Poached Eggs Part 1

I have made a New Year's resolution to lose weight more times that I am willing to tell. I usually start the year with a plan, but I quickly get busy with real life and the payoff begins to seem not worth the effort of tracking everything I eat. So this year, I need to try something different. Besides exercising every day (I'll cover that later) I will be conscious of what I choose to eat. I will make choices, instead of eating the first thing that seems appealing.

This morning I resisted the leftover holiday desserts (there is a berry-cream cheese pie in the fridge and the best brownies in the world that my daughter made yesterday) and asked myself: “what is my favorite healthy breakfast?” as I remembered the homemade biscuits and sausage gravy I made for the family yesterday morning. Mmmmm.

Fruit, yogurt, and granola is high on my list, but if I eat a high carbohydrate breakfast, I'll be hungry way before lunch time. Yeah, I know I could use plain yogurt, but have you tasted unsweetened yogurt? Besides, the fruit and granola are stuffed with carbs, too. I decided on an egg, or maybe two; that would be about 160calories, no carbs, lots of protein... but not fried in that bacon grease I saved (what was I thinking?)

Poached, maybe.

Last week I watched Julie and Julia with both my daughters (loved it) and remembered Merrill Streep, as Julia Child, learning to poach an egg. I don't have Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, so I ordered it just now, but I'll be mighty hungry if I wait until it gets here before poaching my eggs. I found some instructions online, and gave it a try. Actually, three tries, so far.

Poaching an Egg, first try:

I put about 2 inches of filtered water in a saucepan on the stove and turned the burner on High, planning to turn it down to Low just before it boiled, because Julia said to “simmer” it. A little flame flickered out from under the pan. Something in the drip pan had caught fire. I thought it was just a small bit of food, or a crumb, and the fire would quickly burn itself out, as always. No worries.

The flame grew larger. Must have been a bigger chunk of food than I thought. When the flames began flicking up past the top of the pot, I remembered that yesterday I spilled some grease on the burner after I made the sausage gravy. I meant to pull out that drip pan and wash it after breakfast, but I obviously forgot to do that. My brain went into emergency mode, thoughts flashed through my mind at the speed of electricity.

Sprinkle with baking soda! First, turn off the burner! Don't catch your sleeve on fire reaching for the knob on the back of the stove! It's smoking! The smoke detector will wake everyone up! Fire trucks! Sirens! (I remembered my Mom telling me as a teenager to use baking soda to put out cooking fires, so I have always kept my baking soda in a cupboard near the stove, but not above it, in case the fire is to high to be able to get it without getting burned.) Grabbed the soda. Smothered the fire, Moved the pot. Noticed the handle wasn't hot. That was lucky! Sprinkled more soda. The fire went out.

I opened the windows, turned on the exhaust fan over the stove as well as the one in the bathroom. Dumb smoke detectors never made a tweet. No one woke up. What a mess!



To be continued.
----------------------------------------------------
I welcome your thoughts and ideas regarding this blog. To leave a note, please click the "Comments" link below. Or send me a personal email: leafsouplife@gmail.com