blog — molly yeh

egg

yogurt covered eggs in a basket

in

happy halloween, friends!! are you excited or totally indifferent about the holiday? i've been pretty indifferent these past few years, but this year through a perfect storm combination of having an easy costume that i am so excited about*, not one but two invites to halloween parties, and the general urge to chill my bum off after a fun yet nutso month of traveling, i am more than ready to celebrate.

*i will be a cupcake wars contestant and eggboy will be the carpenter man that builds my cupcake display. in other words, i'll carry around a plate of cupcakes and make new friends and eggboy will wear a plaid flannel shirt like he does every other day anyway. in other other words, we will literally just walk out of the house.

i plan on spending the rest of my weekend celebrating the end of daylight savings time. is that something that people do? is it an excuse to make a cake and spend the day in pajamas? can it be? ok good.

and check this out, my eggs in a basket dressed up for halloween: as yogurt toast! i know, easiest costume ever. the toast equivalent to a bed sheet ghost, but we love it all the same! if you haven't jumped on the eggs + yogurt train yet, please get on this immediately. and if you haven't jumped on the yogurt toast train yet, please also get on this immediately. and then you will see how yogurt covered eggs in a basket was meant to be. the creaminess of the yolk and the yogurt balanced by a crispy buttery piece of toast makes for a very comforting, filling breakfast that will keep you energized for all of your trick-or-treating! i like sprinkling mine with my nice za'atar, olive oil, and the newest edition to my spice collection, berbere, which is common in ethiopian cuisine. but you can top yours with anything you'd like. keep it simple with salt, pepper, and hot sauce, or maybe go crazy and add caramelized onions. yum!

yogurt covered eggs in a basket

makes 1

ingredients

a slice of bread

butter

an egg

a big plop of plain yogurt (full-fat, low-fat, or fat free)

salt and pepper, to taste

any additional toppings as desired, like za'atar, berbere, hot sauce, caramelized onions, olive oil, etc.

clues

Cut a 2 1/2 or 3-inch circle out of your bread and spread both sides with a thin layer of butter. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium high heat and toast the bread and its circle on one side until brown. Flip them over, and then crack the egg into the hole. 

Cover the pan and cook until the egg whites are firm but the yolk is still runny. Remove the bread and its circle from the heat and spread with a thick layer of yogurt. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and any other toppings that you'd like and enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you so much to the american egg board for sponsoring this post! head over to their site to check out eggspert tips like when and why to use room temperature eggs, how to substitute various sizes of eggs, and best storing practices for eggs. i'll be especially thankful for the size substitution chart when my chickies start cranking out eggs of all sizes but my baking recipes still all call for large eggs!

bonfire eggs!

in

you wouldn't know it based on how much of a hermit i am now, but when i was a wee one spending my summers at sleep-away camp, i had an absolute favorite activity: outdoor cooking! all of the teachers were fresh out of the israeli army and they had cool tricks for making things like noodle kugel in a fire and the unexpected camper favorite, egg in a potato. i don't know if that was the official name, but that's exactly what it was. we'd sit around in a circle hallowing out our potatoes and then we'd put slices of american cheese in the bottom, crack in an egg, and then wrap it up with foil and throw it in the fire. i remember it taking a really long time to cook and getting really impatient and probably eating a raw potato, but it was still really good and super fun!

so because eggboy loves making fires (we just watched the francis mallman episode of chef's table and i think he has a new hero...), we had a fireside supper the other night, just the two of us, with some visits from macaroni. did i mention that macaroni are big enough to free range now?? we let them out in the morning and then they forage and hang out with the kitties during the day and then at night, they just magically return home to their coop! it is the cutest little thing. i am perplexed about what to do with all of the poop that's in our yard now, but maybe it'll function as good fertilizer??

anyway, this egg in a potato is a very fun activity. it's not the most precise way of cooking a potato and an egg--sometimes you pull it out of the fire and find a perfectly cooked egg but your potato still needs cooking, other times the potato is perfect but the egg's a bit too firm--but it'll still be tasty! top it with a bunch of cheese, make sure to bring a cute tiny bottle of hot sauce and a miniature tin of salt, and when it's ready to eat, run to your garden, yank out a few herbs, and garnish the suckers like the classy outdoor cook that you are.

egg in a potato

ingredients

medium potatoes

salt

cheese

eggs

pepper

hot sauce, optional

fresh herbs, optional

clues

start a fire!

chop off the end of a potato (keep this end part, it is the potato's hat) and then use a spoon to hollow out enough space to fit an egg and some cheese. reserve the potato innards for another use, like potato soup, or feed them to your chickies. 

salt the insides of the potato and then crack in your egg and top it with cheese. place the potato's hat back on and then wrap it firmly in aluminum foil. carefully put the potato on the outskirts of the fire. use tongs to retrieve it after about 20 minutes. carefully open up the foil and then check for doneness--the egg whites should be cooked, the potato should be easily poke-able with a fork, and the yolks can be either runny or firm. if the whites are still runny and/or the potato isn't cooked through, rewrap the potato and put it back in the fire for a few more minutes.

when the potato is ready, top it with salt, pepper, hot sauce, and fresh herbs, if desired. let it cool slightly and enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you, american egg board, for sponsoring this post! if you haven't checked out their eggcyclopedia, you should, it has a bunch of interesting facts! like, did know that brown egg layers typically eat more and their eggs are typically bigger? or that the fresher the egg, the less it'll spread in the pan when you fry it?? there's also less of a chance that a fresh egg yolk will accidentally break. hehe i'm becoming an eggspert.

sriracha egg salad

in

here are two equal and opposite reactions: making your own mayonnaise and then eating your own mayonnaise. that is, if you make it by hand, which is actually really satisfying and the best* thing that you can possibly do in the kitchen now that it's short sleeve season. 

*in addition to a whole bunch of other things, like kneading bread dough by hand...

it's also really fascinating to see with your own two eyeballs how mayonnaise really is just eggs and oil, and i think that makes egg salad extra funny. eggs coated in eggs. lol. you'd think eggboy would move mountains for the stuff, but he despises it. i told him how weird that is and his response was i'm not mayo boy, which is probably fair since i love olive oil but can't really do olives. 

and all that means is more egg salad for me. yay!!!!!!!

i love egg salad because: 

1. i'm 90,

2. it's so soft,

but it has to be severely mayo-y and salted ferociously, which you can do easily when you make it from scratch. and another thing that you can do easily when you make it from scratch is use olive oil in your mayonnaise, for a healthier option, and then eat all of it in the comfort of your own home without worrying that you're offending someone with the smell of hard boiled eggs.

i'm about to tell you how to whisk mayo by hand for this egg salad.

i know, i know, making mayo in a blender takes but one second. i know.

you can also buy mayo at the store. i know. 

but we're going to make it by hand because it's fun, it's good for you, and you might find yourself in a blender-less, mayo-less world one of these days and you need to know how to fend for yourself. the rest of this recipe is an easy peasy straightforward egg salad scenario that gathers sweetness and crunch from chopped onion and a bite from dijon and sriracha. (there's no celery here, i didn't want it here.) it's equally at home on crunchy toast as it is sandwiched between fluffy white bread, and if you want to just eat is straight with a spoon, you can do that too.

sriracha egg salad

makes 4-6 servings

ingredients

1 large egg yolk

1 tb dijon mustard

1 tsp sriracha

1/2 tsp sugar

kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

1/2 c extra virgin olive oil

1 tb lemon juice

8 large hard boiled eggs

1/2 small white onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

 

 

clues

in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, mustard, sriracha, sugar, a good pinch of salt, and a couple turns of black pepper. continue to whisk, vigorously, and do not stop until i say. using your other hand, drizzle in the oil as slowly as possible. the oil stream should be the thickness of a strand of hair. once the mixture has thickened and become pale, you can increase the speed of the pour slightly. (how is your arm? do you need to switch hands? you can do that quickly.) once all of the oil has been added, whisk in the lemon juice. stop whisking. taste and adjust salt, pepper, and sriracha as desired. 

transfer the mayo to a small container. there's no need to dirty up another large bowl, you can just go forth and make your egg salad in the bowl where you just made your mayo. 

to do this, place your eggs in the bowl and use a pastry cutter to give them a rough chop. alternatively, you can chop the eggs with a knife before putting them in your bowl. fold in the onion and garlic and add a good pinch of salt. like i said, i like a severely mayo-y egg salad, so if it were up to me i'd stir in all of the mayo that we just made and be done. but i don't want to offend you, so start by folding in half of the mayo, and then add more as desired. reserve any unused mayo for anything you want. eat all of your egg salad at once! or within 3-4 days. 

enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you so much to the american egg board for sponsoring this post! check out their good egg project site to get to know the family-owned farms that are part of the board and read about their efforts to create sustainable, healthy, and comfortable environments for their chickens.