water based flavor (usually something acidic).  In this case it is butter and lemon juice and the emulsifier (the thing that binds them together) is egg yolk.  To make a Hollandaise you need the following:

Ingredients

3 egg yolks

1/2 cup clarified butter

1 Tbsp water

1 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

salt and pepper

Tabasco sauce

Melt about 3/4 cups of unsalted butter, being careful not to burn it, let it bubble for about 3 minutes and then skip off all of the foam, pour into a bowl slowly leaving all the white bits in the pot.  Wash and dry the pot, return the clarified butter to it and put it on your warming element to keep it warm.  You will not use all of this butter,

Take a small pot and fill half full with water and bring it to a light simmer.  in a small metal bowl add in 3 egg yolks, the lemon juice and water, whisk until it is lemon yellow in color.  Now we need to incorporate the butter.

Place the bowl over the heat and stir the egg yolks, until you start to see trails left i the bowl.  Remove from the heat and drizzle about a tbsp of clarified butter into the bowl and whisk until the the butter is combined over the the simmering water.  Drissle in another tbsp of the butter.  Keep doing this until the sauce is shiny and smooth, it will start to slide around the bowl.  At that point stop.  If you add to much butter it will break.

If it does break do not panic, you can save it.  Take another egg yolk, put it in a clean bowl, add a little water and whisk until yellow, heat it for a minute over the hot water then whisk in the broken sauce, it will come together.  Finish with a little salt and pepper to taste and a few drops of Tabasco sauce.   This sauce is beautiful over eggs, or veggies like asparagus.

You will need to make a couple poached eggs.  A couple quick tips for making poached eggs.  Bring the water to a simmer in a fry pan, add in some salt (about 2 tsp) and a tsp of vinegar.  Add in the eggs (don’t over crowd the pan) and allow to cook until the whites are set.  Remove from the pan and let drain on a plate.

To assemble your eggs florentine you will need to toast off a couple english muffins and poach some eggs.  Place the english muffin on the plate top with some spinach, a soft poached egg and the spoon over some hollandaise sauce.

Cherry Tomato Basil Salid

Ingredients

2 cups of chopped cherry tomato

3 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

2 leafs of fresh basil chopped

salt and pepper to taste

I served this with a tomato basil salad using fresh cherry tomatoes from the greenhouse of Riverview Herbs.   I chopped up the tomatoes, made a vinnagrette using 3 tsp of very extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar, and a half a tsp of the hollandaise to emulsify the dressing.  Whisk the dressing and toss in with the tomatos then add a couple leafs of chopped basil.  It goes great with any egg dish.

Thanks to my Local Suppliers:

Eggs:                                      Elmridge Farm

Spinach:                                Taproot CSA

Tomatoes and Basil:         River view Herbs at the Halifax Market

Mexican Inspired Fritatta Made with Emu Egg, Delish!


I was wandering through the Halifax Market the other day and saw the coolest thing I have seen in a long time.  I reached out, grabbed it, paid for it and then looked in my hand and said, what am I going to cook with an emu egg.  Yep thats what it is like to be me.

I did some reading and found out that the flavor is a lot like chicken egg, maybe a little less flavorful.  The whites don’t set as fast and from a health standpoint they are free range and very nutritious.  One emu egg is equivalent to about 10 to 12 chicken eggs so  what ever I made had to be a larger dish.

Taking all of this information I decided I wanted to make a really flavorful fritatta.  Mexican flavors.  That called for some homemade chorizo sausage, fresh cheese curd and savory cilantro.  Here is how it all came together:

Ingredients:

1 Emu Eggs (10 to 12 chicken eggs)

1 Onion chopped

3/4 of a pound of Homemade Chorizo

1/2 cup Fresh Cheese Curds

1/2 handful fresh Cilantro – chopped

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper – fresh ground

1/2 tsp paprika

2 medium potatoes boiled (until just fork tender) and chopped (1 cm dice)

2 tbs grape seed oil

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees

Heat an oven proof pan over medium high heat, add in 1 tsp of grapeseed oil when the

oil is hot add in the chorizo sausage and cook until it starts to brown, remove and drain on a paper towel.  Add in the potatoes and a pinch of salt and a couple turns of pepper into the pan (in the oil left by the chorizo) and fry them off until they start to brown and get crispy, then add back in the chorizo, and then onions, if need add another tsp of oil.  Cook unit the onions start to soften and get some color.  While this is cooking:

Crack your emu egg (or chicken eggs) into a large bowl and whisk until frothy,  Add in the chopped cilantro, 1/4 tsp of salt. 1/2 tsp pepper and 1/2 tsp of paprika.  Whisk until combined.  Add this directly into the pan with the potatoes, chorizo and onions.  Remove from the heat and top with the fresh cheese curds.

Place in the oven and cook for about 10 minutes.  At this point the eggs should have set, if not check it every couple minutes.  It should be firm to the touch but a little runny on top.  When it reaches this stage, turn on the broiler for about 3 minutes until the top firms up and starts to get a little golden color.  You want to watch the progress of the dish and not depend on time.  Eggs should not be over cooked, you don’t want rubbery, hard brown eggs, and that can happen very quickly.  This dish builds flavours in each component and to provide an overall flavorful dish.  Each component is seasoned and this is very important in a fritatta or you can end up with some parts that are very flavorful and other parts that are bland.  I enjoyed this and hope you do as well.

Thanks to my local suppliers for making this breakfast possible:

Emu Egg :                      The Dutchman Cheese

Fresh Cheese Curd:     Fox Hill Cheese House

Onions/Potatoes :     Noggins Corner Farm Market

Cilantro:                        Riverview Herbs

Homemade Chorizo Sausage – A Mexican Treat


I have a few recipes I want to share with you that use chorizo sausage.  Fresh chorizo is a key ingredient in mexican and south western American cooking.   It adds great richness and flavour to dishes and I really enjoy it.  As with all ground meat products I prefer to know what I am eating.  For this reason I make most of my sausage meat at home, though there are a couple providers a the Halifax Market I trust and am hoping to visit to watch them in action.

I have already put up recipes for making homemade breakfast sausage and italian sausage.  Chorizo is just another variation of that.  The base is a good ground pork and then add some amazing seasoning and allow to sit over night.

Ingredients:

1.5 pounds of ground pork (Berkshire pork of you can get it)

1 Tbsp Paprika

1 tsp sea salt

2 cloves of chopped fresh garlic

1 tsp cayenne pepper (increase or decrease based on your desire for heat)

1 tsp cumin (toast the seeds in a dry pan then grind for best results)

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp mexican chili powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1.5 Tbsp White Wine

In a large bowl spread out the pork as thin as possible.  Sprinkle half the spices over the pork, mix well.  Spread out again and repeat.  Mix well.  Add in the white wine and stir.  Cover and refrigerate for a couple hours, overnight is best.

This fresh sausage can be use in any recipe calling for chorizo.

Special Thanks to my local supplier Active Life Farm for providing me with amazing Berkshire pork and fantastic local garlic.  They made this Chorizo special.

>Cardamom Pear Waffles with Drunken Pear Chutney


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I admit it, I got inspired while looking at the selection of dried fruit carried by Noggins Corner at the Halifax Seaport Farmer’s Market.  All locally grown (apples, cranberries, blueberries and pears).  I bough several bags and already blogged the apple muffins and cranberry cookies and now I needed to play with the pears.  I wanted something a little different for breakfast today and kept thing about at my three bags of dried pear chips.  Step one is to think about what to rehydrate them with, hmmm amaretto yeah sounds good but sweet, ahh cut it with some white wine, yep that sounds good.  I decided to add in some dried currents and cardamom and make a little sweet chutney.  Now what to eat it with.  I saw a tweet from suzie the foodie aka @suzieridler about being out of maple syrup and thought hmmm how about waffles with a light coat of peanut butter and dried pear chutney.  That was all it took to create a great breakfast.  I have a nice sour cream waffle recipe that I decided to kick up with some cardamom and amaretto and make that to go with my dried pears.  Below is the result:
Ingredients:
Dried Pear Chutney
3 bags about 1.5 cups of dried pear chips
1/2 cup amaretto
1/2 cup white wine
8 whole cardamom pods
Cardamom Pear Sour Cream Waffles
1 1/2 Whole White Flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
2 tbsp amaretto 
1 cup real sour cream*
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
1 tbsp honey
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
In a pot on low heat put in the ingredients for the dried pear chutney.  It takes an hour or so to rehydrate these so allow the time or do it the night before.  When all of the liquid is absorbed remove the cardamom pods and chop up the pears.  Reserve to top waffles.
To make the waffles sift together the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix well.  Ensure the dry ingredients are mixed well because we won’t stir much after we add the liquid.  
In a separate bowl whisk the eggs then add in the milk, sour cream, amaretto and vanilla.  Melt the butter and add in the honey stir to combine then add to the other wet ingredients.  This will help combine the honey to the cold liquids.  If you add it directly it wont want to combine. 
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until combined.  Do not over mix this will build gluten in your batter and result in tough waffles.  
Add enough waffle batter into a preheated waffle iron to cover the bottom and close the lid.  Cook until the steam starts to slow, take a peak the waffles should be golden brown.    This batch will make 2 – 4 square waffles.
I like these waffles with a little peanut butter and topped with the pear chutney.  They are soft and warm and the cardamon provides the perfect compliment to the pears.  
Thanks to my local suppliers: