Chicken In Her Nest (with a glass of Farmer's Daughter)

This is going to be an interesting series of blogs. Everyone's got recipes and so do I. For some 60 years (since I was 7 and in Cub Scouts) I've been puttering about in any kitchen that would let me in.  First main course meal was a breakfast treat in the Scouting handbook. Think it was called Chicken-In-Her-Nest. It was easy to make, great fun and went down well.

It's so simple and quick to get together that it makes for a wonderful surprise breakfast-in-bed treat if you can slip out from under the covers while your partner continues to snooze along without you.  In mere minutes you can slip back into the room with a tray that's sure to deliver a number of interesting side benefits...

Fill a chilled crockery jug with cold Farmer's Daughter Dry Gewurztraminer and set close by with a juice-glass size tumbler. Sip liberally as the spirit moves you.

If memory serves me well... take a slice of bread and butter it. Put it on a plate and take a regular size glass tumbler and press the rim into the bread turning the glass either clockwise or counterclockwise if you're a lefty. Pull back and pop out the little circle of bread. Save this for frying.

Take a sip of Farmer's Daughter.  

Put the bread, buttered side down, into a hot frying pan. Break an egg into the hole and fry gently.  If you want you can fry the little circle of bread alongside it (turn over enough to crisply brown on both sides) and then perhaps use it for a lid on top of the yolk.  when you're finished frying.

Take a sip of Farmer's Daughter.

When egg is fried to your liking take out, plate (and get your mom to verify what you've just completed in a note to your Cub Scout leader).  I got my cooking badge and so can you.

Garnish with a couple of thin slices of sweet blood orange alternating with chunkier slices of ripe tomatoes. Although I didn't do this in Cub Scouts the look of that "Chicken In Her Nest" with a little well-placed decoration will definitely get you some points in the sack.  And then you've got a little of Farmer's Daughter Dry Gewurztraminer working its magic too.

OK so this is the first set of cooking instructions I ever followed... and probably was the last.  Although I've accumulated a good stack of garage-sale cookbooks, most are for inspiration and the pictures. But I won't be getting rid of them.  The kids can have 'em after I croak.

Over the next number of blogs I'll be happily sharing some interesting thoughts about what's cooking in/on the little apartment range, and of course when up at the winery, in the much bigger kitchen at the Rustico farmhouse.

Hope you enjoy our rustic-style messing about in the kitchen and feel free to send along whatever thoughts you might have.

Cheers... and enjoy our Rustico Farm & Cellars wines (Farmer's Daughter Dry Gewurztraminer, Isabella's Poke Pinot Gris, Doc's Buggy Pinot Noir, Last Chance Zinfandel/Merlot/Chancellor/Blaufrankisch blend and Mother Lode Merlot

BF