Poached Eggs and Playdates

We had some friends over last night...Baxter the Pit/Boxer mix, along with his human, Josh! Oia and Baxter had a field day playing and running around while I made sure the humans were fed some yummy dinner, and we all had a lovely evening! While they chowed down on treats for tricks, we dove into bowls of gooey risotto loaded with crispy pieces of bacon, and silky, sauteed leeks. The best part though? The poached egg broken over the top of each mound of risotto, dripping and oozing into the dish, adding that much more texture to an already flavorful dish!

I got a later start than I had originally planned, but the bacon was crisping when Baxter and Josh walked in the door! I was moving along in my creation of Bacon and Leek Risotto with Poached Egg. After the bacon was done, I sauteed the leeks in the drippings and eventually added the rice as well as the wine. I've explained the risotto-making procedure over and over, so I won't bore you with the chicken-stock-ladling and stirring process, but I did happen to have two more containers of homemade stock so that added to the flavors! Once the risotto was ready, I stirred in the bacon, some fresh parsley, and some grated Parmesan, and then seasoned it all up with some salt and black pepper.

While the risotto was cooking, I sliced a bunch of ingredients for an Escarole, Apple and Raw Golden-Beet Salad. I used my mandoline to thinly slice some raw golden beets and radishes. I was a bit skeptical about eating beets raw, but the freshness combined with the really bright flavor of the golden beets worked really well. I paired the radishes and beets with some escarole, Granny Smith apple, olive oil, apple cider vinegar and hazelnut oil. I topped it all off with some sea salt flakes. This salt adds a mild saltiness to salads, but with a really interesting texture. They are very fine flakes, so you don't get that crunch that you would get with other types of salt. I like to use it instead of Kosher salt when I'm adding it to salads. I decided not to roast the hazelnuts and sprinkle them over the top, and the salad really worked without them. It was a very bright dish, for one described as a winter salad in the recipe. It was much lighter than what I would imagine a winter salad to be.

The final step was to poach those eggs for the top of the risotto, and by a stroke of luck, I managed to get all three of them perfect on the first try! I usually spend time screaming and yelling at a pot of boiling water when my eggs break, or don't cook correctly, but these three...they went in perfectly, they cooked perfectly, and then, they oozed gooily over that mound of risotto! Score!