Steak and Asparagus with Lime Hollandaise - plus breakfast bonus!

Saturday December 13

We needed 2 eggwhites so Holt could make his crunchy granola (or rather, make his granola crunchy), so we absolutely HAD to make Hollandaise sauce out of the yolks; and since we had several juicy limes, it was lime Hollandaise, as for Eggs Beatrice.

Something had to go under the sauce, so we roasted a sheaf of asparagus, and since something needed to go with that, we got out a little bone-in strip steak.  Tried it out on our grill pan, and it worked a treat.  And for contrast, a little Hawaiian red salt on the Hollandaise. 

Oh, and we've been promising to blog the granola recipe, so this is a perfect opportunity to show where those egg whites go.

Holt's Crunchy Granola

freely adapted from Alton Brown; makes a double recipe, enough for 2 weeks of breakfast.

500 g.   rolled oats (6 cups)

150 g.   slivered almonds (basically a full TJ’s package; 2 cups)

125 g.   shredded sweet coconut (1 1/2 cups)

125 g.   dark brown sugar (3/4 cups)

3/4 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup coconut oil

2 egg whites

1 ½ tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. cinnamon

and later, 2 cups raisins

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 250º F.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients: oats, nuts, coconut, and brown sugar. Stir to break up any clumps.

In a separate measuring bowl put the coconut oil. This is solid at room temp., so nuke for 45 sec. Check and nuke more if not melted.

Add maple syrup and egg whites. Mix wet with dry ingredients and stir thoroughly. This will take about 5-10 minutes.

Pour half of the mix onto 2 pans lined with a Silpat (or parchment paper). If you like crunchy granola, pack the mixture into a long, wide, flat rectangle (like the lowest level of a mastaba, all you Egyptologists) on each pan, a little thicker at the edges.

Bake for 50 minutes; rotate and switch pans on racks at 25 minutes. Edges should be browned and center dry. Let it cool on the silpats on a rack.

Then break up the mastabas into a large bowl. Add raisins and mix until evenly distributed.

NOTES: You can substitute everything for everything else.  Regular veg. oil works fine and is cheaper than coconut, but doesn't smell so delicious as it's baking.  Honey for maple syrup, but decrease the cooking time to 45 minutes.

If you like a loose muesli style, what are you thinking?  But then skip the egg whites (which is the real secret) and stir the granola occasionally while baking.

Add the raisins only after baking.  Just making sure.