Red Roses, er, make that Eggs, and Wine

If it's Wednesday, it must be egg night! Admittedly, this is a fancier dish than I like to prepare on a hot summer evening, but it is the week of Bastille Day so we must do everything French!

You have to trust me on this one...it sounds odd, but it's quite good.

Any favorite egg dishes you'd like to share?

p.s. I took this picture last year on Bastille Day eve. All of Paris was decked out in bleu, blanc, rouge!

Eggs Poached in Red Wine

Note: I adapted this recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volume I. This is very easy (Julia's is a bit more challenging) and even a little elegant. It makes a great weeknight light supper and my children adore it.

1 1/2 cups red wine
1 1/2 cups beef stock
4 eggs
4 slices good quality multi-grain bread
Butter
1 garlic clove, minced
1 shallot, diced
1 tsp. flour
Olive oil
1/2 tsp thyme
Optional: cooked bacon slices and/or sauteed spinach

Melt some butter (around 2 T) in a non-stick skillet and lightly saute bread slices on both sides. Remove from pan and set aside. Add wine and beef stock and heat until simmering. Gently add eggs, one at a time, and poach until done, about 4 minutes. Carefully remove eggs from skillet with a slotted spoon and place into individual ramekins. Spoon a little bit of the wine/beef stock over each egg. Pour the rest of the wine/beef stock out of the skillet and reserve. Heat some olive oil in the skillet and lightly saute the garlic, shallot, and thyme. Add the flour and stir until light brown. Slowly add the reserved wine/beef stock, stir and simmer until reduced by half.
To serve: place a bread slice on a plate (optional: top next with either a slice of bacon or some sauteed spinach), carefully place an egg on top and cover with some sauce.

Good with a very plain salad of mustard vinaigrette and mixed salad leaves of your choice.

Serves 4

Down to the Business of Summer!

OK, friends, I cannot believe that it's been MONTHS since I've posted! I had all sorts of grand plans to take you through St. Patrick's Day, Passover, Easter, Memorial Day, etc, celebrations. Alas, we'll have to pick up where we left off and look forward to next spring. Because now, it's summer!

Summer for us means as many evenings and weekends at our pool as possible. We joined a small pool a few years ago and it's become part of our summer routine. One of the most enjoyable aspects of membership is Friday Movie Night! Children swim until the pool closes and then gather in a great sea of sleeping bags in front of a large screen to watch some children's classic movie once it's dark. This is a wonderful opportunity for parents and friends to visit and chat.

One of the fun challenges of movie night for us is the meal...what shall we eat before the movie? Often, the children prefer to order a pizza and call it a night, which is fine. However, our daughter joined us for a sushi dinner last week. I'd bought this darling low, wooden table from Crate and Barrel a few weeks ago and it just seemed very Asian to me. Actually, no matter the cuisine, it's perfect with the beach chairs at the pool. I also got a set of melamine sushi plates, soy dishes and saki boxes. We dined on sushi and sipped on saki. Lovely.

Our last movie night was rained out, but not before I'd put everything together for a cook out! The challenge for Friday evenings and the pool is that we don't eat meat on Fridays. Fish or veggies, but no meat. I've made fish tacos (grilled on a pool BBQ) before and those are good. What I really wanted, however, was some good old Maryland-style steamed shrimp. As the name of the dish implies, I'd never made the shrimp any other way but to steam it...could I convert an old favorite to a new cooking method? Anything is possible!

I thawed 2lbs of frozen shell-on shrimp and put it in a "pocket" of foil...three sides of two sheets of foil crimped together. Next, I put in a bunch of Old Bay seasoning and sealed it up. In a plastic storage container (no glass allowed on pool grounds) I put 1 cup white vinegar and 1 cup water. My plan was to add some of this, probably not all, to the packet, reseal and then place on a hot grill. I prepared some red potatoes in a similar fashion...cut them up, tossed with some olive oil, salt and pepper and assorted dried herbs. Sealed the potatoes in foil. Product tip: Reynolds has a new stick resistant foil that I found works really well for such things! Oh, and I had some ears of corn, still in their husks, soaking in water so that they could be placed directly on the grill. So, a little pre-planning meant relatively easy preparation once we were poolside.

However, the skies had different plans for us. Just as we were about to put foil packets and corn on the grill, the rain came down. So, we packed up and headed home...and lit the charcoal grill! I'd gone to this much trouble to test the new cooking method, I wasn't going to let the rain stop me!

It worked! The steamed-in-foil shrimp were delicious! A little extra Old Bay for good measure at the end, and I was very happy. The potoatoes were a hit as well, and the corn was hot and steamy!

So, a little determination and ingenuity gave my family something that it craved...a taste of Old Maryland.

Now, on to Le Tour and Jour de Bastille festivity preparation!