Eggy goodness (your fave egg recipes) + bonus “worst meals”

Scotch eggs. Photo: Brian Malcom

Happy Friday! It’s gorgeous today. So last week at this time, I asked you for your favorite recipes for eggs, inspired by our General Manager and henkeeper extraordinaire, Ellen Rocco. She says “the girls” are laying like mad and she can’t find enough to do with all the eggs! Here are some suggestions for her and us.

First, from Facebook: Martha Spear suggests Scotch eggs, which if you’re not familiar are eggs breaded in a sausage-y mix and deep fried. You heard me right: They’re basically heartburn in a handy round package.

Scotch eggs aren’t exactly known as a gourmet food, but here’s a gourmet take from Bon Appetit magazine. More suggestions: From Kathy Clarke, tapioca pudding. She says she uses a box recipe, but beats the egg yolks and whites separately for a fluffy result. From Roger Abramson, “We love omelets! And especially, mixing in chunky salsa (medium), and melting in Monterey jack cheese with Jalapeno peppers.” Yum.

Natalie Rowe sent a link to a recipe she loves, Southwest Breakfast Wraps, from Bonnie Stern’s “Essential of Home Cooking.”

And Darel Snodgrass sent a joke: “Farmer: I’ll have 2 eggs, bacon and hash browns. Waitress: How do you like your eggs? Farmer (thoughtfully): You know, now that you mention it, I really do like ’em a lot. Thank you, I’ll be here all week.”

I personally love eggs and eat about a million of Ellen’s hen’s eggs every week: I have a couple every day hard boiled, and we have them fried and scrambled on the weekends. I also enjoy the baking, and made a fabulous chocolate cake a couple weekends ago that had five — five! — eggs. It was good. Oh yes.

For your further cooking pleasure, I now delve into our archives for a couple selections from NCPR’s book “Stories, Food, Life.”

Birthday Waffles

Robin Rhodes-Crowell, Pierrepont

My daughter ended up being a surprise home-birth on an early September morning in 2003. She came into this world quicker than expected, and I delivered her in our wonderful old circa 1860 farmhouse. A midwife, my mother, a friend and my husband were all there, and all went well–just fast. After the excitement died down, my husband made the birth team homemade waffles. After all the energy I used in labor and giving birth, it had to be the best waffle I have ever eaten. Now my daughter always requests waffles for breakfast on her birthday and the re-telling of her birth story.

About 1 2/3 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

2 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

1 tbsp. brown sugar

3 eggs, yolks and whites separated

4 tbsp. melted butter

1 ½ cups milk

Sift whole wheat-pastry flour with the baking powder, salt and sugar. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks well and then add the melted butter and milk into this same bowl. Pour the liquid ingredients into the sifted ingredients and combine but do not over mix. Beat the egg whites until stiff. My husband says it is very important you fold, not stir, the egg whites in. Serve with pure maple syrup. Now, as part of my daughter’s birthday breakfasts, we thaw strawberries and heat them gently in a pot until somewhat sauce-like to add to the top of the waffles.

Zuccini Latkes

Jackie Sauter

Grate zucchini (or soft-skinned yellow summer squash) on the large-holed side of a metal hand-grater (or you could use the coarse-blade attachment on your food processor) into a colander. It’s not a bad idea to place the colander in a bowl to catch the juices while you grate. Sprinkle grated zucchini with about a tbsp. of salt and stir. Leave the colander in the sink to drain for about 20 minutes, then rinse with water to remove excess salt and use your hands to squeeze out as much water as possible. At this point you’ll have a lot less zucchini than you thought you did.

Add a couple eggs, some grated onions, chopped basil, freshly grated pepper and a tbsp. or 2 of flour. Mix. Heat a few tbsp. of oil in a skillet. Drop batter with a large spoon into the pan. Fry and flip and fry. Serve with sour cream or salsa.

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Bonus food stuff this week! I asked you on Facebook about the worst meal you ever ate. I couldn’t resist sharing some of the results, which are amusing and sometimes gross.

Hank Hoffman says: “Kentucky Fried Chicken in St. John’s, Newfoundland in 1976 just before boarding a flight to Ottawa (I leave the details to your imagination); the last time I ever ate KFC stuff.” George Franke has another Newfoundland find: “Speaking of Newfoundland…1984, Port Au Basques…pizza made with brown gravy. UGH!”

Other contributions include Choko and yogurt, a rural Ethiopian delicacy which has caused Alex French to become “not so culturally polite”;  lasagne made with Thousand Island dressing; elderly seafood salad; and the more general “Chinese takeout” and “liver.” Food at an unnamed North Country diner (and one in Montreal!) also got a nod. Oh, also, says Melissa Stoddard Vaughn, “Great Escape theme park hot dog /hamburger buffet was really bad yesterday.”

Alright, have great weekends and great eating! Next week’s challenge is strawberries, which are now gloriously, well, glorious! As usual, send your recipes to me, [email protected].