Ham and Eggs and Candy, Oh My! Part 2

So lets talk about eggs.

You're likely to be hard-boiling some to dye, so why not make lots? My mother always said that she couldn't think of any cheaper way to entertain a whole gang of people for the evening than boiling a few dozen eggs and setting out the dye, crayons, and other Easter-y craft supplies. And heaven knows, having hard-boiled eggs in the fridge is like having money in the bank for a low carber.

A useful thing to know is the best way to hard-boil eggs. Having experimented quite a lot, I have had my greatest success thusly:

First of all, don't start with strictly fresh eggs. Why not? They're far more likely to stick to their shells in that maddening way. It's too late to age your eggs a week, but if you buy them today and boil them Saturday, for dying Saturday night, you'll have a little time to age them. For future reference I find that one to two week old eggs are best for hard-boiling.

When it's time to cook 'em, put them in a saucepan and just cover them with cold water. Add a *lot* of salt -- I use a tablespoon to cook 7 eggs in my littlest pan, so for a couple-dozen in a big pan I'd suggest at least a quarter-cup. Again, this helps prevent sticking. Don't worry about all that salt; you won't taste it in the finished eggs.

Set your pan over a medium-high burner, and bring it to a rolling boil. Do not leave the kitchen while this is happening! Unload the dishwasher or wipe down the fronts of the cabinets or something. You need to be there to notice when they start boiling.

As soon as the water reaches a boil, turn off the burner and cover the pan with a tight lid. If you have an electric stove, move the pan to a cold burner. Set your stove timer for 18-20 minutes.

When time is up, take your eggs to the sink and pour off the hot, salty water, then "shock" them in several changes of cold water. Then drain 'em, set 'em back in their cartons, and stash 'em in the fridge until dyeing time.

Please be aware that hard boiled eggs will not go bad in a couple of hours out of the fridge. If you use yours in a centerpiece during Easter dinner, just put them back in the refrigerator after the meal, and they'll be fine. Ditto if they're out of the fridge for an hour during an Easter egg hunt. Not my worry, I guess, it just makes me sad to think of all of the perfectly lovely hard-boiled eggs that get discarded because of over-blown food safety concerns, especially with money so tight.

Too, you know that a little dye seeping through the shell is not a worry, right? That's food coloring. It's not going to hurt you, it's just going to make for festive-looking egg salad.

What to do with all of those hard-boiled eggs? Just peeling them, sprinkling them with a little salt, and eating them is a time-honored approach. It's hard to think of a snack that will kill hunger better than a hard-boiled egg, and I love them. (So does That Nice Boy I Married. When there are no leftovers in the house, he nearly always takes a couple of "boilies" for lunch. Talk about cheap, easy, and nutritious!)

But you can also:

* Make that festive-looking egg salad. I love the stuff. I peel and chop three eggs, add a good dollop -- probably 2-3 tablespoons -- of mayo, chopped celery, chopped green pepper, and sliced scallions. A squirt of spicy brown mustard and a little salt and pepper finishes it off. My mother loved chopped green olives in her egg salad; they're certainly a fine addition.

You won't be making an egg salad sandwich, of course. I eat my egg salad right out of the mixing bowl, with a fork, but if you'd like something a tad less informal, you could serve it on a plate with butter lettuce leaves to wrap it in. Or you could cut the core out of a tomato, cut it vertically into 8 wedges, leaving the skin intact at the bottom, and open it up into a flower. Stuff with a big scoop of egg salad in the middle, and serve on a lettuce-lined plate for a luncheon fit to serve to company, should you have any.

* Everybody loves deviled eggs! They're sort of old-fashioned, but I rarely have any left over. I've published many a recipe for variations, but usually I just make 'em by taste, in the traditional style. Peel a bunch of eggs, slice them lengthwise, turning the yolks out into a mixing bowl as you go. Start by mashing the yolks with a fork or whisk until they're quite fine. Add mayonnaise to moisten to a creamy consistency -- whisk 'em till they're good and smooth, hear? Add mustard to taste; a shot of hot sauce wouldn't hurt, either. Salt and pepper to taste. Then stuff 'em back into the whites, or use a pastry bag with a star tip to pipe them in, if you want to be fancy. (This is about the only thing I ever do with my pastry bag.) A sprinkle of paprika on top looks pretty.

If you're having Easter dinner in the afternoon, a plate of deviled eggs and a platter of veggies and dip would make a great simple snack-style supper, maybe while the family watches a movie together.

* Chopped hard-boiled eggs are a great addition to a tossed green salad.

* Make your favorite meatloaf recipe (using crushed pork rinds or low carb bread crumbs instead of the usual carby filler.) Pat out half the meat mixture, arrange peeled hard boiled eggs in a row down the center, and cover with the rest of the meat, shaping it all into a nice loaf. Bake as usual. You'll end up with a pretty yellow-and-white circle of egg in the middle of each slice.

Here's a recipe that uses up ham and Easter eggs:

Ham Kedgeree

1/2 head cauliflower
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 cups ham cubes
4 hard-boiled eggs
3 tablespoons minced onion
1/4 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Run the cauliflower through the shredding blade of your food processor. Put it in a microwaveable casserole with a lid, add a couple of tablespoons of water, cover, and microwave on high for 6 minutes.

While that's happening, cut your ham in 1/2" cubes, mince your onion, and peel and chop your eggs coarsely.

Melt the butter in your large, heavy skillet over low heat, and add the curry powder and onion. Saute them together for 2-3 minutes. Add everything else, stir gently but thoroughly (gently so that you don't completely pulverize the hunks of egg yolk,) heat through, and serve.
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4 servings, each with: 340 Calories; 27g Fat ; 19g Protein; 6g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 5 grams usable carb

(Reprinted by permission from 500 More Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender, copyright 2004 Fair Winds Press)

One more thing: Raw eggs keep better than most people realize. (Indeed, for millennia people kept eggs all winter long without refrigeration; they'd just rub the shells with grease to keep out air. Of course, their houses were cooler than ours.) If you have the refrigerator space, it's a good idea to take advantage of the Easter sales and stock up on eggs now. They'll be okay for a month, at least. You probably wouldn't want to fry or poach a month-old egg -- both of these methods are best with really fresh eggs -- but they'll be fine for scrambling, quiche, adding to meat loaves or baked goods, and for making still more hard-boiled eggs.

Or you could make egg casseroles. I've written here before about my infinitely variable egg casserole recipe. Well, we now have chickens in the back yard, and it being spring and all, we've got fresh eggs coming in faster than we can eat them. That's why we had an egg casserole for supper last night (and I had leftovers for lunch about an hour ago.)

The basic proportions for the egg casserole are 6 eggs to 1 cup of cottage cheese. These are whisked together with 1/2 teaspoon salt or Vege-Sal and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper, plus whatever seasonings will compliment your filling. For instance:

* Add dry mustard and prepared horse radish to the eggs (I'd probably use 1/2 teaspoon mustard and a couple of teaspoons of horseradish) and layer with leftover ham, shredded cheddar, and thawed frozen broccoli.

* Add a little lemon juice and dill to your eggs, and layer with salmon -- fresh or smoked, either is good -- chopped fresh asparagus, and Gruyere.

* Add a crushed clove of garlic, a teaspoon or two of oregano, and a teaspoon of ground cumin to the eggs, and layer with Monterey Jack or Mexican cheese blend and salsa.

* Do all of the above, plus hamburger and chopped onion browned with taco seasoning.

* Season the egg/cheese mixture with a little dry mustard and lemon, and layer with drained canned tuna, sauteed mushrooms, and Swiss.

The basic procedure is to pour half of the egg/cottage cheese mixture into an 8x8 baking pan you've sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, layer in the other ingredients, pour the rest of the egg/cheese mixture over the top, and bake the whole thing at 325 for 50-60 minutes, or until puffed and golden.

I did a new egg casserole last night, and it was great. Here's how I did it:

I wanted to do an Italian-style version. I didn't have any Italian sausage in the house, so I started with a 1 pound roll of extra-mild breakfast sausage. I crumbled and browned it, adding a couple of teaspoons of fennel seed, a clove of garlic, a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, a couple of teaspoons of Italian seasoning, and a small pinch of Splenda, maybe a quarter teaspoon, sprinkled over the top. When the sausage was done through, I added some sauteed green peppers and onions I had in the freezer. (That Nice Boy I Married had taken a couple of peppers to work to eat with his lunch; he loves them with blue cheese dressing. The office fridge was too cold, and they froze, which of course made them soggy. So to save them, I sauteed them along with a chopped onion, and stashed them in a snap-top container in the freezer.)

To the eggs and cottage cheese I added another clove of garlic, another teaspoon of Italian seasoning, and 1/2 cup grated Parmesan, the cheap stuff in the green shaker.

Instead of layering this time, I put the sausage mixture in my 8x8 pan and poured the egg mixture over it. Then I stirred the whole thing together. I topped this with a half a can -- about 1 1/2 cups -- of Hunt's No-Sugar-Added spaghetti sauce. Over that I sprinkled the contents of an 8 ounce package of shredded mozzarella. Baked it as usual -- 50 minutes at 325.

Cut it in squares and served it with more Parmesan on top. This reminds me of lasagna; it's awfully good. Reheats beautifully in the microwave, too.

9 servings, each with: 398 Calories; 32g Fat (73.0% calories from fat); 21g Protein; 6g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 5 grams usable carb.

Feel free to make this with a pound of Italian sausage instead of the breakfast sausage, fennel, etc. Indeed, that would probably be better; I wouldn't have tried this with anything but extra mild breakfast sausage -- add a bunch of sage and it would change the whole thing.

Whew. I've been writing all day. I'll tackle candy tomorrow.