Better Home Cooking Basics: #55 Add Baking Powder to Water for Hard Boiled Eggs for Shells that Don’t Stick.

I’m new to the hard boiled egg game. I’ve only recently felt confident in cooking them. Not too long ago I was under or overcooking them & now I’ve finally got it down pat. After the cooking I have to peel them & sometimes take off more of the egg whites with the shells than I’d like so when I came across this tip I had to share it with you guys. Next time you make hard boiled eggs add 1 tablespoon of baking powder  to the water, it helps prevent the egg shells from sticking! It works! I’ve tried it several times now & it has worked every time.

Do you have a tricks for making hard boiled eggs? If so, please share in the comments below!

Get more of my better home cooking basics here.

PS: happy birthday to my sweet baby cousin Renee!!! I love you! (check her site out here)

Broccoli Rabe & Cheese Quiche

The first quiche I made was for my french class in 7th grade. I’m shocked I even knew what quiche was at that moment in time. I remember my mom not being too keen about my choice - one because it was time consumptive & two because the ingredients I chose were on the expensive side. I don’ remember exactly what I put in it but I think there was bacon & lots of butter & eggs. I don’t even remember what it tasted like but I remember making it.

The second time I made a quiche was this past September when I made it for my sister-in-law & brother-in-law who just had their second sweet baby. Knowing they wouldn’t have a lot of time to prepare meals let alone heat them up I made them a quiche since it can be eaten at any temperature - warm, cold or room temp. Plus it has protein & veggies in it. And we can’t forget about the crust - the rich buttery delicious crust. It’s equal parts crispy, creamy & delicious.

This past Sunday I made one for dinner with broccoli rabe & peccorino romano cheese & I will make it again. The crust is the most time consumptive part since you have to cook it twice but it’s worth it. If you’re hosting a brunch or dinner or want to bring new parents something hearty to each this is it. You can make it ahead of time & let’s face it - it’s pretty impressive being that it’s of French origin & all. I served ours with a like mixed green salad with chopped cherry tomatoes.

PS: Mom this one is much easier to make & less expensive but tastes every bit expensive - you should make it for Dad!

Savory Egg, Leek, Herb & Goat Cheese Crêpe Squares

I love making crepes. Albeit they take some practice so if you don’t get them on the first try keep trying, you will. Plus, eating the mistakes is a great perk! I made these for brunch this weekend. I’ve also made this version of them for brunch with my girl friends a while back (like last year!). They’re great to make ahead & to serve at room temperature. They also look super posh & make for a completely satisfying breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Tomato Sauce Poached Eggs with Basil & Kale

I don’t eat a ton of meat - so Chris doesn’t really either because we eat together. I do however always try to have some sort of protein in our meals. Eggs are a great protein & usually really quick to make for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Last week I boasted about my first successful poached egg experience. As I was going through my photos* & I found some of these tomato sauce poached eggs that I actually made a month or two ago - sorry I fibbed a bit on the poaching because I in fact had poached before! I feel like poaching eggs in tomato sauce is a bit more forgiving & might be the gateway poaching method you need to get your feet - err eggs (?) - wet.


*I photograph pretty much everything I make - sometimes these photos make the blog & sometimes they just collect on my hard drive.

Homemade Chocolate Covered Easter Cream Eggs

Last Friday I came home to a package sent by the sweet people at Chocoley full of fun ingredients for this Easter project - homemade Chocolate Covred Easter Cream Eggs - so you have them to thank for this festive post (thanks Chocoley!).

When the Chocoley team first contacted me I figuratively & literally felt like a kid in the candy store.  They asked me to come up with something I'd like to make using their awesome ingredients! What would I make? So many options to choose from!

My decision became more clear with Easter on the horizon. I knew what I wanted to make & the Chocoley team was on board to advise me of which ingredients would make my Easter creation come to fruition. Chocoley truly has everything you need for creating beautiful & tasty treats.

While I was making these eggs I couldn’t help but remember the story my mom always tells of when I would make cookies as a kid. They would start out small & uniform but then as I continued & the initial excitement of making them wore off the cookies would grow in size. You could look at the assortment of sizes as a timeline of the cookies - the smallest were the earliest & the largest were the last to be baked. It’s a funny memory & my mom laughs every time she tells it - which makes me laugh. This is how I felt making these eggs. If you are going to make them at home - smaller is better - trust me. Mine grew in size - while still delicious they were a bit sloppier & wouldn’t stand on the lollipop stick, instead I had to rest them on their sides making them not completely round - but I covered them with edible confetti, silver sprinkles (like magic from a disco ball!) & pretty pink foils so you’d never know.

PS: Happy birthday to my dear friend Hely! I love you Hey Hey :)

Baked Egg in an Avocado

I’ve seen this egg in an avocado thing all over social media & have wanted to try it for a while. Yesterday, while working from home (thank you snow day!) I was actually able to make it for lunch - being that I had access to  an oven & the ingredients I needed to make it. It’s really very simple. The most challenging part is balancing the egg inside the avocado but it’s ok if it spills out as long as you follow my steps for anticipating a mess :)

I’ve always had my avocados raw so I was hesitant to fix something that wasn’t broken. I still liked the avocado part but in a different way. It almost reminded me of a baked potato in some ways. Have you tried it? What does it taste like to you?

I will definitely make this again. I think it would be great as brunch appetizer if you want to show off in front of guests.


Happy Valentine's Day!

Wasabi Deviled Eggs

We all have our strengths, evidently making hard boiled eggs is not one of mine. Lucky for me it is one of Chris's. I was pretty excited to try my hand at making making my own after reading this article about the science of the perfect hard-boiled egg. Chris has forever boiled the eggs in our house. I actually told him I wanted to try it all by myself - you know like a big girl. Well this big girl failed with big flying colors.  My whites were mushy & my yolks… let's just say it would be a generous culinary statement to call them soft-boiled. How could I have failed so miserably? I claimed defeat & whined about it a bit. Chris grabbed more eggs (the organic ones I insisted on) at the store & showed me how it was done. In about 20 minutes we had perfectly hard-boiled eggs that I was able to make into my well anticipated (by me only) wasabi deviled eggs for our mini Memorial Day BBQ at our apartment this weekend.

How do you hard boil your eggs? Any tricks?

Easy Naan Bread Pizza with Veggies, Eggs & Goat Cheese

Inspired by Oh My Veggies recent pizza post & the leftovers in my fridge, I conjured up this dinner for one while dining solo the other night.  This is one of those meals that you can eat for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or linner or whatever time it is.

Savory & Spicy French Toast

Around 5:30/6:00pm everyday I am reminded that I'm now an adult.  This revelation comes from the fact that I (not my mom) have to answer the question, "what's for dinner?" Last night I perused the web for an idea of what to make. I like to try new things as much as make things I've made a million times. This recipe for savory french toast seemed like a good mix of the two.

Chris loves breakfast for dinner so I thought I'd give it a try.  Note to self: when making french toast of any sort, make sure you have bread in the house. I'd like to give a special thanks to Chris for running out to get said bread last night to make this post possible. Thanks Chris!

I used the recipe I found on Food52.com (worth checking out if you haven't yet) as inspiration while improvising with the things I had on hand.  I served it with a salad for dinner. I think this is definitely a brunch worthy dish for the weekend as well so you have Saturday & Sunday coming at you why not give it a try? Check out my recipe after the jump.

Bird in a Nest Breakfast: Made with Love

Truth be told I'm not a huge Valentine's Day fan, but I do love incorporating graphic design elements into my daily life & food. This weekend I whipped up some birds in a nest (an oldie but goodie) but jazzed it up with some heart shaped cutouts.

If you are keen on Valentine's Day this is a great way to start your romantic day.

Make this recipe for your valentine with my easy recipe after the jump.

Hot Molten Chocolate Cake

Everyone always has room for dessert when it's hot molten chocolate cake, with ice cream of course.  This dessert is not as hard as it looks to make but there is some love involved. It's not what I would call a call-me-maybe-dessert, this isn't for a first date.  This is for the date when you celebrate you first wedding anniversary. This is a you-count-big-time-in-my-book-dessert.  For those of you that I've made this for - you know who you are- & yes I'll make it for you again.

This recipe is built out of some I found online & through some basic trial & error.  But lucky you, you don't have to do the leg work because you get my full recipe after the jump, so read on for some more photos & the recipe!

Fresh Pasta

Fresh pasta sounds fancy well it sure tastes that way and it's definitely worth making if you have the time. I'm not going to lie it's time consumptive for sure but the more you do it the easier it is and you can actually build speed doing it.  It's just a little bit more than a handful of steps but you can do it! I strongly suggest a Kitchen Aid Mixer plus the pasta attachment - it will give you days back on your life!

While the pasta takes a while to make it only takes 2-3 minutes to cook since it's so thin, so you can pretend to save time there.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 3 3/4 cups flour 
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3-4 tablespoons of water

 

Make it!

1. Mix eggs, flour and salt together.
2.  Add enough water to make the dough start to stick together but not too wet. I actually think it works better if it's a bit on the drier more crumbly side. If you add to much water, no worries, just add more flour.
3. Knead the dough together so that it forms a rough ball shape. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes.
4. Tear small pieces of dough off and roll it between your hands or on a cutting board to form a pasta worm.  Run it between the flat plates of your pasta attachment starting with the smallest number (setting 1 or 2). Run it through several times on settings 2, 4, 6 and 7 until you reach desired thickness.
5. Hang your pasta sheet a pasta rack. Work through the rest of your dough until it is all flat sheets of pasta.
6. Change the attachment to the fettucini or spaghetti attachment and run flat sheets of pasta through this - one time only.
7. Hang pasta to dry or if you don't have a rack toss the fresh strips with plenty of flour so it doesn't stick together.