Saturday Mornings...

Or a birthday breakfast

We've been very busy all this year so a lot of birthday celebrations have come at breakfast.

My mom's birthday is tomorrow but what with church and other plans it worked better to celebrate today.

The Menu:

Eggs Benedict w/ Black Forest Ham

Fresh Cantaloupe and Grape Salad w/ Greek Yogurt

Sautéed Asparagus

Amish Coffee Cake

Cooking is rather cathartic for me, if that doesn't sound too extreme. I cook at a local restaurant, so you would think I get enough week nights but I enjoy the break from cooking the same old thing and having more control over my ingredients. Food brings a lot of pleasure to those around you and that's one of the reasons I love being a cook, that and using really sharp knives.

Lately I've found myself cooking more and more elaborate meals as our family has been so busy. It's my little way of giving them a break.

Breakfast is one of my favorite meals to cook. It combines one of my favorite foods (eggs) with just about anything else you can imagine. Sweet. Savory. You want cake for breakfast - you got it. Somehow it always comes out brighter than other meals, or maybe that's just the coffee...

When I cook it's usually combined with a good amount of chaos and my computer. This morning I used this recipe from the Pioneer Woman for a quick hollandaise sauce, and man was it easy and delicious.

While I must confess my first attempt curdled and failed miserably (I didn't have the butter hot enough). The second turned out perfectly creamy. I've always heard the praise of hollandaise combined with complaints of the difficulty encountered making it, but it's no longer so folks. Hollandaise has been freed!

yum!

The presentation is my favorite part of every meal. I love the actual cooking too, I just get very satisfied when things turn out right and all the colors fit so nicely on the plate.

Those eggs are a double heart attack waiting to happen but man is that sauce worth it. I tried not to calculate calories and freak out while making it - that certainly was a lot of butter but so yummy. And it was probably overkill to have coffee cake, but a little sister wanted to contribute. It's only every once in a while anyway.

It is a challenging meal to make to feed a crowd (I only fed 6 this morning) and I've put it off for that very reason but everything kept really well this morning. The hollandaise didn't lose it's nice texture. The recipe also fed the six of us with some left overs although the original says serves four. I had a lot of side dishes though.

That said, happy cooking chickens.

Next week we're off to visit this sister in Utah so stay tuned. We're probably going to be home bodies and not see to much of SLC but I have some projects planned :)

Enjoy the mess!