Why Hello, Mr. Benedict Is that popcorn I smell?

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

Hope you have all had a merry holiday spent with family, unwrapping gifts, and reperforming your age old traditions!

This year, I discovered very quickly there were no plans for breakfast. The feast (or dinner, as some would call it) was the main focus. So I set off to bring something entirely new & scrumptious to the table: Eggs Benedict.

I blame Highland Bakery, in Atlanta, for my fascination with eggs benedict. Something about the way the hollandaise dripped off the side of the eggs combined with my favorite 2 minute breakfast food, the english muffin, draws me in every time.

So I went to my trusted besty allrecipes.com for Home Made English Muffins, Poached Eggs, and Easy Hollandaise, and voila! Delicious brekfast.

A couple of notes:

I baked the muffins at 350 for about 10-15 minutes, rather than throwing them onto the griddle.

Shallow water, no vinegar, cover after 3 minutes.

The hollandaise was perfect!

Later, for a mid-evening / late afternoon snack, I made peanut-butter caramel popcorn:

1/2 cup uncooked popcorn (yields about 8 cups)
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
 1/4 Cup white sugar
 1/4 cup peanut butter
12 tbs butter
1/4 cup corn syrup

Cook the popcorn as directed. Combine the sugars, butters, and corn syrup into a saucepan and cook on medium. Pour cook popcorn onto wax paper. Pour the peanut-butter caramel over the popcorn. To more evenly mix, heat in the oven on 200 for one hour. Stir and serve.

What was your favorite holiday treat this year?

A little direction..

When I was a kid, my parents had a sign shop next to a Dunkin' Donuts. As a very small girl, I enjoyed donuts - blueberry cake to be exact. Mr Carlton, a janitor at my elementary school, could never say no when I asked for a share of his morning breakfast. Thus, I became hooked on the blueberry cake donuts.

A few years later my sweet tooth became a little more numb, and I began to explore the other offerings of Dunkin'. From twists to bagels, to donut holes and boston creme, I became a pastry connoisseur. Eventually, I landed on a permanent favorite: Croissants.

There is something about a Croissant, cut in half, and toasted, that is the most delectable pastry you could ever dream of. Add a little egg and cheese and you have the perfect meal.

So this weekend, I had a few extra hours and plenty of flour, so I attempted my first batch of croissants.

The recipe I used was useless to say the least. "Mix the yeast with some water." Some water? "Add the next 5 ingredients" All at once? Slowly? Mix together first, then add?

This recipe was nothing like the bread recipes I am used to, and given my love for croissants I wanted to give it my best! I needed a little more direction..

But, I decided to follow some of the basics I know of - "some water" really meant about 1 cup at 110 degrees. The yeast water needs to stand for 10 minutes until creamy. The next 5 dry ingredients should be mixed in a bowl first, then added slowly to the yeast water, etc. etc.

Eventually, I got to a real debacle: "Roll the chilled butter flat, to about 1/2" thickness." Roll... cold... butter? Do these people realize how solid cool butter is?

I improvised, and eventually got a slightly melted layer of butter onto the dough. Later, I looked for even more guidance and learned to chill butter means this:

"Add 2 tablespoons of flour to 1 cup of butter. Beat until blended. Refrigerate overnight."

Needless to say, I am overly grateful that I purchased this semi-useless cookbook on the bargain shelf. But I think I will use the pretty pictures of tasty foods as decorations, not bona-fide recipes.