Learning the Art of Poached Eggs

Last weekend my roommate Jenna taught me how to poach an egg without a poacher! I have never attempted nor tried a poached egg. It always sounded so fancy and I just assumed that meant very very difficult to make with fancy equipment. But I learned that it is actually really really easy and doesn't require hardly any equipment. Just the stuff you more-than-likely already have in your kitchen cupboards: a frying pan, eggs (of course), bread, and a splash of vinegar, spoon/measuring cup, a ladle or spatula. The vinegar is supposed to keep the egg white together.

Directions
1. In a medium sized frying pan simmer water and a splash of vinegar enough liquid to reach 1 1/2 to the bottom (or about 1/2 of an inch from the top lip). 2. Put your egg in a measuring cup or spoon and gently set it into the middle of the simmering water. I am told that you can push on "the white" to keep it close to the yolk (however I haven't tried this yet). 3. The egg should be done after 3-5 mins. Take it out of the water gently. I used a ladle to do this. I can imagine you could also use a spatula. 4. Set the egg on a piece of toast (or by itself) and chow down! It breaks really easy and it doesn't have a ton of grease all over it.
I am feeling really redundant, but Smitten Kitchen also has a really great "how to poach an egg" recipe (I swear she doesn't pay me to advertise!). How do you poach your egg? Any advice on mine??

Cinnamon&Sugar Biscotti

For my first upload into my "journalBlog" I am starting with a Biscotti. I have always wanted to learn how to make a biscotti and I have heard that they are very easy to make and I feel that they would be easy to modify!

Diving on to Epicurious I found this recipe for Cinnamon & Sugar Biscotti's. They were delightful. I made these tasties last night and I was too busy figuring out how to blog.. (I know I'm in my early twenties and still don't really know how to blog. Sad.)

(Reminder: I am still an amateur food photographer!)

The original Epicurious recipe:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

I changed this recipe a bit due to the repeating comments on Epicurious. I cut the sugar to about 3/4ths cups because I thought 1 full cup would be a bit much. Many of the reviews also said to add another egg. So I did!

Over all the recipe was easy to make and worked really well. The texture of the biscotti was a little more moist than biscotti's should be so next time instead of adding an additional whole egg. I might try just adding another egg yolk to see if that helps. This recipe would be an easy one to make sweet or savory! For savory I will try to toss some fresh rosemary and some olive oil (perhaps as the egg substitute!) in the next batch!