What's for Breakfast?

It is a couple of days after Xmas, and it feels likes a Sunday breakfast day. We were getting ready to go to Fido's for breakfast because they have a really nice breakfast menu, generally there is not a wait, the veggie sausage is so much better than the pork sausage, and the coffee is really good. But, as he bicycled over to Hillsboro Village, he saw that Fido's is closed for the holiday weeks of Xmas through New Year's Day. We quickly regrouped and decided to make breakfast at home. I sent him to Provence Bakery for bread, and I decided to make the rest of the food. We felt so European when we came up with our backup breakfast plan. He was bicycling around Nashville to hand carry the bread back to the house, and I was preparing Hollandaise.

the ingredients

It is so rare that I have all the ingredients in the house for a rustic breakfast. But for some reason, all the ingredients aligned and I was ready to roll out some breakfast while he was pedaling to Provence Bakery for bread. On the menu: Hollandaise sauce over scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, and bread chunks with Burgundy France Pinot Noir grape jelly. I usually don't have fresh lemon in my fridge, but I had 2/3 of a lemon from something else a made a few days ago, so I had the pivotal ingredient for Hollandaise. With lemon in the fridge, it was a done deal, we were having a really nice homemade breakfast.

The Hollandaise I made came from really great ingredients:
local free range egg yolks (whites set aside for scrambled eggs)
butter I churned from local cream
lemon juice
kosher salt
pinch of ground dried locally grown cayenne pepper

The Hollandaise sauce was a very dark yellow/orange color because the free range local egg yolks were so dark orange-red in color. The sauce was such a vibrant color that you can't get from industrial grain fed chicken eggs. I did the whisk and hot water bath double boiler method to make the Hollandaise sauce. There is a fine line between to hot water and too cold water bath. I kept on whisking to keep the sauce moving, and not have the egg yolks scramble. I also took out the top pan out of the water a few times to make sure there was not too much heat. I succeeded with a Hollandaise sauce that was deceptively light and slightly tangy. There is nothing "light" about egg yolks and butter, but I got lucky this time with this batch Hollandaise. Oh, was I happy that the sauce turned out! Oh happiness! I was thinking positively about the sauce as I was making it, and I was so happy when it turned out right!!

the Hollandaise Sauce

I decided not to poach eggs for this effort because I did not want to waste the egg whites I had left over from separating the eggs. I added a couple more whole eggs to the egg whites and scrambled them for the dish. Again the egg yolks are so dark that 2 eggs and 2 egg whites are still more yellow in color for scrambled eggs than industrial eggs. The bacon I had was already cooked (see previous post) and put the cooked strips in the freezer. The local bacon is traditional salt cured and hickory smoked. I used only 1/2 piece of bacon per piece of toast, and the bacon just added such an unbelievable depth of flavor to the dish.

my plate

I assembled our plates starting with toast of bread I cut off from the loaf of sour dough bread he hand carried while bicycling around Nashville. I crumbled up 1/2 piece of the locally grown and smoked bacon on to each piece of toast. I placed the mostly-egg-white scrambled eggs on top of the bacon. then a I spooned on the Hollandaise that was being whisked all the time the other ingredients were being prepared. To top off the plate, chunks of left over bread that was not toasted and topped with Burgundy France Pinot Noir Grape Jelly. As you can see, the chunk of bread and grape jelly had a few bite marks in it before I photoed it because I could not wait to eat the jelly. We love the flavor of the Pinot Noir Grapes on bread. The complex grape flavor is like no other grape jelly in the world. Fantastic! The eggs, bacon and Hollandaise were so satisfying because the ingredients was so flavorful and wholesome to begin with. I am so pleased with this breakfast, and so content.