It's Tuesday?

So, Taneasha tells me that today is Tuesday and I was supposed to have some kind of post up. Um. Really? Okay.

Huh.

Um.

Well, I've had a houseguest for the last week or so, and it's "Reading Week" (aka midwinter break so university students won't kill themselves) so I've kinda lost track of a few things. Not the least of which is half my socks. Seriously, I've been wearing mismatches for the last few days because I seem to only have singles.

Fortunately, I have Recipe Guy handy. And he's good for more than just smart assed comments in the comments section.

Over the past summer Texas had one hell of a drought. Recipe Guy lost nearly his entire garden and had almost completely given up on home grown fresh veggies when he noticed something growing that he hadn't planted.

Looks kinda like a green bean, doesn't it?

Well, it kinda is.

Strophostyles helvola is a wild bean native to the southern US, and actually edible. Apparently these extremely drought tolerant plants were able to find a niche in his garden where everything else had died of sunstroke and heat exhaustion.

After a whole bunch of research and some test beans (Recipe Guy geeking out on food? who him? never. lol)

he harvested a bunch of them, parboiled and froze them.

Oops. Resized an already resized picture.

I know a few of you freaked out a bit when we harvested wild onions for our bread pudding, but really, there is food everywhere if you know where to look. We've also picked wild berries on the side of the road, culled rose hips from wild rose plants, scoped out wild grapes and chantrelle mushrooms; and when I was on the island I harvested wild chamomile almost daily.

I don't know about you, but when the zombie apocalypse happens, I'm going to be well fed, and it won't be with freeze dried army rations. 

The green beans froze quite well. We tossed them into a stir fry with some pea pods and pork.

Since it was his first harvest, a few of them had made it past their prime and were a bit stringy, but overall, they were just like the green beans you get at the grocery.

What have you eaten wild?

Hollandaise Isn't Hard

I told you I was going to show you a fabulous way to use those leftover egg yolks.  So, I don’t know how many horror stories I’ve heard about hollandaise disaster.  The truth is it’s pretty easy to make, as long as you follow a few simple rules, which I am going to teach you. 

What you’ll need:

4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons water
½ cup (1 stick) butter
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

Place your egg yolks, lemon juice, and water in a bowl.

Whisk it until it gets foamy and light in color. 

Next, you need to melt your butter.  I like to do it in a measuring cup for easy pouring. 

Just microwave it until it’s just melted.  It’s ok if there are still some unmelted bits.   Set it aside and let’s go back to the eggs. 

Rule #1:  Make sure the mixture never gets too hot.  Place the mixing bowl over some barely simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water.  Keep a towel handy so that you can move the bowl off of the heat if it starts to get too warm. 

Rule #2:  Don’t stop whisking.  You want the mixture to become very light yellow and fall in ribbons.  It will probably take about 3 - 5 minutes of fast whisking to get to that point.  When you do, begin drizzling in the melted butter. 

Rule #3:  Add the butter very, very slowly.  Then continue with rule #2.  Whisk, whisk, whisk.  When you’ve reached hollandaise-ville, it will be silky and thick. 

Now is a good time to add your salt and pepper.  I also like herbs in mine.  Fresh parsley, dill, or chives would be fabulous.  I didn’t happen to have anything fresh, so I sprinkled in a little pinch of dried dill. 

If at any point your mixture starts to look slightly curdled or the butter starts to separate, that means your sauce has gotten too hot and is breaking.  Don’t panic.  Immediately remove the bowl from the pan, throw in a couple of ice cubes, and whisk like crazy.  Hollandaise sauce is a fabulous addition to vegetables or fish, but my favorite use is for breakfast.  It’s fabulous on any omelet, but I think the ultimate, all time best dish ever created for breakfast, is eggs benedict.  Granted, I don’t make it the way tradition dictates.  I use ham rather than Canadian bacon, and I scramble the eggs because I’m not big on poached.  However you make it, you’ll be glad you did. 

Seriously, is there anything better?  I could eat that for any meal of the day. 

What’s your favorite thing to eat for a special breakfast?