Drive-by post

     A quickie post between kitchen innings! This is one of the chicken pot pies I made for dinner tonight in honor of my son's birthday. This is what he wanted, so this is what I made. For the filling, I used the recipe from Rebecca Rather's "The Pastry Queen," cookbook, which I own, autographed, of course! The crust is puff pastry from the grocery store, I didn't have enough time to make it all from scratch, maybe next time. There are extra dipping sticks for the sauce, a great idea my oldest daughter gave me as I regarded the leftover bits of puff pastry. The recipe itself is here, but the book is full of fabulous recipes for wonderful pastries too. I also have "The Pastry Queen Christmas," cookbook, I'm so lucky!
She also has a sweet bakery in Fredericksburg, TX, called charmingly enough, "Rebecca's Rather Sweet Bakery," which I've been fortunate enough to visit. If you do make anything from any of her cookbooks, please send me a photo, I love to see what other people are making.
     While I'm back on the topic of food, I have to mention a book I read yesterday, "The School of Essential Ingredients," by Erica Bauermeister. OMG, if you are a foodies of any sort, you will L-O-V-E this book! I couldn't put it down and have to say that it maybe why I am in this cooking state of mind. Amazing story and the food descriptions are drool worthy. Ok, enough for now, this is supposed to be a quick drive-by post...
    

Fresh Eggs and Cooking

Fresh Eggs from 9 Bean Rows

     Yesterday morning found me at 9 Bean Rows bakery. I bought a loaf of our favorite bread, Fennel and Sea Salt, a couple of fabulous croissants, a baguette and for the first time, since I had not seen them before, a dozen of their farm fresh eggs. They were lovely in shades of cream, brown and one blue green Araucana. My cell phone camera, once again, failed to capture the beautiful blue green of the Araucana egg, but you can still tell which one it is. All the way home, I thought about what I would make with those gorgeous eggs. Egg Foo Yung for dinner, fresh scrambled eggs for breakfast the next day and then what? I knew I would have three or four eggs left after breakfast today, and wanted to have a plan, since I wanted to prepare all the eggs within 48 hours.

Rice Pudding

After perusing cookbooks and asking for suggestions on facebook, I narrowed it down to three things. Vanilla custard, flan or rice pudding. The rice pudding won out. My sweet hubby had mentioned a hankering for it a few days ago, and as a welcome home treat, I decided it was just what the doctor ordered! The recipe is from a family cookbook my in-laws published just for the family one year, as Christmas gifts. It has lots of family recipes, many of them German, which I just love. Also, there are some family stories connected to some of the recipes, which makes it a fun read too.
     So now all the eggs are gone. They were a wonderful find on a cold morning, my treasure of the day, but I had a great time cooking them and eating them up, and my kids did too. I am hoping my hubby will love the rice pudding and then those eggs will have contributed to the happiness of five people. Five very lucky people...