The last time I tried poaching an egg, it went horribly. They got poached, technically, but the water was milky white with strands of egg white, like an egg drop soup. The resulting poached egg was ugly and disappointing.

This was 4 years ago, so in anticipation of making some Croque Madame sandwiches tomorrow, I decided to try poaching a couple eggs for breakfast today. So I looked up some resources (like this BBC video on egg poaching and this Kitchn article on egg poaching) and decided to give it another go. Here's the result, with some Lawry's salt and black pepper:

Adding a splash of vinegar to the water really seemed to help. Proper temperature control seems key: The more violently the water is boiling, the most wispy and less cohesive the poached egg. Both articles I read recommended poaching for 4 minutes, which resulted in a yolk that barely ran. I might go for 15-30 seconds less next time, I like my yolks a bit more runny. I did not "spin" the water to make a whirlpool: That's what, I think, caused all my problems last time.

Altogether, I'm glad this worked: I love eggs, and learn yet another way to cook them is fun!

Despite spring allergies hitting me hard, I was able to go to the grocery store, where I noticed Funfetti Cake Mix on sale for 99¢. Being frugal, I picked up a couple to see what I could do with them.

I've had two recipes in my Pinterest account for quite some time. One is a recipe for Funfetti cookies I've tried before, the other a recipe for funfetti puppy chow that sounded interesting. Since the cookies have to chill for an hour, I had just enough time to make the puppy chow!

They both turned out pretty well. I was skeptical about the puppy chow at first, but I really like cake-flavored things (that aren't cake, for some reason), and these two things definitely fit the bill!

It's been quite a long time since I made a Budget Bytes recipe, but this recipe for Mexican Lentil Soup is one of my favorites. It's easy to make and packed with flavor.

I add a spoonful of sour cream to every bowl to really make it delicious, and serve it with some cheese and crackers or grilled cheese.

The plan tonight was to make a risotto again. Then I forgot to buy the mushrooms. Unfortunately, I still had some beef stock to use up. So, as I had been perusing some coffee table books, I came across a recipe for rice pilaf.

Making pilaf is pretty simple: Melt some butter, sweat some onions, cook the rice a bit, then add the stock, boil, and simmer until the liquid is absorbed. For improvisation, it turned out fantastic (and now that I think of it, Spanish Rice is very similar to Pilaf...)

The same cookbook had a recipe for green beans and tomatoes, which turned out pretty well, but I forgot the basil, which likely would've made it better.

All this was in accompaniment to some pork chops I picked up and pan-fried with some Lawry's.

Altogether it turned out terrific, but I need to keep working on my vegetable sides.

This is a good show of how much I've learned over the last 2 years:

1. The chicken breasts were seasoned with Lawry's, pan-seared on a hot pan with a bit of oil for browning, and then finished in a 400° oven
2. While the chicken finished in the oven, I prepared the risotto, mostly from this recipe from myrecipes.com (though I've learned from Emeril's recipe, and these risotto techniques from The Awl
3. A cup of milk deglazed the pan, 1/4 tsp of garlic powder, 2 tbsp of dijon mustard, some salt, some pepper, and 1 tbsp of flour created a pan sauce

And one thing I haven't learned:

1. Frozen broccoli looks kind of silly next to the rest of this...

Altogether I like the formula: One difficult or involved thing (risotto), one moderately-complex thing (the pan sauce), and the rest easy things (chicken and broccoli). I spent about an hour in the kitchen, and created something wonderful!