Hollandaise sauce.

My Mum has taught me lots of things. The right way to hang your clothes on the line so that you don't have to iron anything, the proper way to do the washing up (glasses first, pots and pans last), how to wrap presents so they look pretty, how to look after my cat, how to get stains out of your clothes, how to sew the hem on your skirt. Useful things.

But one of the most important thing she taught me, was how to cook. She started teaching me when I was little so that now I feel like these cooking tips are basic things that everyone learnt, even if they're not.
Things like, how to tell if a cake is ready without sticking a tester in it, how to make bolognaise sauce, how to chop onions, how to get the skin off a garlic clove. Again, useful things (She's a handy type).

Don't get me wrong, my Dad has taught me lots of things too (how to flip pancakes, how to make a good omelette, how to make mayonnaise). But this isn't a blog post about Dads. It's a post about Mums. Because it's Mothers Day today. My Mum lives in a different state, so I don't get to see her very often. And although I rang her this morning, I thought it would be nice to tell her how much I love her.

There is one thing that Mum taught me to make really well. And I make this at least once a month, if not more. Usually on a Sunday, when Brent requests Eggs Benedict for breakfast. Actually, the first time I made this by myself, was when Brent and I started going out and I was trying to impress him. It must have worked because it's one of the only things that he actually asks me to make.

[Notice the burnt toast in the picture above? I can make hollandaise but I can't make toast.]

Mastering hollandaise sauce is a pretty useful skill. It doesn't just have to go on eggs, either. Think steamed asparagus and pan-fried salmon fillets. And it is really easy to scale up or down, depending on how many people you're feeding.
In my recipe book, the recipe for hollandaise goes a bit like this:
1 egg yolk, butter, lemon juice. Don't scramble the eggs. Serves two.
But that isn't very helpful to you, really. So I thought I'd write it up a bit better, so that you can impress your beloved, or make your Mum a nice breakfast.

Hollandaise Sauce.
Serves two

1 egg yolk
50-70g butter, chopped
 1-2 tsp lemon juice, or to taste
salt and pepper, to taste

Set a small pan on the stove with 3/4 cup water. Bring to a simmer.
Put the egg yolk into a medium bowl and set the bowl over the pan. Make sure the bowl isn't touching the water. This is really important.
Whisk the egg yolk, and put one cube of butter in. Keep whisking until the butter is incorporated.
Add another cube of butter and keep whisking. When it is nearly all incorporated, add another butter.
When you've added a few cubes of butter, you can start putting in more than one cube at once.
Keep doing this until all the sauce starts to thicken and is a nice pale colour.
Make sure that the eggs don't start to scramble. If they look like they are beginning to scramble, quickly take the bowl off the water and whisk it like crazy. If they look really bad, or you're a bit nervous, you could plunge the bowl into some cold water to stop the cooking process.
When the sauce is thick and all the butter is mixed in, whisk in the lemon juice and some salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm.
If the sauce cools down too much, just set the bowl over the simmering pan of water again, and whisk until it heats through.
This amount of sauce is enough for two poached eggs.

What to do with left over egg yolks.

After making the Rainbow Birthday Cake, I had heaps of egg yolks left over. As someone who doesn't like to throw things away, I had to find something to make with them. I made pasta and aioli. But you could make lots of different things. Be wild, imagination!

And because I'm so nice, I'm going to give you some links so that you can make some yummy things with your left over egg yolks too.

Smitten Kitchen's seven yolk pasta dough
Jamie Oliver's fresh egg pasta
David Lebovitz's Aioli
Joy the Baker's Tangerine lemon curd
Lottie + Doof's Orange and cinnamon creme brulee
Nigella Lawson's Lavender ice cream
Stovetop Revolution's Burnt fig semifreddo

I'll leave it at that, otherwise I might have to do a post about what to make with left over egg whites...

Breakfast pies.

If you knew me well, you'd know that I like breakfast. Or maybe you wouldn't, because I often eat breakfast alone, and I guess breakfast isn't something that comes up as an exciting topic of conversation. I do think breakfast is exciting though. I think it's because my Mum likes breakfast, too, and the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree. Or whatever it is they say.

I usually eat breakfast by myself because Brent goes to work super early in the morning, far too early for a lazy girl like me. I'd like to think that I'd get up when he does, and make him coffee and toast before he goes to work, and then spend the day fixing the house and our pretend children, who would be adorable by the way. But I like to eat breakfast in a leisurely way, and, like regular people, I don't like getting up earlier than I need too. I don't particularly like breakfast in bed though. I'd much rather get up and eat on the balcony than lounge around in bed, wasting the day away. When I was younger, all I wanted to do was stay in bed watching movies in my pyjama's all day. I think I wanted to stay in bed because I thought it was what you were supposed to do. But now, I can't stay in bed more than 20 minutes after I wake up. It's just not possible. Even on weekends I like to get up, have a cup of tea and eat something for breakfast. Something proper. Like bacon and eggs, or toast, or pancakes (I don't even know if Brent likes pancakes, I haven't made them since we started living together). But I have to have something, otherwise I'm a grumpy girl.

This past Saturday, I made these breakfast pies for us. As usual, they weren't a spur of the moment thing. I'd decided on Thursday that we would eat these on the weekend. If you didn't know already, you do now - I plan my meals out, sometimes days in advance. When we had the Sunday dinner with Kirby and Arie, I think I planned that meal out about a week beforehand. Anyway, these pies are loosely based on the ones we get at my work. I looked at lots of recipes, but I couldn't find one that was exactly what I wanted: individual pies with a whole egg and lots of bacon. The way I did it in the end was pretty easy, even though I blind baked the individual pie cases first - I wanted the pastry to be really crispy without the egg yolk being too floury. If you don't mind a bit of soggy pastry, you could skip this step entirely. I served these with some sauteed spinach on the side, but I think sauteed mushrooms, or grilled tomatoes would be good, too. But do it your own way, it is your breakfast after all.

Breakfast pies:
Serves 2

I've only got little cupcake trays, so my pies weren't very big, and only fit one egg in. If you've got those big muffin trays, you could whisk 2 more eggs with a splash of milk, and add that as well, to fill the pies up a bit more. I had planned on doing this, but I ran out of room in my pie case.
4 free range eggs
1 sheet puff pastry
2-3 rashers bacon, diced
a few springs of parsley and chives.

Preheat oven 200C.
Cut the pastry sheet into quarters and press them into a greased muffin tin, folding over the  sides of the pastry to make a flat surface.
Line the pastry with baking paper and pastry weights/rice/dried beans.
Bake for 4-5 mins until pastry is puffed around the outside.
Take out paper and weights, and prick pastry with a fork. Put back in oven and bake until pastry is starting to get golden around the edges, about 5-7 mins.
Put a few bits of diced bacon in the bottom of each pastry shell.
The herbs can either go in here, or on the top, it's your choice.
Crack an egg on top of the bacon, and put some more bacon pieces on top of the egg.
Bake for 15-20 mins until pastry is brown and egg is set.

If you don't want to blind bake the pastry, just skip that step and bake the pies for 5-10 mins longer.