Eggs Florenidict & a question about poaching eggs.

I'm working on an egg recipe that's somewhere between eggs florentine and eggs benedict. I haven't got it right yet, mostly because every time I try to bake an unbeaten egg, it gets tough as an old boot. I need to learn how to poach eggs, which I've never done. Suggestions?

The general concept, though, was tasty, and both healthy and easy enough for me to keep trying.

The bottom layer was a toasted slice of seedy bread from the Amish market (the benedictine part). That was topped with a bit of commercial creamed spinach (the florentine part). Egg goes on top of that, and a bit of cheese - I used a slice of goat cheese, and I'll be trying a quick-microwave goatcheese and milk sauce in future.


Speaking of speeding up cooking with commercial ingredients, Giant's "Simply Enjoy" brand now has this "mixed grilled vegetables" thing that I'm putting in everything. It's diced zucchini, eggplant, potatoes, and red & yellow pepper. It nukes up quickly for a reasonable starch/vegetable side dish, and it goes well in Corn Saute (just add corn, mushooms, ginger, garlic, and ham)* or as a vitamin/flavor enhancer for Darwin and Cheese.


*This now means that I can have everything I need for corn saute in either the freezer or cans, so I will always be able to whip some up.

In-House Knitting Retreat

Sitting and reading yesterday and sitting, knitting, and listening to my audiobook today was so lovely, I've decided to do a big (but hopefully impressive) indulgence - have a one-day, in-house knitting retreat. Setting it up will be a bit of work (and a bit of money) but if it works, it's going to be fabulous!

Step 1) Have nothing else to do. That means all chores, cleaning, appointments, etc., have to be cleared from the deck beforehand. That's the "bit of work." It can be done.

Step 2) Food. Cooking and cleaning are not relaxing to me. What I plan on doing is what I did on Harry Potter release days - hit up the restaurants the day before (or Silver Diner early) and come home with three complete microwave reheatable meals. (I'd read until I realized I was starving, nuke something, and eat it while never missing a word.)

Step 3) Entertainment. It was a LOT of fun to just sit and knit while listening to a new program. I'm turning into quite the audiobookphile, and difficult as it will be, will need to find the willpower to keep one (or two shorter ones) aside for a treat during the retreat.

Step 4) Education. Commercial retreats tend to have classes. I intend to go on youtube and type "knitting." Also, I may womanfully muster the willpower to *not* read one of my new knitting books until The Day.

What else am I missing? Should I take my cd player and my knitting upstairs to the bathtub and have a long soak in salts (I saved some from the Italy trip, so they're posh 'n' all) for the spa portion of the proceedings?

Mind you, I'm viewing this as a solitary pleasure. *eyes sentence, smirks, decides to leave it* If a couple of the other knitting folks in the area would like to pick a date & house, maybe we could do a collective thing, with a bring-a-dish all-day buffet, teach each other techniques, and talk/collectively pick an audiobook or music.

Alas, today's indulgence is over: I've got four overdue reviews to crank out and some application paperwork.

x-posted to 52_indulgences