I have yet to make a hollandaise at home. Well that's not entirely true. I attempted it once. It failed. My husband tried it one. It failed. So we never tried again and thought restaurant quality hollandaise was gonna have to stay in the restaurants.

But today Chris had a sous vide salmon holding to have with eggs for breakfast, and I decided to give hollandaise a try. And it worked!! I used a collection of recipes to kludge something together. A "guy on the internet" said induction stoves don't need to use double boilers because the low setting heat is so gentle, it won't curdle. And he used a hand mixer with the double blades. So I did that, to emulsify the melted butter streamed in at intervals.

Here's what I did:

INGREDIENTS

• 2 eggs (room temp is best, one full egg, one yolk)
• 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 Tbsp white wine vinegar 
• pinch of salt
• pinch of cayenne
• dash or white pepper
• 1/2 cup butter (melted I used salted)

DIRECTIONS

Whisk egg and second yolk together with all ingredients except for the melted butter. Place in double boiler bowl or in small pan over low heat on induction. 

Continually whisk or mix with hand mixer until eggs begin to thicken and froth a bit. 

Stream small amounts of butter in at a time, mixing thoroughly before adding more. Sauce will thicken gradually, over about 2-3 minutes time. You can add more butter at a time as it starts to thicken, but if you're worried about breaking it, just keep it slow and at intervals until the end.

Best used immediately. If holding, put lid on and set off heat. Mine started getting a little seized after 20 minutes, but was still delicious. This makes quite a bit, maybe good for 5-6 plates of whatever you're dressing.

We had it with salmon and fried eggs for breakfast and it was AMAZING!!! Chris couldn't stop oohing over it. I am so happy I finally climbed this particular culinary mountain.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup water

12 cashews (or almonds)

4 pitted Medjool dates

1 can (15oz) coconut milk

2 Tbsp chia seeds

1.5 cups oats (Bob's Red Mill Steel Cut Oats was my first experiment)

1 can (15oz) coconut milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla extract 

INSTRUCTIONS

Put water, nuts, and dates in a blender and blend until milky and broken down significantly.

In large jar, pour in water/cashew/date mixture, and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir, or seal and shake.

Put in fridge overnight. Spoon into dishes and enjoy with fruit, nut butters, or as-is! I like to portion mine out into short individual jars for quick-grab in the morning. Good for 3-5 days in the fridge.

1. Slice large onion in half, slice ends off, then working long-ways (knife should be parallel along the line from the root to stem), slice into 1/4 slices. 
2. Melt 3 Tbsp butter over medium heat 
3. Add sliced onions and cook stirring frequently well coated in butter and translucent
4. Lower heat to low/medium low and stir ever 5-8 minutes, checking to make sure nothing is burning. Remove any burned bits and adjust heat. Cook until you get the desired look and flavor. For this recipe it was a light brown with still some white in there. I want them a little bit toothy still for the quiche and not just mush.
5. Let cool to room temp then store until ready to use.

Sautee Mushrooms in butter and a little salt.

Make crust (recipe for pate brisee), divide into two balls and wrap in plastic wrap.

Let all cool in fridge until ready to use.

DAY OF
Roll out one of the two crusts and blind bake your pie crust.
Combine milk, cream, thyme, and eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Beat until a bit fluffy.
Distribute mushrooms and onion over bottom of pie crust. Put dollops of goat cheese all over. Then pour egg mixture over the top.
Bake at 375 for 45 minutes or so. Remove and let cool on counter for 10 minutes.

I wish this were my beauty, but it DID taste good.

• 1 cup flour
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄4 cup olive oil or 1/4 cup canola oil (or possibly 1/2-1/2 oil and butter)
• 1⁄4 cup ice water (my fridge door water was cold enough)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Prepare pie crust in a 9" pie plate, crimping the top edges if desired.
3. Blind-bake crust for 5 minutes if you would like to
4. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, salt and pepper.
5. Sprinkle ham, 1 cup of cheese, and green onions into the pie crust and pour the egg mixture over top. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup cheese on top of egg mixture.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the center is completely set. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Photo credit Sunkissed Kitchen

• 1/2 cup chia seeds
• 1 can unsweetened full fat coconut milk*
• 3-4 pitted dates, (optional)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• fruit, nuts, and whatever you like

1. Soak dates in some water for about 15 minutes. This gets them a little less sticky and they blend better.
2. In a blender/food processor/Ninja mixer, finely chop up dates. You may need to fish around to get the dates from sticking to the blades, but pre-soaking them helps.
3. Add coconut milk and blend lightly--don't whip it up! I found whipping the coconut milk up too much interferes with soaking into the chia seeds in the next step. We just want to distribute the dates in there.
4. Add cinnamon and chia seeds and pulse just enough to blend together. Again, don't whip it up. If you're worried about that happening, just stir by hand in a bowl to incorporate the ingredients.
5. Place in container in fridge to soak at least 1 hour to overnight (a few hours is best if you want it "now", IMO).
6. Divide into four portions, serve with fresh fruit and/or your favorite raw nuts or nut butters.

"It looks weird."