Faced with an extremely rare weekend, one where I have absolutely nothing else I should be doing, I found myself with two options for today. The first was to stay in bed, which I did until 2.30pm. The second was to go to the park and nap in a shady nook. By the time I made it out of bed though, I felt that I'd sort of abdicated the right to any nook napping. And there are only so many episodes of Air Crash I can watch before my stomach starts to feel a bit ooky.

I decided instead that today should be a test-kitchen day.

Test One.

I'm still trying to perfect poached eggs in the microwave, which I realise is probably a massive insult to egg purists, but they really aren't bad as eggs go. The eggs that is..not the egg-purists. Hmmn. In fact, today was my most successful attempt yet.

In case you're wondering, I have discovered that the key to it is to crack the egg gently, in a small bowl, into about 3/4 cup of cold water! For the first egg I carefully punctured some holes in the yolk with a fork, because I've read that otherwise the yolk explodes. For the second egg I completely forgot to poke the yolk, and ...nothing happened. So poke or no-poke at your own peril I guess.

Cover with a plate and microwave on high for 90 seconds. Or less, depending on your yolk-runniness preferences. Lift gently out of the water with a fork or other egg lifting utensil, be careful not to pierce the yolk. Eat.

Last time, epic fail that it was, I used hot water, thinking that it would sort of..seal the outside of the egg before I got it into the microwave. Instead, I ended up with a bowl full of whitish dispersed eggy water and a sad-looking yolk quivering at the bottom of the bowl.

I don't have any photos of this test-kitchen adventure for you because I am embarassed to admit that I have been cooking eggs in the microwave. It just seems wrong somehow. And yet, so so right.

Stick around for Test Two, it's sweeeeet. And I have photos to prove it.