Poached Eggs and other stuff by Linds

The full title of this week's challenge is: STEAMED ARTICHOKES WITH SMOKED SALMON, POACHED EGGS, AND HOLLANDAISE. This week also held a lot of firsts for me. My first time buying, steaming and eating an artichoke; first time poaching eggs, first time making hollandaise sauce, and second time trying salmon.

I have not figured out a good way to blog on here so that it makes sense and is somewhat orderly. So bear with me as I try to figure out how to get it all down. I also need to forewarn you all that I am a horrible food photographer, so hopefully that will improve over time as well.

Artichokes: I do not have a steamer, but being so creative I decided to use my very large canning stock pot that was already out from my apple canning this week. It worked just fine and we steamed the artichokes. Martha told us to discard the rest of the artichoke leaves, but we didn't. We dipped them in the hollandaise sauce and ate them. Kenny showed me the proper way to eat. You just bite down and kind of scrape your teeth along it and the soft parts come off. I didn't really dislike it, but I didn't really like it either. It was just an artichoke ya know?

This was halfway through the digging out the interior of the artichokes. one was done, the other, obviously not.

Smoked Salmon: We didn't actually do smoked salmon strips like martha orders. We just bought a half-pound of norwegian salmon and put some of the hollandaise sauce and extra lemon juice on it, and baked it in the oven. I don't know what it is with me and fish but I have a severe aversion to it. The smell makes me sick and I'm not even pregnant. I tried another bite hoping that this time around I would like it but I nearly gagged. I really just can't stand the taste I don't know why. It made me really sad actually, because I wish I liked it.

Poached eggs: Oh boy this was an interesting experience. I have never even eaten a poached egg, let alone made it myself. 2 out of the 4 I made were great. One of them, the yolk was cooked too much, and the 4th one didn't have egg white around the whole thing, just like half of it for some reason. Anyway, I thought I did pretty good for a first timer.

I know it looks like a total failure, but they actually were ok. I didn't trim the edges afterwards because I just didn't feel like it, it wasn't a big deal to me.

Hollandaise sauce: I didn't actually follow Martha's recipe. thanks to steph giving me the head's up and an easier recipe, I think it was yummy and ended up being something I will make again I'm sure. Steph showed me The Pioneer Woman's way of making it. Although we've had a few blender mishaps so I had to use an electric hand mixer instead of the blender, and I think it worked ok. I guess I don't know what it was supposed to taste or look like because it was a first for me but it was fine for us.

Here's a picture of the final plating. C'est tres belle, non? Obviously this was Kenny's plate because he ate the salmon. I just sat there watching Kenny eat and I felt so envious of him because he absolutely LOVED this meal. He was just raving about it and I felt so sad that I didn't enjoy it as much as he did. I loved making it, and I'm glad I had all these new experiences, but I really just didn't enjoy the taste of any of it that much. I wish I had a more refined palate...maybe with time. the bad news is Tyler seems to have gotten my genes in the eating dept. He wouldn't have any of it, but he sure did enjoy two whole corn dogs.

I realized after we ate that I forgot to take a picture of myself with it, like we are supposed to do. But rest assured that I look pretty much the same as last week. I feel skinnier, because I ran 5 miles today but I don't look any different unfortunately haha. I was surprised that this didn't take me very long. I think I anticipated it being a lot of work and taking a long time, but it really didn't and I'm glad. It was a fun meal to do, and cool to try all these new things!! It's a good thing Kenny knows more about food and stuff than I do. I have no idea where he learned it all, but I'm just glad he did :). Overall, week 2 was a sucess.