Sunday, September 25, 2011

The New Eggs, Cheese, and Toast

ALLELUIAAAA!!! I have found a little piece of heaven.
Meet Texas Toast with Havarti, Egg, and Truffle Oil.

This meal was inspired by Ino Cafe of New York featured on The Best Thing I Ever Ate
  

Ingredients
1 slice of texas toast
1 separated egg yolk
1 slice of havarti cheese
3 asparagus spears
olive oil
salt + pepper




First things first, pre-heat your oven to 425.

To prepare your toast, cut the crust off and slice a 1 inch square in the middle.
DO NOT CUT ALL THE WAY THROUGH!

You are going to use this 'box' as a cup for your egg yolk later, so compress the square down with the
back of your knife or your finger... whatever :)

Once your oven is finished pre-heating, pop the toast in on a cookie sheet for about 3 to 5 minutes so
that it is starting to brown on the edges.

All the while...
You are going to want to get your asparagus, cut it into bite size pieces and heat them in a pan
with a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper. If you like your asparagus crunchy like I do, then this
should really only take about 3 minutes. Once they are done just scatter them on the plate, kinda like a garnish.

Once the toast is out, go ahead and pour the yolk into your box and put your cheese around the edges.
When you put the toast back into the oven it wont be for a specific amount of time... all you need to do is watch the cheese. 
Once the cheese is ooey and gooey and dripping over the edges, you can take the toast out. The yolk should be runny.





To finish: Plate your toast, add your salt, pepper, and drizzle the truffle oil. Voila! Eat in four steps:
1. Admire the look
2. Make a mess
3. Soak up every last bit of yolk
4. Be sad it is over

Enjoy!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Artichoke

How amazing is it that I actually followed through with one of my goals? Artichokes!
Seeing that the only forms of artichoke I have ever eaten is smothered in
cheese or in pasta, I figured to really get to know the vegetable,
I needed it in a very simplified form. Broiled.

The preparation and cooking are just as simple as the flavor...




Ingredients:
1 Artichoke
1/2 of a lemon
2 garlic cloves
1 Tablespoon of Olive oil
Salt + Pepper


(Preheat the oven to 425)
All you need to do to prepare the artichoke is cut off the stem, and the top inch or so of the leaves...
they aren't edible. Once you have that done, you can start spreading the leaves apart 
so that all of the flavors of the juices you add later can drip down into the crevices...

Before you start adding the seasonings, put the artichoke on a piece of tin foil 
with a tiny bit of olive oil to make sure it doesn't stick at all.

Squeeze your lemon over the artichoke, making sure it is evenly distributed
Next, drizzle your olive oil over the entire artichoke, adding more depending on your personal taste.
Now, shove the two garlic cloves into the leaves...
and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Wrap your artichoke up in the tinfoil making sure nothing is exposed!

And pop it in the oven.

Now comes the hard part... waiting. 1 1/2 hours. For an artichoke.
(My artichoke was fairly large, so for a medium I would only do 1 hour and 15 minutes or so...)


The finished product...


How to eat: Pull the leaves out one by one and scrape the meatiness off of the bottom with your teeth.
It may take some trial and error to figure out what is and is not edible.

Or you could always dive in face first and see how it goes.


** You may want some sauce to dip it in... what kind, is up to you. Be creative! && Enjoy :)