Playing with my food

For this week's cooking antics, I made brunch for two of my close friends yesterday. I played around with a few ideas I've had in my head. These ideas were mostly about presentation and juxtaposing textures. So, what I made wasn't anything that I hadn't tasted before, just maybe not seen. Then I played around with the photos a little--adding text and a few effects--just for fun!

For the first course, we basically had oatmeal w/ bananas and walnuts. the night before, I cooked some steel cut oats with chopped walnuts and spices and spread it out in a jelly roll pan to set in the fridge overnight. In the morning, I cooked sliced bananas in the same spices and a little orange juice and brandy. As my guest arrived, I sliced the oatmeal into squares and pan fried them in a little clarified butter. The outsides got mostly golden and crispy which was a nice contrast between the soft oats inside and bananas on top. Not too bad.

Butter crisped oats with banana sauce...photo by Kristin

The second course came about from a mish mash of ideas and I don't even know if I can trace the origins. Earlier in the morning, I cut some potatoes in half and hollowed them out into cups. Then I roasted the cups and the insides(which I had chopped into a small dice) until they were golden and crispy. Mean while I slow cooked a diced onion and mushroom hash in butter and brandy with a little rosemary and bacon. When the potatoes finished roasting, I mixed the diced potatoes into the hash. All of these things I held to keep warm until we were done with the first course.

To finish the dish, I cracked one egg into each of the cups and baked them in the oven until the eggs were just set. Then I served them on top of the hash. Yum, yum, yum.

Baked egg potato cups over onion, mushroom, bacon hash...photo by L.

Soft focus effect Frankie at brunch...photo by L.