I am just realizing that with my left arm in a splint I can hardly type with that hand. This might be a slow process. I know you can’t see the time, but I am going to mark it down at the end of each paragraph so that you can join in my struggle. (And my arm is in a splint because I had my Ulnar bone shortened). 14:36
I want to tell you about making eggs. I make them often, but this time was a bit special as I was trying out two new silicon egg poaching houses. For two years we have owned two lovely green silicon egg poachers which have served us well, but two was not enough. We needed four to get us through breakfast. So, on a recent trip to Rossland, I went to the cooking store where we got the first ones and I doubled our supply. This time two red, which was perfect as they are complimentary colours to the two green. I am very much into colour, and you need to know this as it plays a big part in why my breakfast was somewhat catastrophic. 14:51
Let me set the scene. It is early March and I can’t do any sports because of recent complications to my knee replacement. Usually, I would get up and do some activities or I would run our dog Lupin on the bike if it were my turn to do it. Not being able to exercise is stress inducing for me, but I try not to focus on what I can’t do, instead on what I can. As a result of the new Sitting-Down-Most-of-the-Time policy, now all the dog exercise is on Jody. That means two to three runs or walks a day. To compensate I thought I would make him a nice breakfast ready upon his return. My menu was this: 15:02
2 poached eggs each
2 pieces lovely toast with jam
Toast up the ½ croissant left from yesterday
Orange juice if we had any (we didn’t)
Coffee
I get the medium pot out and put enough water in it to cook four eggs in their little silicon houses. I carefully greased each house and then cracked an egg for each. Placing the houses into the boiling water I made sure to go red – green – red – green. I could not bear to see two green together and two red as that would be very unpleasant for my eyes. Remember cooking is supposed to be a joyful experience.
Now it gets a bit scary. You put the lid on and make sure that it keeps a light, even boil. But after popping the ½ croissant into the toaster and being distracted by the scent of burning, I stopped watching the pot. When I looked sideways there was white foam bubbling from the top and at least two of the egg houses were ½ filled with water. This is the worst part of poaching eggs; you cannot let the houses get water in them or the eggs will not cook properly. I enjoy a 6-minute poached egg and now the eggs were going to cook at different times. I carefully took out one of the houses (remember it was a tight fit to get them in) and sadly the egg slipped out of the house and into the water. So now I have three eggs in houses, and one flailing around in the boiling water under the others. This was NOT in my plan. Plus, there was smoke coming from the toaster so I left the pot and scooted over, unplugged the toaster and ran out the door with it. 15:26
OMG, I think you can probably guess the next part. It was verging on a breakfast disaster. The flailing egg had turned into foaming white and was bubbling up in a way that had me thinking the foam was attempting to get into the remaining three egg houses.
I grabbed a second pot, filled it with boiling water from the kettle and carefully transferred one of the perfect eggs over to the new pot. In doing so I knocked the second perfect egg over and water filled the house. I attempted to pour some of that water out and although the egg did not escape, part of it slid into the waters of the flailing egg below. Let me take a moment to summarize. We now have 1.25 flailing eggs cooking quite quickly, .75 of an egg in a house with a bit of water, and in pot number 2 we have one perfect egg poaching the way it should. 15:42
Despite what some of you might consider a write off breakfast, I managed to hold it together and keep on task. Perhaps some of the training I have had rock climbing* when I had to talk myself over an overhang, maybe that was what kept me from losing it. I went from the pots to the loaf of bread that needed cutting and toasting. I pulled the cremated croissant out of the toaster and began cooking the toast. I checked the freezer for a can of OJ, but there was none. I filled the stove top espresso maker and made coffee, put placemats and jam out, and then unfortunately Jody walked in the door. Way too early. He smiled at me and here is the short conversation: 15:49
J: “Smells like you are trying to burn down the house”.
S: “Just making you a super nice breakfast. Maybe go away for a while”.
But before he would leave he did a quick sweep of the kitchen and glanced over at the commotion on the stove.
J: "You having some trouble cooking the eggs?”.
S: “Not really, I just need you to leave. I had wanted to poach all the eggs in one pot so that I could alternate the colours, but it didn’t work out so well".
OK, I know those of you still reading are likely wondering if this is ever going to end. Maybe I will do the thing you do when you look up a meal online and you get to press that button “Jump to recipe”. 15:55
We did have breakfast, and although I did not serve four poached eggs, I served what I could and we did not starve. I exploded one egg in the microwave, but the two others survived, plus I did manage to poach one egg perfectly in the second pot. As we sat down to eat Jody smiled at me and said, “You sure you don’t want to fry these now?”
We had perfectly cooked toast and I found an orange to slice up so that the plates looked full. The conclusions I can make from this meal are the following:
- It is perfectly OK to alternate the colour of your silicon poaching houses, however you need a bigger pot.
- The thrift store toaster we have is not good at toasting croissants. It burns everything that is a smidge wider than standard thickness .
- The person cooking breakfast should not entertain any visitors in the kitchen unless they are helping and silent.
16:13pm.
I am nearly done. Now I have to go and do the illustrations. Total typing time 1 hour 37 minutes. But it felt longer.