Eggs Benedict and Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie

Sorry for not updating before now. Life is crazy with 3 kids. My oldest just got a tutor and apparently it takes more time than I thought to drive him around for appointments! Poor time management on my part! Oh well, on to the home made goodies!

Eggs Benedict

Eggs Benedict is a common dinner at our house. The kids don't care much for the hollandaise sauce, but they love everything else. They prefer theirs disassembled of course. It does take some time to make, the sauce has to be babysat, and the egg poaching takes longer than frying, but the meal is always worth the wait. My husband will even beg for this. There was one night he was so desperate I ended up running to the store at 10pm to get more english muffins. I don't remember where I found the original recipe for the sauce anymore. I eyeball it now, so these measurements are approximate.

Place a tablespoon or so of butter in a frying pan and fry thin slices of ham on both sides. Fry one muffin shape/sized piece of ham per muffin half. Meanwhile begin toasting your english muffin. To make the hollandaise sauce, in a double boiler roughly scramble 4 egg yolks. Add in about a tablespoon of water, and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Beat again to combine. Then put over simmering water. Add a 1/3 of a stick of unsalted butter, stirring constantly until combined. Then add the second third of the stick of butter doing the same thing, and finally the last third. Keep this sauce moving! Add in a dash of salt and 1/4 tsp white pepper. If it starts to separate, add in a bit more lemon juice (like a teaspoon) and a tablespoon of butter. Meanwhile (yeah as if that wasn't enough) in a frying pan 3/4 full of simmering water, poach 2 (or more depending on how many people you're serving) eggs. The easiest way to get a good looking egg for this is to crack your egg into a measuring cup and then slide the egg out of the cup partially submerged in the pan. You will end up with a more rounded egg vs. a more flattened one. A true poached egg has the whites entirely cooked, and the yolks still slightly runny. We usually cook our egg fully  however, and I check it's done-ness by poking a butter knife directly into the center of the yolk. You should get a tiny bit of 'discharge' from it. Pull it out then with a slotted spoon. It will continue to cook a little bit after you've removed it from the heat so this if you get it out right then, you avoid overcooking.  To assemble put the toasted muffin half on a plate, place the ham on top of the muffin, followed by the egg. Top with hollandaise sauce, using enough to let some of the sauce drip over the sides, but still leaving some of the egg exposed. I always plate this meal with a 1/2 teaspoon dab of hollandaise sauce on the side as you can see in the picture. My husband always eats two of these at a time, but honestly I can't eat more than one of these. Probably better for my thighs that way. 

The hollandaise sauce is both lemony and bitter, but also creamy and smooth which pairs well with the mellowness of the cooked egg. To make the muffin extra chewy my husband likes it if I butter the muffin halfway through the toasting process. I don't generally do this for myself because I really don't think anyone really needs that much butter, but he's a skinny guy so I suppose he can get away with it.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie

You know those little cook book magazines they sell at grocery store check outs? I used to be totally addicted to them. I would get the new one as soon as I saw it come out and pour over it for a couple of days. And then I'd put them in the cupboard and  completely forget I ever purchased it. It was a year before I ever made a recipe out of one of them. It was great fun, and sure that one recipe was pretty good, but for the most part the recipes were just repeats, or very slightly altered versions of the same things, pretty much all of which I didn't really want to make in the first place. This recipe came from one of those magazines. Ironically the same one that I tried that first recipe out of. I was looking for a pumpkiny cheesecake that I didn't need to create my own recipe for, and thought this could be worth a spin. It definitely was no cheesecake, but altered a bit it has plenty of potential to become one.  I don't want to post the exact directions for this for two reasons. The first being I'm pretty sure anyone who reads this blog has a pumpkin pie recipe of their own, but also I don't want Betty Crocker to get on my case about posting it.  To make this in addition to your usual pumpkin pie ingredients you will need a package and a half of cream cheese (the 8oz packages) brought to room temperature. Beat together your sugar, cream cheese, and flour until combined, reserving about 3/4 cup of it. Put everything else except the milk in the cream cheese mixture and beat to combine. Pour into a lightly baked pie shell (9 inch). Mix one and a half tablespoons of milk with the cream cheese mixture that remains and then pour over top of the pumpkin mixture. I realize most pumpkin pie recipes call for cream and milk in large quantities, but this time you will use no cream, and very little milk. Once you have the layers set, run a butter knife around the pie a bit, careful to not break the crust to create a swirled pattern. Bake as you would normally. You may want to put some foil on the edges of the crust. I didn't, but I also didn't have large edges, I'll leave that up to your best judgement. Cool slightly and then refrigerate this for a few hours before serving.

As a kid we always had pumpkin pie at the winter and fall holiday family gatherings. I remember not ever really caring for it. I didn't know what it was that I didn't like, but since everyone else seemed to really love it, I kept my mouth shut. Like clock work someone would present me with a slice of pie covered entirely with cool whip. I discovered practically a decade later that I actually love pumpkin pie. What I don't like is whipped cream. Any whipped cream. Even the home made stuff I make for my family.  This pie tastes exactly like it has whipped cream on it. But oddly I still found this rather tasty. The whipped cream taste is delicate and gives the pie a sort of 'whipped' feeling on your tongue, like eating one of those Yoplait whipped yogurts. A really lovely light dessert that you can serve without garnishing. I really don't recommend serving this with whipped cream, or anything really. It seems to be perfect on its own.

I feel it's also important to note that quite often the inside of a pie isn't what matters, what matters most about whether or not the pie is good is the crust. I have two crusts I make, one that I roll which uses apple cider vinegar to help create flakyness, and one that is a pat in the pan which relies on oil and milk. For this pie I used the pat in the pan crust. It's more crumbly than the roll out and much more mellow. I think next time I'll roll a crust instead. Definitely worth the extra effort for this pie I think.