Spit in the Eye

When you make a "spit in the eye" one of three things came happen.

The yolk can break in the pan...

The yolk can break when you move it to the plate...

OR it can actually turn out well!

Making a spit in the eye, bird in a basket, or whatever else name you have heard is essentially just like making a fried egg. You want to butter the pan and let it heat up slightly. While the pan heats you can make your cut out in the bread. The bread goes in the pan first and then you crack the egg right into the cut out. I like to put the "doughnut hole" piece of the bread in the pan to toast up too. I personally cover my skillet with a lid to let the top of the egg steam so that I can reduce the risk of yolk destruction but as you can see from the pictures that doesn't always help.

Just be patient. If you can fry and egg then the spit in the eye should be almost as easy. And don't worry, you're not going to get it perfect every time but when you do it's a pretty great feeling to deliver to the table.

---Dare to Cook---

Dreamy Orange Creamy Pops

Dreamy Orange Creamy Pops

I will have to admit. Mine didn’t turn out exactly as anticipated. A few things led to this. The first being my apparent inability to read “vanilla yogurt” because I saw “vanilla ice cream.” The second is that I don’t have anything that can really crush ice too well; this lead to me leaving out a lot of ice and thus ending up with a really strong orange flavored pop. They still weren’t bad but I’ll have to wait until I can get a better blender before attempting again.

Ingredients:

2 cups ice
1.5 cups vanilla yogurt
¾ cup frozen orange juice concentrate
½ cup milk
¼ teaspoon vanilla
Pop molds with lids

Directions:

Combine ice, yogurt, orange juice concentrate, milk, and vanilla in blender or food processors; blend until smooth.

Pour mixture into molds. Cover with lids, Freeze 6 hours or until firm.

To remove pops from molds place bottoms of pops under warm running water until loosened press firmly on bottoms to release. (Do not twist or pull lids.)

Yum.

---Dare to Cook---

Looking for Ideas

So in an effort to make this blog better I would like your feedback on a couple ideas I had. I know I have a few other aspects of this page that are still listed as "under construction" and trust me I have not forgotten about them! And I will complete them someday. As for the main blog page I have twoish ideas that I want some opinions on.

The first is guest blogger posts. I know I'm not the only one out there cooking in order to feed myself/my household. Would anyone like to be a guest blogger? You'd need to share the recipe, at least one picture (preferably of the final product), and a little narrative on what you did, maybe what you'd do differently next time, that kind of thing. You might even like to give a brief introduction of yourself the first time you submit something. If you are interested send me an email at kjfoodphotos@gmail.com.

The next idea is kind of an idea and a half. It started with the idea that I would do a post about the farm where I like to get my eggs but then it transformed into the idea to do posts that are more ABOUT food than strict recipes. The goal here being to get into a routine of posting something worth wild at least once a week. I have a couple fun books on dish origins and different cheeses. Like most people I do tend to fall into a pretty steady habit of a few "go to" recipes even though I try to do different things, sometimes those old favorites win out. So this type of post would help to provide some more variety as well as more information about food in general.

Again I would love your thoughts and feedback on these ideas and if you have ideas of what you'd like to see please let me know! You can either comment here or send me a message at kjfoodphotos@gmail.com

Thanks!



---Dare to Cook---

A "Fruit" Pie

So when you think of pie what do you think of? Fruit pie? Well this is a kinda of fruit pie; tomatoes are a fruit you know!

For this pie I used Cherokee Purple Heirloom Tomatoes from the Hub City Farmer's Market.

You will need the following:
4 tomatoes, peeled and sliced
10 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1 (9-inch) prebaked deep dish pie shell
1 cup grated mozzarella
1 cup grated cheddar
1 cup mayonnaise
salt and pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Place the tomatoes in a colander in the sink in 1 layer. Sprinkle with salt and allow to drain for 10 minutes.
Layer the tomatoes slices, basil, and onion in pie shell. Season with salt and pepper. Combine the grated cheeses and mayonnaise together. Spread mixture on top of the tomatoes and bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.
To serve, cut into slices and serve warm.


In all honesty this was my first attempt at tomato pie and I don't think I drained the tomatoes right so my end product turned out really soupy.

Tomatoes, yum!

Basil all cut up and ready to go!

Layer in the ingredients.

Before and...

...after.

And then it fell apart.

---Date to Cook---