Saturdays have kind of landed on my shit list as of late. Two weeks ago Nick went to the ER because he cut part of his thumb off with a drill press at work; last Saturday my mother who is never, ever sick was rushed to the ER in Minnesota with a mysterious ailment. Luckily she’ll be okay, but it was a scary, scary day, so when Nick came home from work with a poinsettia and a package of cookie cutters, it was much appreciated. I’m crossing my fingers for no hospital visits this Saturday, especially as Nick and I will be flying to Mexico for Christmas with my family.

Anyway, the order of the day quickly became bake myself into oblivion (yes, I know what you’re thinking), because apparently that’s what I do when I’m stressed. At least I’m not a stress eater, thank goodness.

I decided to give Cooking Light’s new recipe for iced sugar cookies a whirl, and kids, is it ever a winner. Literally the only change I made was to add a teaspoon of coconut extract to the batter, which is basically unheard of for me as I tend to interpret the term ‘follow a recipe’ very loosely.

Here we are in action, and yes, that is Nick with a blender. I had to act quickly with this one.

After that I tackled my mom’s recipe for Boiled Drop Cookies, which are super delicious as well as super simple and fast, but not really photo worthy as they basically look like brown lumps.

Thus,

Boiled Drop Cookies:

Ingredients:

• ½ cup Margarine
• ½ cup Cocoa Powder
• ½ cup Milk
• ½ teaspoon Salt
• 2 cups White Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 3 cups Oats

Combine all ingredients except for oats in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat for two minutes, stirring constantly.  Add oats, stirring until combined.

Drop quickly by teaspoonfuls onto wax paper. Let dry overnight, flip cookies over to dry the bottom.

That’s it. Deliciousness in five minutes.

Earlier on Saturday, in between the ‘your mom’s in the ER’ call from my dad, and waiting on Nick to come back from work, I stumbled upon this article from NPR, on poached eggs, which I seriously suggest.

I’d never poached an egg before, but after reading this obviously I had to try. Cue dinner preparation music.

I decided to go for the bistro salad recipe they provided, which I followed more or less, and decided to add some salmon cakes to the mix, because clearly making poached eggs for the first time was not intense enough. Here’s the recipe I made up for salmon cakes. Usually mayonnaise is a key player in crab cakes, but we’re not really fans of it here, so I substituted an egg, because that’s the important part of the mayo thing, the egg is the agent for holding everything together. Anyway, I digress.

Cajuny Salmon Cakes:

Ingredients:

• 2.5 cups Panko, divided
• 1 lb. Salmon*
• 1 Egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tbsp. Fresh Lemon Juice
• ½ tsp. Salt
• 1 tsp. Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. Cajun spices (chili powder, garlic, paprika, onion powder)
• 2 tbsp. Olive Oil

*I actually used a salmon filet, but apparently you can find pouches of salmon meat, which is significantly easier to work with as it comes in de-skinned and in chunks

Combine egg, lemon juice, and spice in a large bowl. Add salmon meat and 1 cup of panko. Mix well. Divide mixture into patties (I did six big ones). Put the rest of the panko in a bowl and dredge each patty in the panko.

Put patties on a cookie sheet and place in freezer for a few minutes. (This will help them hold their shape)

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add salmon cakes and cook about 7 minutes on each side or until crumbs are browned.

And we ended up with this:

I cracked a little pepper, and sprinkled some paprika on the eggs.

It was effing delicious.

And yes, following NPR’s instructions for egg poaching left me with six perfectly poached eggs over the course of the weekend, and zero not-perfect eggs.

On Sunday I couldn’t really let my newfound skill go unused, so I poached some more eggs while my dad called to tell me that my mom would be fine. Huzzah. The contents of the fridge led me to the following recipe, I consider it a winner.

Italian Breakfast Sandwich:

Ingredients:

• 2 Eggs
• 2 slices of bread*
• 2 slices Prosciutto
• 4 slices Fontina cheese
• Paprika
• Fresh ground black pepper

*I used Portuguese rolls, they’re awesome

Turn on upper oven broiler. Poach your eggs. While the eggs are poaching place cheese on bread. Put the bread on a cookie sheet and place on top oven rack. Broil about three minutes or until cheese is melted and the edges have just started to brown. Remove from oven, places a slice of prosciutto and an egg on each slice of toast. Sprinkle eggs with paprika and pepper.

Enjoy!

Happy holidays, whatever those may be!