Brown and Green Eggs

We have seventeen laying hens.  Needless to say with all those hens, we average about a dozen eggs per day.  For a family of seven, this is just about perfect.
However sometimes we end up with a stockpile of eggs.  Here are five things you can do to use up your eggs.
1.  Sell them to your family, friends, and/or church members. This is the most obvious choice.  We ask $2.50-3.00 a dozen.  We aren’t trying to make money as much as we are trying to get rid of eggs.  It is nice to help cover the price of feed by selling extra eggs.
2.  Boil the eggs. There are so many uses for boiled eggs.  We eat them as a snack with a little pepper and salt.  Cut them up for egg salad.  Add them to chicken or tuna salad.  Boiled eggs add protein to any vegetable salad.  They are very good and versatile.
3.  Make deviled eggs as a side dish. My daughter, Kyla, has been making deviled eggs by herself since she turned five years old. They are super simple to make and the most popular way to eat eggs at my house.  No matter how many she prepares, they all disappear.
4.  Have breakfast for dinner night. This is a fast way to go through some eggs because people tend to eat larger portions in the evening.  Dinnertime is certainly when my crew eats the most.  Omelets, fried egg sandwiches, and breakfast tacos with homemade pan sausage are delicious ways to eat eggs.
5.  Make a pudding with a meringue topping for dessert. Chocolate, vanilla, and banana pudding are tasty after dinner treats.  Puddings use quite a few egg yolks especially when you triple the recipe like I do.  The beauty of piling on the fluffy meringue is that is uses all of your egg whites so nothing goes to waste.  My grandfather calls it calf slobber.
Most recipes call for you to cook your pudding on the stovetop and brown your meringue in the oven.  When I do this, the pudding thins out and turns a little watery even after all the time to ensure that it was nice and thick on top of the stove.  Lately, I have been firing up a hand-held torch instead of browning the meringue in the oven.  It takes practice to evenly brown the egg whites with a flame, but I personally prefer the pudding to be thick.  I am much happier with the final product.

So if you ever get too many eggs stored up in your refrigerator or if the grocery store has a big sale on eggs, I suggest trying one if not all of my tips.  If I have completely overlooked a way to rapidly consume eggs, please let me know.  You can leave a comment or e-mail me directly on my contact page.

Kyla’s Deviled Eggs

1 dozen eggs, hard-boiled
1/3 cup Mayonnaise
1 tbsp Mustard
Paprika
Garlic Powder
Sea Salt
Pepper, freshly ground

Peel your boiled eggs when they cool off.  Cut the eggs in half.  Remove the yolks and place in a bowl.  Place the egg white half on a serving platter.
With a fork, smash the yolks.  Sprinkle all the spices to taste.  I add paprika to the mixture instead of sprinkling on the top.  I think it tastes better.  Squirt about a tablespoon of yellow mustard.  Then spoon about 1/3 cup of mayonnaise.  As you can tell, I do most of my cooking by eye.  If it is still too thick, put in more mayonnaise.  If it looks right and the yolk mixture is smooth and creamy, begin spooning into the egg white halves.  Serve cold.
Tip: The cooler your egg, the easier to peel.  Fresh eggs can be a challenge to peel.  I crack the egg on its bottom (the fatter end).  There is usually an air pocket that enables you to peel easier as well as break the protective membrane between the egg white and its shell.

Tags: boiled eggs, deviled egg recipe, eggs, meringue

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 8:15 am and is filed under Homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.