When we were in Virginia a couple weeks ago, I mentioned to Mary that I wanted to grow tarragon but couldn’t find seeds or a start. As we were leaving, she came running out to the car with a tarragon sprout in a little pot of soil and a plastic baggie. I watched it dubiously in the cupholder of our car on our way home, but the tender roots, yanked and replanted, seem to have taken hold.
This past weekend, we had the pleasure of two friends from way way back coming to visit, in what I’m thinking of as a very miniature college reunion. There were spouses and offspring to meet, decades to catch up on, and old stories to recount. Rachel and Scott were both childhood friends of Phil’s when he was still called Philip. In college, I lived with Rachel and Scott lived with Phil. She is an actress in NYC and he lives in Hawai’i. It had been 20+ years since we had last seen Scott and about 30 years since we had seen Rachel. What struck me is that they are both exactly the very same wonderful people I remember from college. Rachel is still genuine, grounded, gracious and smart; literally, Phil’s oldest friend. Scott is still fun, positive, and kind — one of the best humans I know. Reconnecting with old friends means more than ever, especially after the pandemic years, when real talking, real listening, and real people were pretty scarce. I’m just grateful that years ago, our tender roots took hold.
Yes, you say, but what does this have to do with what you and Ben are cooking? Answer: very little. I was just feeling nostalgic and needed some comfort food. What’s more comforting than blueberry buttermilk pancakes, bacon, and shirred eggs with potato puree? Breakfast for dinner is the highest form of comfort I know. All Ben had to hear was bacon, and he was on board.
Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes
3 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 cups frozen or fresh* blueberries
Whisk together dry ingredients. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add buttermilk, eggs, and melted butter. Whisk just until dry ingredients are incorporated. The batter will be very thick. Let the batter sit while you heat a griddle or large skillet over medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Stir frozen blueberries into pancake batter. Spray cooking spray on griddle, increase heat to medium, and ladle about 1/2 cup batter onto griddle, for each pancake. The number you can do at one time depends on the size of your griddle or skillet, as well as the size of your pancakes. When bubbles rise to the surface, and the bottoms brown, about 2-3 minutes, flip and cook until the other side is done. Serve warm with maple syrup. You can keep these warm on a rack set on top of a sheet pan in the oven at 325º. We never bother with this. I just stand at the griddle, ladling, flipping, serving and eating until everyone is full and happy.
*When we are using fresh blueberries, we do not mix them in, but instead press them into the batter that has just been ladled on the griddle. Phil learned this technique from reading a Curious George book. I wish I were kidding.
Bakin’ Bacon
Set your oven to 400º, line a sheet pan with foil bent up on the edges to catch all the grease, and place 1/2 pound of bacon cut into half strips on foil. Place pan on middle rack in oven, even if oven isn’t fully preheated, and bake until bacon is done to your liking. We check at 12 minutes, but usually it needs an additional 2-8 minutes.
The recipe for the shirred eggs with potato puree was inspired by Ruth Reichl, my cooking idol. It is the very first recipe in her cookbook/memoir, My Kitchen Year, which she wrote after Gourmet, the magazine that she edited and I read since 1990, abruptly folded. Our recipe uses what we had on hand. Remember the oven mashed potatoes from last week? We had some left over and this was the perfect use. Reichl’s recipe uses cream and butter, and is, no doubt, divine, but I honestly can’t imagine anything better than what we ended up with.
Shirred Eggs with Potato Puree
2 cups leftover doctored-up mashed potatoes (ours included plenty of ricotta, milk, cheese, and sour cream)
4 eggs
4 tablespoons cream (we didn’t have cream, so we used 2 tablespoons milk)
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 375º and begin boiling some water. Warm mashed potatoes in microwave and spoon into 4 small ramekins. Crack some black pepper onto potatoes. Gently crack an egg into each ramekin and place ramekins into baking dish. Pour boiling water into dish (taking care not to splash into ramekins). Place baking dish in oven and bake 8 minutes. Spoon 1 tablespoon cream onto each egg and bake 5 minutes more, until whites are cooked, but yolks are still somewhat runny. Top with salt and serve.
