There's no plate like chrome...

So recently when I went to the dentist, he had some kind of bad news for me. "Matthias," he asked me, "what have you been eating?"

"Waa?" I replied with my mouth full of dentist utensils.

"Well this steel plate I put in your mouth earlier is all corroded away and no good! Ah! I bet you've been eating lots of hollandaise sauce."

Wow! I was bewildered how he knew. "Hou cood you tell, doctah?" (my mouth still full of dentist)

"Well you see, hollandaise sauce has lots of lemon juice and is very corrosive. The hollandaise sauce just ate away that steel plate in your mouth, so I'm taking it out and replacing it with a chrome plate and you'll be good as new."

Now I was really bewildered. "A crwome plate? Why?"

Then the doctored replied, "Because there's no plate like chrome for the hollandaise!"

[/end bad pun joke]

So special for conference, I cooked Megan and her sister Eggs Benedict Saturday morning, complete with the highly corrosive hollandaise sauce! And oh boy, were they good! I'll attach the recipe at the bottom of the post.

One of my favorite pun jokes (see above) has always made me hungry for Eggs Benedict. Then Megan told me that one of her favorite movies (Run Away Bride) has always made her curious for eggs benedict. Then a few weeks ago while watching an episode of Psych on the internet, one of the characters, Gus said, "Of course I was doing something important! I was eating a poached egg on a toasted english muffin drizzled in hollandaise sauce!" Megan and I looked at each other a said "Eggs Benedict!" Allthough Gus failed to mention the canadian bacon.

I know it seems like we only ever take pictures of good food we make and eat, but we also made some corn bread muffins and cinnamon rolls last week that were oh so good.

Mmmm hmmm! We even had some freshly shelled pecans from St. David that we placed liberally all over the cinnamon rolls. The end.


Eggs Benedict (from allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS

• 4 egg yolks
• 3 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 pinch ground white pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 eggs
• 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
• 8 strips Canadian-style bacon
• 4 English muffins, split
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened

DIRECTIONS

1. To Make Hollandaise: Fill the bottom of a double boiler part-way with water. Make sure that water does not touch the top pan. Bring water to a gentle simmer. In the top of the double boiler, whisk together egg yolks, lemon juice, white pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and 1 tablespoon water.
2. Add the melted butter to egg yolk mixture 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time while whisking yolks constantly. If hollandaise begins to get too thick, add a teaspoon or two of hot water. Continue whisking until all butter is incorporated. Whisk in salt, then remove from heat. Place a lid on pan to keep sauce warm.
3. Preheat oven on broiler setting. To Poach Eggs: Fill a large saucepan with 3 inches of water. Bring water to a gentle simmer, then add vinegar. Carefully break eggs into simmering water, and allow to cook for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes. Yolks should still be soft in center. Remove eggs from water with a slotted spoon and set on a warm plate
4. While eggs are poaching, brown the bacon in a medium skillet over medium-high heat and toast the English muffins on a baking sheet under the broiler.
5. Spread toasted muffins with softened butter, and top each one with a slice of bacon, followed by one poached egg. Place 2 muffins on each plate and drizzle with hollandaise sauce. Sprinkle with chopped chives and serve immediately.

I've Bean Published! (pun intended)

Sorry if I'm a little too cheesy (further pun intended), but I've just been published on a highly prestigious food storage blog as a guest author. The blog is Lu's Food Storage. The article goes through some fun experiences I've had cooking beans and lists a good recipe for smokey BBQ beans and easy cheesy refried beans. Enjoy!

A wee bit o' Irish

At work, St. Patrick's Day is one of the few holidays that the piping department seems to celebrate. They like it because they can paint their facial hair green, dress like leprechauns, and "it's a white man's holiday all about drinking".

While I find this absolutely hilarious, I like St. Patrick's Day for quite different reasons. First of all, I have red hair and green happens to be a very good color for me. And secondly (although probably more importantly), it's a really good excuse to make Corned Beef and Cabbage for dinner!

While it sounds like some fancy dinner, it's one of the easiest things to make! This is my Grandma's recipe that I had her send to me after she introduced me to it in 2003. I love it!

Corned Beef and Cabbage
(If you buy the corn beef with the spices, leave out
the spices in this recipe.)

3-4pounds corn-beef brisket
2onions
2cloves garlic, minced
6 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
6 small to med. potatoes, peeled
6 small carrots, peeled
6 cabbage wedges (1 medium head.)

Place corn beef in Dutch oven; barely cover with hot water.
Add onions, garlic and seasonings.
Cover; simmer about 1 hour per pound of meat, or till fork tender.
Remove meat from liquid; add potatoes and carrots.
Cover; bring to boiling, cook 10 minutes.
Add cabbage; cook 20 minutes more.

I glaze the meat while the veggies cook.
Mix some mustard with 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves.
Spread fat side lightly with prepared mustard.
Bake in shallow pan 350 15 to 20 minutes or until nicely glazed.

To carve corn beef cut across the grain, making thin slices.
Makes 6 servings.

I ALWAYS buy the corned beef with the package of spices included. It'll say on your packaging, or you can just take a look at the package to see if there is a packet of seasonings. It's really an easy meal, with the hardest part being to start it early enough, and to cut the vegetables. I always glaze the corned beef liberally, but then I love glazed meat - it's the reason I have mustard in the fridge. Also, when you serve it, the broth in the pot doesn't need to make it to your plate, but the vegetables are so good when cooked in it!

Bon appetit!

Sunday Morning Sermon

About a week ago, I wrote a blog post about how hard school is and how much I don't like it. I find these days that I'm kinda whiny about school, because it is hard. Whenever anyone asks the idle conversation starter, "So how's school going?" my only positive reply is, "Well, Megan and I sure look forward to next May!"

There must certainly be more positive things about life then that I'm going to graduate in 7 months. I want to be able to look back on our years as poor married college students and be happy about all the goofy stuff we do and how much fun we have. For example, on Friday night, I wanted to take Megan out to a fancy dinner date. However, I realized that the day before we'd just gone grocery shopping with a big bill, and the week before, we'd gone to Sam's Club with an even bigger grocery bill. I thought to myself, "Certainly there must be something to eat in our own house after spending $200 on groceries in the past week!" So Megan and I spent about an hour going through our cook books and dreaming about fancy things to cook and eat. It was so much fun to just sit with her on the couch going through those cook books. Then she went to a seminar with her sister Kathleen, and I got ready to make stuffed french toast (totally awesome recipe by the way, they taste like cheese danishes!). When she and her sister came back, we enjoyed a relaxed fun evening of eating yummy stuffed french toast and playing cards for three hours. Then last night (after spending the day at school doing homework) we enjoyed each others company by cooking dinner together, then Megan gave me a haircut while I watched the Simpsons, and we played Mario Kart.

See, so there are good things going on currently in my life, even though school is hard. President Monson's talk from general conference kind of embodies that spirit. It's called Finding Joy in the Journey. Among many other good one liners, he says, "You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you've collected a lot of empty yesterdays." He also states that "Stresses in our lives come regardless of our circumstances." So no matter what, I'm going to have lots of stresses and things to do that I don't want to. However, he says that we shouldn't neglect the most important things, "--and what is most important almost always involves the people around us."

I'm reminded of a Book of Mormon institute class I took once. When studying Lehi's family traveling through the wilderness, the instructor pointed out how difficult and hard the trip through the wilderness was. Their purpose in leaving Jerusalem was to go to the promised land. So why didn't God make the journey pass more easily? Why did they have to suffer through hunger, thirst, family fueds, being tied up and beaten (well, Nephi anyway), etc? Because there is purpose in the journey. In that journey, Lehi received the vision of the Tree of Life. In the journey, Nephi also received many visions which could be likened to his calling to be a prophet. After that journey, he was no longer Nephi, one of the sons of Lehi, but Nephi, the capable leader and prophet, ready to begin a nation in the promised land. Without the journey, they wouldn't have reached their destination. Okay, that sounds ridiculous. Rephrased, without their journey, they would not have been prepared to receive their destination.

In that institute class, we also likened their journey from Jerusalem to the promised land to our journey through life back to Heavenly Father's presence in the Celestial Kingdom. If God loves us so much, why did He make us leave his presence in the first place? Why doesn't he make our journey through life easier so that we can be sure and return to Him when we die? Why is there so much dang homework I have to do for my classes? Why do I always have so much to do period. Why doesn't he just use his almighty powers to just zap away all the bad and whisk us away to our promised land, aka, back to His presence in heaven? Because the journey is important. Our struggles through this life are important for our salvation. Living life isn't simply about just enduring hardships, but learning and growing and struggling through trials and coming out triumphant on the other side, so that we can say, "HA! See Dr. Burge? I know how to write technical reports for your opto-mechanics class now!" or . And in the end we will have achieved so much, and we'll be ready and prepared to be in our Heavenly Father's presence once again.

Moral of the story: school is still hard, but life is good. I know that life can be difficult, but that's okay. I still have joy in being with Megan and doing goofy things with her. Plus I have a beard now. How couldn't life be more awesome?