Recipe: Harissa Deviled Eggs

Over the holiday break, I came to Jesus a little bit.

Okay, I realize that may provoke more questions than it answers. Basically I came to the realization that I cannot eat eggs fried in butter for breakfast every day. It is too rich for me. But hard boiled eggs? They have long been a go to for me. I get all the good stuff from the egg without quite so much fat, which can upset my stomach and weigh me down if I eat too much of it.

But on New Year’s morning I was looking for something more interesting than just a hard-boiled egg. And so Harissa Deviled Eggs were born. These deviled eggs are about as easy to make as drinking too much on New Year’s Eve while letting your kid stay up until midnight. I actually served these as a breakfast/ brunch main dish, and they were perfect. But the best part? Thing 2 wandered over to the table and took two hefty bites without being asked. All this from a child who has not tried a new food in easily 6 months. Perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel yet.

Harissa Deviled Eggs

5 hardboiled eggs, peeled and cut in half
1-2 tablespoons of harissa mayonnaise that you forgot to serve at your dinner party the night before (i.e.-about ½ cup mayonnaise mixed with about a tablespoon of dry harissa, a shake of garlic powder and a hefty pinch of salt, let sit for at least 30 minutes) I encourage you to use homemade mayo, mayo made from something besides soybean oil or organic mayo. This will help you aoid GMOs and overly processed industrial fats.
Bacon, if your children haven’t eaten every last piece in your house



Remove the yolks and place in a bowl. Add 1-2 tablespoons of the harissa mayo. Mash the yolks and the mayo together until it forms a paste. Add crumbled bacon if you live on the edge. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the paste back into the hard-boiled egg halves. No need to sprinkle with paprika, unless you are a traditionalist.


Enjoy!

Ramps and Eggs

Still wondering what to do with those ramps you got two weeks ago at the farmer's market? My market smells funny in the last weeks of April because those funky wild onions stink up the joint. If you still have some hanging around like I did, trim them and chop them up with a little local spinach.

Saute the ramps and spinach in a skillet with a little butter. Throw in some leftover sausage. Pork is particularly nice.


Then place in the middle of an omelet.

Bon Appetite!

Green Eggs and Goat Cheese

I make Green Eggs for Thing 2 once a week or so. He really likes them but Thing 1 won't touch them. He is not mad about eggs never mind that these eggs are green. Recently I whipped up a batch of some Green Eggs. But I wasn't in the mood for them just plain. So I made mine into a rather unattractive omelet. They stuck to the pan.

When I flipped the omelet, I added some goat cheese to the middle and folded it over and let it melt. Yuuuuummmm. This is a nice reminder of all the possibilities that breakfast offers us.

Green Eggs

I have been most concerned about Thing 2 recently. I know he is going through or about to go through that 12 month growth spurt, never mind that he is 13 months old. But in the last several weeks his hunger is insatiable. At his 1 year doctor's appointment he weighed in at a fairly average 24 pounds and was 31 inches tall. I couldn't believe it! With how chubby he is I was shocked that he would be so above average for his height and so average for his weight. Wouldn't that make him tall and thin?

Lately all he wants to do is eat meat and flour foods like crackers and bread. He will pry the snacks out of your hands. Fruit is okay, he likes fruit. But not every fruit. Blackberries are too sour and if the peach isn't right forget it. He is still a little young and toothless for apples and oranges. Strawberries and blueberries are now out of season. So we are left with bananas and plums. But veggies? Hahahaha! You must be kidding. That child has never once fed himself a vegetable. But I have found that he will eat them if they are disguised. He will not put up a fight if you mash up veggies in yogurt or in mashed potatoes or even in mashed up avocado. But then you have to put it on a spoon, hand him the spoon and then HE will feed himself. Jeez. We have one of those.

So we are trying to get creative to get more veggies in his belly. Recently I bought an immersion blender. It came with a nice cup that you can make smoothies and other things in. The other day I took the cup and put in two eggs, a healthy splash of milk, a half of a shallot, a handful of spinach and a pinch of sea salt. And I blended it until it was pulverized. Then I fried up that green slurry and made....what else, Green Eggs!!

After a tentative start, (it did look like a vegetable after all) he started inhaling it.

Whew! At least I got one point this week!

Brown Eggs Vs White Eggs, Winner Takes All!

If you have ever wondered what was the difference between white eggs and brown eggs, well wonder no more.

I started to buy brown eggs a couple years ago when I switched to organic eggs. I found that organic eggs were usually brown. And I always thought they were very pretty. I felt good eating them! I pay more for the eggs because they are organic, but I wondered, are all brown eggs better than white eggs? The snob in me said 'yes', the investagator in me said 'I have no idea'.

Nutritionally the inside of an egg is the same regardless of the color of the shell. For those of us that believe the early scientific findings that say that organic food contains more nutrients than conventional food, organic eggs will still be superior. But the color of the shell does not influence nutritional value. Rather the color comes from a pigment that is derived from hemglobin called protoporphyin. This pigment is also responsible for tinting the chickens feather's brown or slightly red, which is why some folks say that brown chickens lay brown eggs and white chickens lay white eggs. The white chickens simply don't have the protoporphyin.

Other interesting information, in many birds (not just chickens), protoporphyin is often laid onto the egg in the form of spots when the mother hen doesn't have enough calcium to make a shell that is hard enough. Wikipedia says that if a bird with protoporphyin lays 10 eggs it is more likely that the last eggs laid will have spots as her body has lower amounts of calcium in it after laying the first eggs. Interesting.

I think there is a common thought these days that brown eggs are more healthful than white eggs. I used to wonder if perhaps white eggs were bleached before coming to market. Well, no, consumers of yesterday overwhelmingly preferred white eggs. Hence, there were more white eggs in the store. Now the display of brown eggs is about equal in my grocery store, organic and conventional both. I like having the choice, but I definitely buy brown eggs because of some deep seated assumption that they are more natural, even though they aren't. I like my brown eggs.

And now that we have that cleared up. I am going to keep buying them.

In researching this post, I came across the transcript of an NPR interview with Marie Simmons, author of the book The Good Egg. In the interview, Simmons recounts what sounds to be a lovely recipe. Bake a potato in the oven until baked through. Remove from the oven and cut open the top. Remove some potato and put in some olive oil or butter as well as parmesean cheese. Crack an egg into a small bowl (to easily pick out any stray shells) then pour the egg into the potato. Put it back into the oven until the egg is cooked to the desired consistency. I would top with more cheese. I haven't made this-but doesn't it sound good??