Mission Impoachable???

Ever since seeing the movie, "Julie & Julia" I knew I wanted to try my hand at poaching an egg. I decided this week that today would be the day! I combed through different recipes including a poached egg and decided that I would try my hand at eggs benedict. Neither Casey or I have ever had eggs benedict, but I've always wanted to try it. I went to foodnetwork.com to try and find a good recipe. I looked through each recipe and finally selected this one because it seemed to have the best reviews for hollandaise sauce. Most were rated as "too eggy" or "too buttery". This one had wonderful reviews, so I printed it out and headed to the store!

Can you believe that only these few ingredients can produce eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce? I thought it would be a lot more!

I started off by "browning" the canadian bacon. I could only find this presliced/prepackaged canadian bacon...and I chose the sweet maple because I love the extra taste of maple in my breakfast foods. It was DELICIOUS!

Next I started making the hollandaise sauce. First you whisk the lemon juice and the egg yolks vigorously until they double in size. WHEW! Talk about sore arms! Then you transfer the liquid into a double boiler and slowly whisk in the melted butter. Once it is incorporated you vigorously whisk again until the sauce thickens and doubles in size again. Good Lord...my poor arm! lol. But, it turned out well...and I was psyched.

Next, on to POACHING EGGS! *dun dun dun* I was VERY intimidated about the process so I watched this video of Alton Brown poaching eggs quite a few times. I followed his instructions exactly (except the part about the water being 190 degrees exactly...because I didn't think I had a thermometer to use). The first batch turned out well I thought, but then Casey mentioned that he had a meat thermometer, so I did the process a second time just so I could make sure that the eggs were fully cooked! I'm a little scared about food poisoning since I had it once my Junior year of college and thought I was going to DIE (thanks to the Panera on Jefferson for that...ugh!). Anyway, the second time worked just as well as the first...but I felt a little better about eating the eggs this time since I knew the water was at the exact temperature! These pictures are actually of the first batch...I forgot to take a picture of the second batch before I made the eggs benedict!

I popped the english muffins in the toaster really quickly and then assembled the eggs benedict! I felt like my hollandaise sauce might've gotten a little thick while I was poaching the eggs...but it still worked. I spooned it over the eggs and VOILA...EGGS BENEDICT! I was so proud! Isn't it pretty? My very first try at poaching eggs and I did it! HOORAY! And you want to know the very best part? CASEY ATE IT! My pickybutt husband actually ATE IT! I just knew that he was going to hate it and I would've gone to all that trouble for nothing! But he surprised me and I'm very happy that he ate it! YAY!