While both Mack and I love the idea of having breakfast for dinner, it usually manifests itself as frittatas, quiches, and the like. But because of our love of brunch, I thought Mack’s pre-trip dinner on Saturday (he’s in New Orleans for a conference this week) should be a more blatantly breakfast-type meal. A recipe for poached eggs on asparagus with yogurt hollandaise, in Rose Murray’s A Taste of Canada, sounded perfect.
Though this recipe wasn’t difficult, it involved nearly every pot and pan we had in the house, making cleanup a not-so-envious task. Still, the results were fantastic, so we couldn’t complain.
This was my first time poaching eggs (I am partial to the ease of frying eggs). As I slipped the eggs into the water, peering into the bubbling water, I felt a little like Julie Powell, willing the whites to stay together (not to mention that they were quality eggs from Sunshine Organic; I hate wasting food, let alone good food). While some of the whites did inevitably drift apart, I was happy with the results.
While I watched over the eggs (and waited for the Edgar Farms asparagus to finish roasting and the ciabatta buns to toast), Mack fried up some back bacon from Irvings Farm, and took care of whisking together the yogurt-based hollandaise on a double boiler. Nothing says teamwork like cooking together!
We served the finished product with some mixed heritage greens from Greens, Eggs and Ham, tossed with some lemon vinaigrette.
Poached eggs on asparagus with yogurt hollandaise
Ciabatta buns were the wrong choice as the bread base (they was a little too hard to cut through), but everything else worked well. The addition of bacon made it that much tastier, and though Mack found the mustard-flavoured hollandaise a bit disconcerting to start with, he did enjoy it in the end.
Dining al fresco!
For dessert, we topped some creamy Breyers double churn (we love how easy it is to scoop the ice cream straight out of the freezer) with crumbled cookies from Confetti Sweets (a new vendor this year at the City Market).
Dessert
We may end up having this meal again for breakfast one day. Yum.
Only Here for the Food 
Wow, looks fantastic! How was the hollaindaise to make?
We’ve been looking for an easy to make, lower fat alternative. Our current version is made with butter and a hollaindaise powder since it seems to be so much harder to make right from scratch.
Solid looking poached eggs Sharon! looks like great a great meal.
All farm fresh! Amazing – and dining el fresco hs to be done whenever possible in our climate. Where’s your hollandaise recipe? I have never heard of a yogurt based hollandaise. I would love to see it. I know making hollandaise isn’t easy and everyone says how fatty it is – but I have found, since making my own, that is just not so true. It is like a serving or two of butter with the sauce… but usually a serving like on your plate would have only 1 tablespoon of butter in it. That is a lot – but nothing like some dishes have these days… and you can work around it if you know you are treating yourself to that yummy sauce. The eggs look PERFECT Sharon! Its fun to try new things, isn’t it? And, cooking together is even more fun. Well, Vanja may not agree, but he is a great sport! Your meal looks first class to me. YUMMM,
🙂
Valerie
Eva – the hollandaise was a cinch – no need to worry about the butter separating. And with yogurt, low fat too!
Chris – thanks, it was yummy!
Valerie – you can click the link to the main recipe to access the hollandaise recipe. The eggs were a touch overcooked (not as runny as I would have liked), but it’s always a learning experience with cooking, right?
In the vein of dining Al Fresco, my friends and I made similar eats this weekend. Crepes stuffed with Edgar Farm’s asparagus, Irving Farm’s side bacon, Mono Foods mushrooms and onions (still from our root cellar) topped with a fresh dill roux. For desert – fresh rhubarb custard meringue pie (grandma’s recipe!)
That sounds delicous and restaurant-worthy, Chris!
Is that “home made”? That’s restaurant quality you got there. If sell you sell them, I’ll definitely buy. Wonderful cooking.
Please check my site:http://www.enyfoodcoop.com as well.
Cheers.