Hollandaise --> Eggs Florentine

The poached egg. Slightly less perfect than the oeuf en cocotte, but simpler and healthier. Unless you decide to cover it in Hollandaise sauce, put it on top of some spinach (healthy again, maybe?), and toast. I can honestly say I'm not a good enough home chef to bring all of these ingredients together perfectly without help or incident. Even with Ben doing half the work in the kitchen for me, we almost managed to set off the fire alarm. Stupid toast.

But first, the Hollandaise Sauce. Once again, La Rousse:

Hollandaise. A hot emulsified sauce based on egg yolks and clarified butter. It is the foundation of several other sauces, including chantilly (or mousseline), maltaise, mikado and mustard sauce, depending on the ingredients added. It is served with fish cooked in a court-bouillon, or with boiled or steamed vegetables. The sauce should be made in a well-tinned copper or stainless steel sauté pan; an aluminium pan wil turn it greenish. As it must not get too hot, hollandaise sauce should be kept warm in a bain marie. If it does curdle, it can be re-emulsified by adding a spoonful of water, drop by drop; use hot water if the sauce is cold, cold water if the sauce is hot.

Basically, Hollandaise is an emulsion of butter and lemon using egg as the emulsifier, since lemon (acid) and butter (fat) are mortal enemies in real life. The recipe is finicky enough that it's important to have everything in the mise-en-place ahead of time.

Hollandaise Ingredients
3 egg yolks
1/2 T lemon juice
200 g butter (50 g cold, 150 melted)
salt
white pepper

Method
1. Whisk the egg yolks in a pan (not on the stove!) until they are a lighter yellow. Depending on the color of the yolk to start with (organic eggs may never get to the 'lemon yellow' color our recipe hinted at).
2. Place the pan in a bain-marie and add the lemon juice, whisking continuously. The water should be warm, but not hot. Whisk the eggs until they are the consistency of cream, not thoroughly cooked, but warm.
3. Add the cold butter, take the eggs off the heat, and whisk until incorporated. The mixture should be thickening and pulling away from the pan.
4. Add salt and pepper and more lemon juice if desired, but only by tiny bits at a time.
5. Incorporate the rest of the melted butter bit by bit, whisking, letting the sauce thicken. Keep warm and use immediately.

Eggs Florentine Ingredients
1 piece of toast
1/2 cup of spinach, cooked, with salt and pepper (and garlic powder if desired)
1 poached egg
4 T Hollandaise sauce

Method
If you've gotten this far, you don't need instructions. Just pile it all on and enjoy. :)

Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin

I'm not going to pretend to have invented this recipe myself; I took it almost verbatim from epicurious. However, I changed a few of the proportions and the cooking temperature, so I feel like there are enough differences to warrant a retyping (though I'm leaving the link in just in case the original sounds better to you).

Ben and I had this last Thanksgiving when we were able to cook together, and this year both of us cooked it separately for our friends/families. So far, it's been popular wherever it went, and I'm definitely making it again (just as soon as I can find leeks and butternut squash at the grocery store--for some reason both places I went today were frustratingly squashless).

You'll need:

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cut into 3/4- to 1-inch cubes
Olive oil
Coarse salt
2 T (1/2 stick) butter, divided
2 t white or black pepper
3 cups leeks, cut finely
3 t chopped fresh sage, rubbed
1 5.5-ounce log soft fresh goat cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted, husked, coarsely chopped


Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 475˚
2. Place the squash in a large baking dish, pour olive oil, salt, and white pepper on top. Mix.
3. Cook for about half an hour, until the squash is tenderly fork-pokable.
4. While squash is cooking, saute leeks and sage in butter until the mix has cooked down but is not yet brown.
5. When the squash has been removed from the oven, mix the leek mixture in.
6. Lower the oven temperature to 375˚.
7. Layer the squash and leeks, alternating with goat cheese. I started with the squash, then crumbled (well, chevre doesn't really "crumble"... but it doesn't glop or pour, either. I'm at a loss for words) the cheese, and was able to make two more layers of each, with cheese on top.
8. Pour in the cream, making sure that it spreads throughout the dish as evenly as possible.
9. Sprinkle the chopped toasted hazelnuts on top.
10. Bake for about half an hour.

Let the cheesey warmness enfold you in its holiday-licious arms...