I ♥ Rainy Days and Garlic

Doesn't good home made food just make you feel so good and comfy?

First of all, thank you Susi, for such a relaxing fantastic day up (and, uh, I do mean up. I think I saw a Mountie) in the Inwood 'hood for a day of fabulous snacks, fun music, and knitting. If you ever need someone to go through all your books housesit for a week I'd be happy to help out. That's just the kind of helpful gal I am.

But really, with all the rain swishing round outside, and the feeling of being far removed from the city noise, the vinyl scratching round and round, and the sisterhood feeling that was just permeating, it was...cozy. Very very cozy.

Then I had to endure the subway and rain on the way home, and once I got in, all I wanted to be was cozy again, without having to squint at my intarsia chart. So, I had a couple of recipes I wanted to try, both from New York Times Magazine. I made egg drop garlic soup. How, do you ask? Well, allow me to illegally reprint the recipe right here for all you lovely readers.

This is a combo of two different recipes, Julia Child's Garlic Soup with Poached Egg, and Daniel Patterson's method for cooking poached scrambled eggs

Whatcha do:

In a large saucepan or soup pot, combine:
the peeled cloves of a whole head of garlic
2 tsp kosher or coarse salt
1/4 tsp each of dried sage and dried thyme
1 bay leaf
4 parsley sprigs (i used chopped frozen parsley, thanks Trader Joe's!)
2 Tblsp olive oil (it says 3, but that was a bit too much)
Pepper

Pour in 2 quarts (8 cups) of cold water. Bring to boil, then lower heat to simmer, cover pot halfway and simmer for half an hour.
Set a sieve over a heatproof bowl, and strain soup into bowl. Press on solids to get out as much flavor as possible (hold on to that garlic, tho, it's good mushed up with mashed potatoes, or butter, or just put back in the soup)

K, now for the eggs. For one serving, pour about a cup and a half of the soup into a smaller saucepan, cover and heat to boil. Meanwhile, crack one egg over a slotted spoon and let most of the thin part of the whites drain. Beat the egg in a bowl with a fork for 20 seconds. Stir the soup clockwise with the fork, to get a bit of a whirlpool going. Pour in the egg thru the tines of the fork, cover and cook for one minute. Careful, it may boil over a bit. Turn off the heat and let sit for one minute. Then, c'est fini. On a side note, this is the way, using plain water, that Patterson makes the lightest scrambled eggs you will ever have. They are yummy.

This is so good, and filling, and inexpensive, and doesn't require a trip to the store. It will most definitely become part of my repertoire. And you can change it up a bunch of ways. Next time I'll add sliced mushrooms, or horseradish or wasabi, or beans, or rice. Rice would be fantastic. And start to finish it took about 40 minutes, which really isn't bad. Takes longer to order in food.

It's midnight now, and I might make a second bowl. Hee hee, no vampires tonight!