Woah, eggs benedict. Where have you been all my life?

Since today is Family Day in Ontario, I decided to spoil my family and attempt once more to show off my new found cooking abilities (ones that still shock the socks off of them at times).  When my mom suggested I make breakfast today, I spent endless hours browsing the Internet (the modern day cookbook, as my dad calls it), in search of the perfect recipe.

And then I found eggs benedict.

My decision to make these rich towers of deliciousness wasn’t as impulsive as you may think.  You see, my desire to make these eggs began this past Thursday when I was frantically studying for my art history exam, which was to take place the very next morning.  My roommate Ariel and I were desperately trying to think of weird word associations to help me remember the dates, artist’s name and photo name for 30 assigned key works.  One of these photos was taken by this dude named F. Holland Day.  He created this Sacred Art Series, where he starved himself and paraded around in pictures pretending to be Jesus.  As you can probably imagine, the mind trick we created for Mr. Day was something clever to do with hollandaise and Jesus liking eggs (kind of lame, but it worked!).  As a side note, I also remembered the year of the photo (1896) due to this suggestion from Ariel: “Boy needs to eat and sandwich. He’s so emaciated.  Kate Moss was super skinny and popular in the 90s, just remember that.”  Aced it.

BUT ANYWAYS, I found this dreamy eggs benedict recipe from Pioneer Woman Cooks.  Her step-by-step picture guide worked wonders, and I frequently found myself scrolling like a crazy woman through her images, trying to find out what the hell I was doing.  Poached eggs have held some sort of strange allure to me ever since I watched this scene from my favourite movie, Julie & Julia.  Luckily, unlike Julie Powell, my mom had these little silicon pod things that I could poach the eggs in.  This, in and of itself, was not done without challenge.  I initially filled up my pot with too much liquid, and boiling water slopped over the side of the pods, sinking the poor little guys to the bottom.  Although my motto is normally “leave no egg behind,” I regretfully inform you that we lost a brave comrade to the compost.

Now before I shut up, I must comment on the hollandaise sauce.  I LOVE IT.  I just want to pour it into a pool and drown in it, that’s how good it was.  All that’s in the sauce is a cup of melted butter blended up with egg yolk, lemon juice and cayenne pepper.  Goooooosh, butter.  So wonderful.  My 17-year-old brother was so critical of its smooth, velvet-like consistency, and refused to have the it drizzled on top of his egg.  What a grave mistake, young one.  After my eggs benedict were done, I ate half an english muffin just with hollandaise sauce.  No shame, gluttony reigns supreme.

Alright, but I feel like I’m rambling a little here because of all the adventures associated with this morning’s breakfast.  Basically, all you need to know is that this was delicious and rich, albeit a tad bit time consuming.  I went through a few little panicked moments trying to co-ordinate the cooking, blending, and poaching of everything, but in the end it turned out alright (thanks for a helping hand from my mom)!  Kudos again to the Pioneer Woman for another stellar success.

PS: Okay, I’ll admit it. I overcooked the egg yolks a wee bit which is why they don’t look as runny as they should, but I’m still a newbie with this whole poached egg thing.
PPS: If you’re wondering what this “Canadian bacon” thing is mentioned in PWC’s recipe, it is back bacon. Yum!