Christmas Breakfast: Day 2

If you've come here looking for my White Chocolate Cake for The Cake Slice Bakers, I didn't have time to make it, but here is the printable recipe if you're interested.

Today's breakfast of choice is Eggs Benedict. Oh how I love me some eggs benedict with creamy hollandaise sauce. Yes!!! It's my favorite brunch item and I order it whenever it's on any breakfast menu, which is not as often as you would think.

The typical eggs benedict consists of english muffins, with canadian bacon (Hey Canadians, do you call it canadian bacon in Canada? just curious!) and poached eggs all smothered in hollandaise sauce. I make mine a little different, mostly because I'm lazy :-) I make mine with bacon and fried eggs. I don't have the patience for poaching eggs. I need to get me some of those silicone egg poachers.

If you've never had hollandaise sauce it's an egg based sauce with lotsa butter and a hint of acidity- either lemon juice or vinegar. It's creamy and smooth and rich but it has a slight tanginess to it. Yummy with all the other compents too. Lots of different textures in this meal. If you plan on making this, keep in mind kids aren't generally fond of the sauce.

Eggs Benedict- Monica's Way

• English Muffins, split and toasted (1 per person)
• Bacon, cooked til crisp (2 per person)
• Fried Eggs, cooked to your liking (2 per person)
• Hollandaise Sauce (recipe below)

Split and toast english muffins. Place on plate split side up. Arrange one slice of bacon (broken in half) on each muffin half. Top with cooked egg. Smother in hollandaise sauce. Swoon.

Hollandaise Sauce from Egg: From Benedict to Brulee

~serves 4

• 6 oz. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon water
• 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

Begin by clarifying the butter. Put the butter in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat, skim off any foam on the surface, and let cool for a few minutes. Carefully pour the butter into a jug, leaving and sediment behind.

Half fill a saucepan with water and bring to a simmer. Put the egg yolks, lemon juice, vinegar and 1 tablespoon water into a medium heatproof bowl and whisk until fully combined. (You're making a double boiler here). Put the bowl over the water, making sure that it does not touch the water, and whisk about 1 minutes until the edges are thick and foamy.

Slowly add the melted butter, whisking well until the sauce is thick and creamy. It should leave a trail if the whisk is lifted. Season well with salt and pepper.

NOTE: My hollandaise sat while I made the eggs so it got a little thick. I just added a little warm water and whisked til creamy again.

Oh my goodness, that looks so good! I want!

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Here are my Christmas Trees! You can click on the pictures to make them larger if you want.

I have a full size artificial tree. I really like the real ones but I just can't cut one down. I know they're grown specifically for that purpose and they're recycled, but I just can't do it. It's so sad to me. So we have a fake one and I'm okay with that because the one year I had a real tree, it wilted and sagged and dropped needles everywhere!

This is the little 3 foot tree we put up in honor of our sons. It's full of little boy ornaments- a rubber ducky, crayons, power tools, planes, trains and automobiles, and of course angels. I love it.

And this is my Kiss Tree. It's a wooden piece that folds flat in the shape of a tree. Then you fan it out and place Hershey Kisses on the boughs. Cute huh? It was given to Mr. H several years ago by his great aunt I think. We look forward to putting it up every year.

See you tomorrow for another breakfast treat and more of my Christmas decorations!