Our First Guest Blogger and A Mothers Day Muffin Recipe

MAY! Oh, boy...that was fast.


Really? I need to check the calendar, gimme a sec....

Yeah, um...it's May.

I have no idea how that happened. I am trying to remember the last time the months have crept up on me quite like they have this year. Maybe it's because we've had such an incredible whirlwind of a year so far. Between Europe, the restaurant, Mikes new assignment at work and fertility craziness, I think this is the first lull in activity we've had (and it's going to be short lived because we have some BIG news coming soon, NO, it's not a baby...yet).

So, for all these reasons I have decided to take a small break. A few weeks to get some stuff in order around here. "Here," meaning around our home and around this blog. I have so many ideas, new blog posts, recipes, crafts and so on, that I want to share with you all. I just need a minute or two to get it all worked out, you deserve my best, don't you know.

I will be leaving you in the very capable hands of four wonderful ladies who will share with you, their very individual passions and know how. Every Thursday this month you will meet one of them and the first up to bat is Angela.

Chris and Angela posing for the camera on our most recent camping trip in the Big Sur area. 

Angela owns a family day care center in Santa Cruz. I met her, and her husband Chris a few years ago through a mutual friend on a camping trip in Yosemite. It's apparent, pretty much immediately, when you meet Angela that she is one of the sweetest people you will ever know. She is incredibly patient (wrangling a dozen "grown ups" for our various camping trips over the years, she HAS to be patient), nurturing and maternal. I love being around her because I instantly feel calm and taken care of. It's an invaluable skill set for dealing with adults and even more so for dealing with children.

Heading out for Half Dome back in 2008, our first camping trip together was a blast! 

The fact that Angela can COOK with a center full of children in the way that she does is amazing. As a former nanny I can tell you, it is so hard not to want to control the children. Reminding yourself that cooking with kids, like most art related activities, is about the process and not the product...well...it's not something that comes very naturally to me. However, cooking touches on so many different developmental areas for children, so it makes perfect sense that Angela would incorporate it into the daily activities of her center. And I am glad she did, because that makes her the perfect person to share this delicious gluten free muffin recipe with us, that you must can make with your kids. Perhaps the husbands and sons out there reading this will be inspired to bake some of these delicious muffins and treat the mothers in their lives to a wonderful breakfast in bed? Eh?

Here's Angela!!

California Eggs Benedict & An Awkward Introduction

My name is ED (well, not exactly, those are my initials). I am also known as Eva and this is my blog. Welcome, pull up a chair and grab some freshly popped popcorn. Take a look see. Don't gawk though, that's rude. And do not judge. Don't judge my poor grammar and horribly dry sense of humor. Don't judge my use of butter or bacon fat or profanity.

My name is Ed and today I am going on a road trip to save myself from countless hours on the couch eating chocolate covered snacks from Trader Joes. Have you notice that Trader Joes can market anything by covering it in chocolate and a generous sprinkling of chili powder. I was there yesterday and they had chocolate covered dried edamame (soy beans). Why? Because they can. Because you'll buy it. You will. There you will be, waiting in a line that has been cleverly named after a local landmark, and you'll see the chocolate covered edamame sitting high atop a mound of other chocolate covered somethings. You'll pick it up out of curiosity and before you know it, BAM! the package is in your basket. Once you get it home you'll try it and and one of two things will happen, either you'll love it and consume the entire package before dinner or you'll hate it. Then it will take it's place on the lower shelf of your pantry with all the rejected, strange snacks from TJ's. Like vacuum fried bananas, or blackberry and pickle jam. I made the last one up but I wouldn't put it passed them. My name is Ed and I am supposed to be getting ready for a road trip to San Francisco but it is now 11am and I am still in my underwear watching Magic Bullet commercials.

My name is Ed and I need breakfast. And So this brings us to our first recipe (insert cheers and applaud) here. I am sharing with you a recipe for my all time favorite breakfast. Eggs benedict!

I love eggs benedict, I always have. Over the years I have played around with the ingredients using sausage instead of ham, fried eggs instead of poached and different kinds of flavored hollandaise. I usually like the little concoctions I come up with, I mean hey... as long as it includes some crusty bread type component and some lemon butter sauce type component I am in! But no eggs benedict recipe I've tried come close to this. I actually feel guilty calling this a recipe, because only the sauce truly requires a recipe at all.

I am calling this California Eggs Benedict, it is made with a fairly traditional (but EASY) hollandaise, fried eggs, fresh vegetables and thick cut bacon all on sourdough bread. Mmm, I am cleaning the plate as we speak...

The hollandaise will go together much easier if you get all the ingredients ready ahead of time (but keep the butter cold in the fridge until you need it).

California Eggs Benedict

Ingredients

For the sauce:

3 egg yolks

1/2 cup cold butter in 2-3 chunks

1 lemon juiced

s&p

paprika

4 eggs

2-4 slices sourdough bread

1 cup wilted spinach

1 large tomato, sliced thick

1 avocado, sliced thick

4 strips of bacon

This first part is done OFF the heat: In a large sauce pan add egg yolks and lemon juice and mix with a wisk. Turn the heat on low and add one of the chunks of cold butter. Continually mix the butter into the egg yolk mixture. The sauce should start to slowly thicken as the butter melts, add the remainder chunks of butter and keep mixing with a whisk until the butter has all melted and the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Taste and add salt, pepper and paprika to taste. Smoked paprika is especially good in this sauce, you can also add some sliced green onions to your hollandaise if that is your kind of thing.

Next you toast your sourdough bread and set aside. Cook your eggs to your liking (over easy for me please) and cook the bacon. Set up an assembly line of the ingredients and stack 'em like THIS: toast, handful of wilted spinach, avocado, tomato, fried egg and bacon. Smother...and I DO mean smother, with your hollandaise. Eat up. Quickly, before I find you and steal your breakfast. Ask my husband, I'll do it. If you're a light eater than this will make 4 servings, it's a lot of stuff piled on toast after all. If you're like us chubby's over here, this will make only 2 servings and then you'll feel guilty and hit the gym for an hour...erh...I mean 25 minutes...

In the photo you will notice some deliciously crispy fried potatoes. Want them?

SIMPLE: boil a few teeny tiny red potatoes. Poke 'em.... are they tender? No? Keep boiling....

Poke 'em again. Are they tender? Yep? Put them in a hot hot pan with some oil...sizzle sizzle. Smash then with a smasher or the back of your spatula, just once. Sizzle sizzle. Flip. Sizzle Sizzle. Salt and pepper.

Stop looking at me like that I am NOT giving you a "recipe" for fried potatoes. C'mon!