Friday Brunch

Hello Friends!

Well how have your holidays been?  It has been so wonderful having my wonderful husband off work for a few days. 

Last friday, I had the extended family over (brother/wife/daughter, sister/husband/son & Daughter) for a long awaited family brunch.

It was a really nice day.
Everyone arrived at 10am.
We ate at 10.45am.  I had the newspaper, coffee and fresh flowers ready as I made the Hollondaise sauce for the eggs benadict,  while miss Mimi made the pancakes...all was wonderful as the morning progressed. 

Here are some pics...

 

I had a vintage, fresh, summer theme with lots of white, lace, glass and flowers.

 

I even used some of my own nannas milk jugs for vases, they were so pretty.

 

This particular one was my favorite!!!!.....

 

 

Here was the menu, placed on each plate...

 

 

 

I also had a mix of old plates to add to the vintage charm...

 

 

We had a very loverly morning/afternoon.  After brunch the kids swam in the pool and us adults lazed around, read, chatted and laughed.  It was so wonderful catching up with my siblings.

 

 

The Perfect Brunch. My Eggs Benedict

Ok, so as promised a couple of weeks back I said I would put some new recipes up...
After our holiday I made my family eggs Benedict fir bunch.  I was pleasantly suprised as I attempted to make this a few years back and the Hollandaise was a complete disaster, amazingly this time it worked.  Ive heard that Hollandaise is oe of the trickiest sauces to make...so extra proudness for that :-D.
First of all, I decided to make the Hollandaise as this can sit and wait while the rest happens.
To make the Hollandaise, this is what I used/did...

Hollandaise Sauce
*1 1/2 tablespoons of white wine vinager (make sure it's WHITE WINE VINEGAR...last time the mistake was just simple white vinegar, for some reason, that doesnt work)
*1 Tablespoon lemon juice
*1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
*2 egg yolks
*125g unsalted butter, melted

Bring the vinegar, juice & peppercorns to the boil in a small saucepan. (this happens quick, so stand by)
Reduce heat; simmer uncovered, untill liquid is reduced by half.
Strain through a fine sieve into a medium heatproof bowl; cool for 10 mins.
Whisk the egg yolks into the vinegar mixture.
Set the bowl over a medium saucepan of simmering water; donot allow water to touch base of bowl.  Whisk mixture over heat untill thickened.
THE NEXT PART IS VERY IMPORTANT-

Remove the bowl from heat; Gradually...and I MEAN GRADUALLY... (another thing i did wrong, it wont work if you pour in too fast) whisk in melted butter in a thin, steady steam, whisking constantly untill the sauce is thick and creamy.
This sauce will serve approx 4.

TO POACH THE EGGS
Another tricky thing....the perfect poached eggs.  With much trial and error I have finally perfected the poached egg,
What i do is...
Fill a saucepan with hot water.  Bring it to the boil. Pour in 1/4 of a cup of apple cider vinegar.
Take the water off the heat.
Crack an egg into a heatproof cup with a handle.  Next place the lip of the cup into the water and slowly tip the cup so the egg slips out, having the whites sit on top of the yolks. Reapeat with however many more eggs you need.
 Place the saucepan back on the lowest heat and cover.  Let simmer for 4 mins.  When ready carefully lift each up with a slotted spoon and place on a paper towel to soak up any moisture.  Cover to keep warm.

While eggs are cooking, this gives you time to cook your english muffins.
I also used shaved ham, but you could use bacon, salmon etc.  I heated the ham through quickly under the grill.

Once the toast has popped, Place the ham, egg and a drizzle of Hollandaise.  Top with chives and cracked pepper......YUMMMMMMMM...Our new favorite breakky/brunch.
Here's how it looked...

This is now a regular in our home. This is the perfect sunday/dayoff/lazy breakky.