viscous enchantment

This is an old family recipe for fudgy chololate sauce. It is a snap to make and tasts great. It thickens rapidly when served on ice cream. Enjoy!

V.E. Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 scant c. sugar
• 1/4 c. cocoa
• 1/4 c. evaporated milk
• pinch of salt
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1/4 c. Karo syrup

Bring all ingredients to a boil, stirring constantly. Take off stove and serve on ice cream or cake (especially angel food).

If you are serving many people, you can make a double batch and use up a small can of evaporated milk.

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4-minute egg

We were inspired to have eggs for brunch after reading about Oeuf à la Coque on the Chocolate & Zucchini blog.

Making the eggs are easy. The only ingredients needed are eggs and bread for toast.

1. Boil water in a small saucepan
2. Carefully lower each egg into the water
3. Boil the eggs for exactly 4 minutes. At the same time, toast the bread slices
4. Remove the eggs from the water and put in egg cups.
5. Butter the bread and cut it into narrow fingers.
6. Cut the top off of an egg. Scoop out the and eat the bit of egg in the section of shell you removed.
7. Salt and pepper the egg.
   
8. Dip the toast bread into the exposed egg yolk. Repeat.
9. When the yolk is gone, scoop out the rest of the egg with a spoon and eat it (the egg, not the spoon).
   

I have an egg timer than you can put in the water with the eggs. The timer is supposed to darken based on the heat of the water, telling you the precise instant that your eggs become soft-cooked. Unfortunately, when I have used the egg timer, the eggs always ended up overcooked. Boiling eggs for 4 minutes works better.

When I boil eggs, I usually put the eggs in cold water beacuse doing so makes it less likely that the eggs will crack. When Mrs. Essen put the eggs into boiling water today, one egg them did crack, but she thinks that it is because she did not lower it into the water gently enough. None of the eggs that she lowered into the water with a spoon ended up cracked.

We use brown eggs from a farm about a mile away from us. Their eggs are fantastic and very fresh. The local milk and eggs were in short supply for a few weeks this fall because the farmers were moving their animals inside from the winter. Now the cows have no access to pasture and the chickens cannot roam and eat insects. I have not noticed much of a difference in the eggs, but the milk is a bit less flavorful.

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new year's day

It's possible to start the new year without a meal of collard greens, cornbread, and hoppin' john, but I don't recommend it. According to Southern tradition, eating greens and hoppin' john on new year's day will ensure good luck and prosperity throughout the year. The cornbread it rounds out the meal but does not bring luck (although some folks say it represents gold, that's just silly). You can theoretically serve sort of greens. Collards are a good complement tohoppin'-john and are the only fresh greens you are likely to find this time of year other than kale, and .

Hoppin' john can be very simple: the world's easist hoppin' john recipe calls for nothing but canned black-eyed peas and some leftover rice. Rumor has it that canned black-eyed peas contain some unpleasant chemical, so it is better to get frozen or dried beans.

Hoppin' john traditionally has some part of the big in it, whether hog jowl, bacon, or ham hocks. Our recipe does without.
swineless hoppin' john

Ingredients:

• 2 c. frozen or dried black-eyed peas, cooked according to package directions (this can take a long time, so make sure you allow enough time)
  
• 1 c. uncooked rice
• 1 Tb olive oil
  
• 1 small onion, chopped
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  
• salt and pepper
• 2 c. vegetable broth
• 1/4 c. crushed red pepper

Process:

1. Sautee the onion in the olive oil about 5 minutes.
2. Add garlic to the onion and sautee another 1 minute
3. Add the rice and the 2 cups broth to the onion and garlic.
   
4. Bring to a boil and boil until rice is cooked, about 20 minutes.
5. Mix the rice and beans together.
   

I like to eat hoppin' john with jamaican hot sauce (similar to Tobasco and a fraction of the price).

I've heard of cooking the rice and beans together in one pot but never tried that because I worry that one might be ready before the other. Also, I usually make extra rice to use in other dishes.

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