Deviled Egg Spread

I love deviled eggs.  

Sadly, I'm cursed with the "I can't peel an egg" gene.

They wind up looking like Freddy Kruger or Edward Scissorhands had a go at them.

It's really rather disturbing to look at.  Sort of like this cartoon.

via

C'mon.  Admit it.  It made you chuckle.

With this dip, you don't have to worry about how the eggs look when you peel them because you're just going to hack them up anyway.

Oh sure, you could call it egg salad, but Deviled Egg Spread tastes and sounds so much more fancy schmancy.


Deviled Egg Spread from The Cutting Edge
1 dozen large eggs
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
Salt & pepper
Paprika for dusting

In large pan, cover eggs with cold water; make sure water is  an inch above eggs. Add vinegar. Bring to rapid boil. Cover pan and remove from heat. Let stand 15 min. Drain water from eggs and cool under cold running water. Shake pan vigorously to crack shells. Let eggs cool in water.

Shell eggs and halve them lengthwise. Coarsely chop half egg whites and transfer to large bowl. Add remaining white and all yolks to food processor with mayo and mustard. Process til smooth. Scrape mix into bowl and blend with chopped egg whites. Season with salt and pepper and top with paprika.  Can be made ahead and refrigerated overnight.

Hakuna Fritatta

What a wonderful phrase....Hakuna Fritatta means no passing phase.  It means no worr-ies for the rest of your daaaaays.  It's our problem free.....philosophy...Hakuna Fritatta!

Ok.  So I know its Hakuna Matata.  When Blockette was a wee little lass, I made a fritatta for dinner for the first time.  I wasn't sure how it would be received, so I told her we were having Hakuna Fritatta for dinner.  And yes.  I did sing the entire song. 

It was a huge hit!  (The food, not my singing.) So the name just stuck, and we've called it that ever since.

I thought I had posted about it ages ago, but apparently, I was mistaken.

Fritattas are such a quick and easy meal, and a great way to use up leftovers.  The only things you really need to make one are eggs and an oven safe frying pan.  The rest is up to you!

Here are a few ingredient suggestions:
shredded potatoes
garlic
onions
ham
bacon
sausage
cheese
broccoli
peas
garlic
milk
paprika
mustard
hot sauce
fresh or dried herbs

I use a 12" skillet and 8-12 eggs, depending on how many leftovers I want.  (Yes! Fritattas make great leftovers.  They even taste good cold!)  A 10" skillet is fine too.  If you are going to use a 10" skillet, I suggest using 6-8 eggs.  I used 8 eggs in a 12" skillet for today's fritatta.
 
If you have uncooked ingredients, saute them in your skillet until they are cooked to your liking.

For this fritatta, I used leftover potatoes, garlic and onions, and 3 diced precooked cheese bratts.  I tossed them with 1 T of olive oil and cooked them over medium heat until the bratts began to turn dark brown and caramelized.  (About 5 minutes.) Once the bratts were browned, I tossed in a few handfuls of frozen peas

While your ingredients are cooking, either preheat your oven to 400F or turn on your broiler.  As your add ins are cooking/warming and the oven is heating up, crack the eggs in a large bowl and whisk them together.  Add milk, cheese and any desired spices.  For this fritatta, I used 3 splashes of fat free milk, pre shredded pepper jack cheese, a few grinds of black pepper and 10 drops of hot sauce.

Over medium high heat, pour the egg mixture into the pan over the cooked/warmed add ins.  Cook the eggs for 4-5 minutes.  I like to lift the edges up and let the uncooked egg pour under the cooked part.  This speeds things up a bit, but is not necessary.  You can just leave the whole thing alone if you like.

After 4 minutes your fritatta will look something like this:

The bottom and edges are set and the top is no longer liquidy.  The eggs are still a bit runny, and not fully set.

To cook the eggs the rest of the way you can either bake them for 3-4 minutes under the broiler, or at 400F for 12 minutes.  My family prefers the 12 minute version.  With the broiler version, if you don't keep a close eye on the eggs they can go from lightly browned to dark brown very quickly. I will use the broiler version if I'm really pressed for time and watch the eggs like a hawk.  With the 12 min version I have time to do other meal related things like: make a salad, make toast, cut up fruit, pour beverages, etc

Here is what the fritatta looks like after 12 min at 400F:

The edges are light brown and have pulled away from the sides of the pan.

At this point you have two options for removing it from the pan.  You can flip the whole thing out over a cutting board, like you would remove a cake from a pan.  Most of the time we either melt our plastic cutting board or the fritatta falls out and breaks.  I prefer to cut the fritatta and remove it from the pan in individual slices, as you would for a pie.

Typically, for an 8 egg fritatta, I will cut it into 6 slices.  If I use 10 or more eggs, I'll slice it into eighths.

And that's how I make a fritatta.  It's a neat economical dish that looks like it took much more time and effort than you put into it!

Gingerbread Dutch Baby

I'm the sort of person who plans out her meals a week in advance. Mostly because I only go to the grocery store once a week. It makes things easier for us on busy nights after school if I know what I need to do in the kitchen before we walk in the door.

Sometimes those plans go by the wayside and I wing it. Sometimes Mrblocko has an extra meal set aside for him because he had an appointment, his boss took him out to lunch, or the leftovers stretched out for dinner for only one person.

Instead of making another meal that would generate too much food before we could eat it, I'll make something that serves two people. Usually, this is Blockette's favorite food, egg sandwiches.  This time I decided to switch things up and made a gingerbread dutch baby from My Daily Morsel.

The recipe calls for a 9" skillet that is oven safe.  I don't have one of those, but I do have a 12" one!
So I doubled the recipe and made that big fat baby in a 12"pan.  I thought this would be a bit more filling as a single recipe calls for 2 eggs.  If we were having egg sandwiches, I'd make us each 2 eggs as well.  This and a side of fruit was just right for me and my ravenous daughter.  If you were having lots of other sides, like hashbrowns and sausage and/or bacon, a doubled batch of this batter would probably feed three.

I topped our dutch baby pancake with powdered sugar.  I thought that the maple syrup would overpower the gingerbread flavor.  Of course when I shook on the powdered sugar I told Blockette it was snowing.  She loved that as she is desperately hoping it will snow more than half an inch, and stay on the ground for more than a few hours.  Until (if) that happens, she'll just have to be satisfied with generous dustings of snow in the powdered sugar form.

Gingerbread Pancakes for Two adapted from My Daily Morsel
4 large eggs
2 T brown sugar
1T molasses
2/3 c flour
3/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t ginger
1/4 t cloves
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t kosher salt
2/3 c milk
4 T butter
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place eggs in blender and blend until smooth and pale in color. Add brown sugar, molasses, flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and milk and blend until smooth. Melt butter in 12 inch ovenproof skillet over high heat, swirling it up the sides to evenly coat the pan. Pour the batter into the skillet and transfer to the oven. Bake 15-20 min, until the pancake is puffed up. Remove from oven, dust with powdered sugar aka snow!

Better than Egglands Best

Remember back in September when I won a bunch of stuff, including eggs, from Egglands Best Eggs? And those eggs were the best eggs I ever tasted.  Seriously, I didn't think that there would be a difference, but there was.  Egglands Best Eggs taste fresher and more like an egg than the usual grocery store fare.  So yum yum yummy.

Nothing could ever top Egglands Best.  Or so I thought, until this weekend, when we got these beauties.

One of the parents of a child in our Sunday School class GAVE these to us.  Their chickens had laid them the day before. 

Holy cow.  So unbelievably good.

Blockette had a hard time choosing what color to have for breakfast, but settled on a pinkish one.

Now some of you who have read my profile might be thinking, um doesn't it say she lives in a suburb of Chicago?  Well yes, I do.  It just so happens that I live in a far western suburb,  very close to a lot of farmland.  I think it's the best of both worlds.  The town has become quite built up in the past 6 years, but at times still has that small farming community feeling. I love it. Especially if it means people give us free freshly laid eggs!

Breakfast Sandwich Casserole

I had really high hopes for this breakfast sandwich casserole from Sisters' Stuff. A make-it-the-night-before breakfast casserole...that's like an egg sandwich, and all I have to do in the morning is stick it in the oven? Yeah, how could that not be awesome? I guess I built it up in my mind too much as the end result was a bit of a let down.

Not that it wasn't good. It was. I just had it in my brain that it was going to be this awesome uber breakfast. My loving husband told me that it was just fine that the breakfast wasn't "Awesome" and that it was OK for food to just be OK. Then he went on to tell me that I can't be like Wolfgang Puck all the time. That made me chuckle, 'cause what he doesn't realize is that I don't even care for Wolfgang Puck all that much. (Unless it's pastry, cheese, chocolate or bread...French cuisine is not my thang.)

I think the biggest bummer of this dish, aside from the fact that it stuck to the pan like nobody's business, was that the bread on the bottom was soggy. I hates me some soggy bread. It's like eating a wet sponge.  (Not that I've ever eaten a wet sponge before, only dry ones.)

See all those sticky bits.  Ugh what a pain to clean...that's why Mrblocko is in charge of the dishes!

The leftovers were surprisingly less soggy than the ones freshly cooked.  To reheat the leftover sandwiches I placed them "soggy" side up on a cookie sheet and stuck them in the oven as it was preheating to 350F.  Once the oven got up to 350F,  I cooked them for another 10 min.  I think this, along with sitting in the fridge for 24 hours, drew a lot of the moisture out of the sandwiches.

Breakfast Casserole from Sisters Stuff (My changes are in blue.)
12 slices of bread (Texas toast would be best.  Might eliminate some of that soggy bread on the bottom that you get with regular sandwich bread.)
18 oz of grated cheese (I only used about 8oz of cheese and it was plenty cheesy)
1 pound of your favorite meat (I used half a package of  bacon that had been fried up ahead of time and diced ham.  I have no idea if it was a pound of meat.  Probably closer to 3/4 of a pound.)
Veggies (I used 3 medium onions that had been caramelized along with 3 cloves of minced garlic.)
8-10 Eggs (I used 10 eggs, they probably could have used a splash of milk along with them)
I also added a few dashes of hot sauce in the egg mixture.  Some mustard would be good too.
Salt and Pepper
Butter

Generously, butter all slices of bread. (I don't think I slathered on enough butter.) Place 6 slices of bread, buttered side down. Then top with grated cheese, meat and veggies. Then place the other 6 slices of bread, buttered side up on the top. Beat 8-10 eggs in a bowl, with salt and pepper. Pour the eggs over the whole casserole...make sure to get all the bread covered with eggs. Cover the pan in foil and refrigerate over night. Bake at 350 for 1 hour with the foil on, then 30 min without.

French Toast Waffles

My mom makes the best french toast on the planet. This is not up for debate as I doubt any of you have ever had my mom's french toast. You'll just have to take my word for it. I did come pretty close on the deliciousness scale this summer using Homemade Cinnamon Bread for the bread in french toast.

Well, I didn't have any cinnamon bread on hand, fresh or store bought, to go that route. So, instead, I gave waffle iron french toast from Cooking with my Kid a test drive.  This is pretty much your standard french toast recipe, but you cook it in the waffle iron.  Waffles and French Toast?  At the same time?  Can you say AWESOMESAUCE?!!!!

Blockette and I agreed that this french toast was almost as good as the french toast my mom makes. Almost, but not quite. However, as I can't very well have my mom drive 7-8 hours just to satisfy my french toast desires, it will suffice.

what I did:
7 pieces of sandwich bread (I left the crusts on)
2 eggs
1/3 c milk
3 T maple syrup (aka tree blood)
lots and lots of cinnamon (I kept adding more after every slice of bread was dipped)
1/4 t nutmeg
pinch of black pepper

Preheat your waffle iron. Whisk all ingredients together until combined. Dip bread immediately before placing on the waffle iron to cook. I only gave my bread a quick dip in the egg mix,and let the excess drip off. I don't care for the soggy type of french toast. This was how I was able to get 7 pieces of bread. The last piece was a bit lacking on the egg coating so keep all that in mind. Setting 4 on my particular waffle iron worked out perfectly, but we like our french toast and waffles on the crispier side. Experiment to find out what works best for you.

I Won Eggs!

So I entered this contest at In Katrina's Kitchen where you can win all this stuff from Eggland's Best.  And guess what????  I won!  Wanna see what I won?

A coupon for 2 dozen free eggs, a coupon for 6 dozen hard boiled eggs, an apron, a reusable grocery bag, a whisk, a spatula, egg timer, 4 little ramekins, and a plush little egg.  Pretty neat eh?

Incidentally, Blockette LOVES the plush egg.  She has named him Eggy and insists on sleeping all snuggled up with him every night.  What a nut!

Sweet Corn Hash

When I went to visit my mom in Minnesota over the Fourth of July, my uncle came over one night for dinner. He brought with him the most gifreekingnormous watermelon and 40 ears of corn.  Yes.  FORTY ears of corn.  Did I mention that there were only the 5 of us? And we were leaving the next day?  Can you say an excess of corn?

At dinner, we barely made a dent in the cornucopia of corn.  (Is that joke too corny for you?) (Groan.)  My mom already had a full refrigerator, so what on earth were we going to do with all that corn?  My mom gave a ton to her neighbor, and I took the kernels off of 10 cobs.

That's a lot of corn.  You don't realize how much corn is on an ear until you take it off the cob.  I think eating an ear of corn is no big deal, but put that same amount of corn on my plate and I feel overwhelmed by the yellow mound.  Needless to say, there wasn't enough room in our tiny cooler for all the corn, even off the cob.

I remembered this recipe for sweet corn hash that I saw over at Joy the Baker around Father's Day. It was a great way to use up that overabundance of corn. I made Mrblocko grill the potatoes outside so we wouldn't heat up the house by turning the oven on.  I also added crumbled browned sausage to the mix.  Eggs and toast on the side made the meal last us for a few days, which is always nice.

While I'd much rather eat corn on the cob, I'd make this recipe again in a heartbeat should I ever come in possession of another massive amount of fresh corn.


Sweet Corn Hash from Joy the Baker serves 2
1/2 to 1 pound potatoes, cut into chunks
Olive oil, salt, and pepper
1 small or 1/2 of a large onion, diced
2 fresh ears of sweet corn
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste

Place a rack in center of oven and preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place potatoes on baking sheet, and toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Bake for 20-25 min, til tender and cooked through. While potatoes cooking, saute onions in a cast iron skillet, over med til tender and browned. Turn off heat and set aside until potatoes done baking. Slice corn off cob and chop parsley. When potatoes done baking, remove from oven and place in cast iron skillet with onions. Cook over low . Add corn and remaining 1 T butter, salt, and pepper. Toss til butter melted and corn is just warm. Remove from heat. Toss in parsley and serve.

1 egg Japanese Omelette

Have you ever had a Japanese omelet before?  They have all these uber thin layers upon layers of egg in them.  It's like paper thin crepe-like omelettes.  I don't know how to explain it.  If you've never had it before then you are missing out.  Go get yourself a container of Baileys Ice cream and have a good cry.

Anyhow, many moons ago, before I was married and knew how to cook, I attempted to prepare tamagoyaki.  It was a dreadful and horrible failure.  Yeah.  I had a Japanese cookbook and I followed the directions exactly.  I got a whole pan of scrambled eggs.  Whoopie.  Talk about a let down.


As luck would have it, I happened across a recipe called Tamagoyaki for one from Just Bento. It only uses one egg!  That is my kind of recipe. If I totally screw it up, I've not wasted a bunch of ingredients.

I think I did a fairly decent job of making the egg layers.  You can sort of see the layers in middle of the omelet in the photo above.  It's not exactly perfect, but closer to the real thing than any other attempt I've made in the past.  Yay me!

1-egg tamagoyaki from Just Bento
1 ‘large’ egg
1 Tbs. water
1 tsp. soy sauce (regular or light-colored; here I used regular, since that’s all I had in stock)
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 Tbs. bonito flakes (optional, for added flavor)
Vegetable oil for cooking

Mix all ingredients together well with a fork or chopsticks. Heat up a small (6 ") non-stick frying pan and spread thinly with oil (or use a non-stick cooking spray). From this point on, it only takes about a minute and a half!

Once the pan is hot (if you put a droplet of water in, it dances and evaporates immediately), pour in the egg. Stir gently with a fork or chopsticks until it’s half-set. Fold in half with a spatula. Tidy up the other side a bit with the spatula. Fold the one third of the egg over with the spatula. Press down. Fold the other end of the egg over with the spatula. Press the whole thing down. Flip over, and press again. Remove from the heat before it browns too much. (If you use light colored soy sauce, it won’t get as brown.) Cut in half and put cut side up, it is nicely multi-layered.

Crescent Scotch Eggs

My best friend has been talking up Scotch Eggs as a great meal on the go for years. I've had them on my "to do" list but they keep getting bumped further and further down that list for something more exciting. Shame on me.I finally settled on using the recipe for crescent scotch eggs from Big Oven. Although, I did use my best friends secret of using sage sausage. (I used Bob Evans brand because it rocks my world. ) See if you use sage sausage you don't gots to do nuthin for seasoning. Yeah!

Mrblocko LOVED these. He was desperately trying to figure out how to get some cheese in there some place. (Cause then, dontcha know, it would be a perfect meal. ) I told him he was just gonna have to deal, because I couldn't figure out how to get cheese in there without making a huge mess in the cooking process.

Blockette, on the other had did not have any sort of love for Scotch eggs. This is because she hates cooked egg yolks. I can't say that I blame her. I don't particularly care for them either all by their onesies. They weren't too bad eating them with the meat and crescents though. Once I removed the offensive "yellow nasties" from the center, Blockette ate her meal without further complaint. Next time I make these I'll have to remember to do that at the beginning of the meal so we don't have to revisit the excessive drama.

We had a bit of leftovers with this recipe as it makes 8 eggs. Normally, with leftover Scotch eggs, you can just eat them cold, no problem. Since these babies were wrapped in crescent rolls I thought they might taste a bit odd cold. (Think soggy bread. Bleck!) I popped them in the oven at 375F and reheated them for 15 min and that did the trick.

Crescent Roll Scotch Eggs from Big Oven
1 lb Sausage, pork
1/3 cupbread crumbs dry
1 eggs; Slightly beaten
8 Hard boiled eggs; peeled
8 ounce Crescent Rolls

Heat oven to 450F. In small bowl combine dry bread crumbs, egg, and sausage; mix well. Divide sausage mixture into 8 equal portions; shape into patties. Wrap sausage patty completely around each hard cooked egg. Place on ungreased 15 x 10-inch jelly roll pan. Bake 15 minutes. Drain on paper towels. (Cool for 10 min for easier handling). Reduce oven to 375F. Separate dough into 8 triangles. Press each triangle to enlarge slightly. Place sausage wrapped egg on shortest end of triangle. Roll up starting at shortest end of triangle, gently wrapping dough around egg and rolling to opposite point. Pinch edges of dough to seal and completely cover egg. Placed on ungreased 15 x 10" jelly roll pan . Return to oven and bake at 375 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into wedges. Garnish as desired. Serve warm.

Hard Boiled EGGS!

OK so this post is entirely for me. Every time I want to hard boil an egg I can never remember how. I thought maybe if I make a "how to" post then I will remember I made a post (or at least Mrblocko will) and when I want to hard boil an egg, I'll just look on here.

Basic hard cooked eggs (from the Incredible egg Website)

Step 1: PLACE eggs in saucepan large enough to hold them in single layer. ADD cold water to cover eggs by 1 inch. HEAT over high heat just to boiling. REMOVE from burner. COVER pan.

Step 2: LET EGGS STAND in hot water about 15 minutes for large eggs (12 minutes for medium eggs; 18 minutes for extra large).

Step 3: DRAIN immediately and serve warm. OR, cool completely under cold running water or in bowl of ice water, then REFRIGERATE

(Note: Eggs are easiest to peel right after they've been cooled, but once an egg is peeled you should eat it that day. Hard boiled eggs in the shell are good in the Fridge for about a week.)

Go out and buy a dozen eggs

OK. Seriously. You have to make this pizza frittata. It is so delicious and easy. Making a regular frittata is simple. A Frittata is basically an omlette you start on the stove, but finish in the oven. In this version you stick everything in a bundt pan and all the cooking is done in the oven.
It does taste sort of pizza-y. Enough so that the Blockette ate all her dinner with minimal fuss last night. She is even excited about eating the leftovers for dinner tonight. Yeah, excited about leftovers. I don't think you could ask for a better review than that.

Baked Pizza Frittata from Foodie with Family
12 large eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
15-20 slices of thin pepperoni
2 cups shredded or finely diced mozzarella cheese
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried mustard powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper to taste
Marinara sauce, for serving

Preheat oven to 375°F.  Generously grease a bundt pan.  Evenly distribute the pepperoni slices across the bottom of the pan. Set aside. Crack all eggs into a large mixing bowl and whisk lightly.  Set aside. Whisk flour, baking powder and 1/8 t salt in a med bowl.  Whisk milk into flour mix til smooth.  Add flour/milk mix to eggs along with Italian seasonings, basil, oregano, mustard, salt and pepper and whisk til smooth.  Stir in cheese. Pour egg mix over pepperoni. It doesn’t if pepperoni comes up from the bottom of the pan.  Try to keep it evenly distributed through the egg mix. Place bundt pan on the center rack and bake 45 min til nicely browned and the frittata springs back when pressed gently.  Remove from oven and allow to cool 5 min before turning out onto a cutting board. Slice into thick wedges and serve with marinara sauce. This is fantastic, hot, cold or anywhere in between.