Potatoes and Eggs

The potatoes growing in our garden are ready to eat.

Freshly dug, new potatoes are never a disappointment.  The taste is amazing.  Not even close to the store-bought varieties.  If you have never eaten a potato straight out of the garden, then you really haven’t experienced real potato flavor.  Of course, taste is a huge factor in the reason for growing our own food.

Glenn dug up one plant.  The harvest from this one plant was what I would call abundant.

the leftover potatoes from the first dig - barely any skin

I used only a portion of this first dig to make a double batch of potato salad.  The skins on the early potatoes are so thin that no peeling is necessary.  That is my kind of cooking potato. No peeling saves me time and, most importantly, saves me scraped fingers.  I cannot remember one instance when I peeled potatoes that I came out completely unscathed.  No matter how careful I am, I always end up with one or more cuts to my fingers.  So, not having to peel, is a real plus.

Making hard-boiled eggs, an ingredient in my potato salad, is also a challenge. Usually, I lose a substantial amount of that firm egg white which remains firmly attached to the peeled shell.  It does not go to waste, it becomes chicken food, but that means I have to peel more eggs to meet my recipe requirements - ugh!  Deviled eggs are not possible because the resulting egg looks, quite frankly, unappetizing. Would you eat an egg that looks like it has been chewed by, let’s say, a mouse? Noooo.  Also, using farm fresh eggs is more confounding to hard-boiling than ‘old’ eggs.  Farm fresh eggs are delicious, but they tend to adhere to the shells even more than the aged store-bought eggs.

So, I keep trying new techniques for making hard-boiled eggs in order to find one that produces an easy-peel shell. 

Well, I think I finally found a method that works.  At least, I had success with my first attempt. The shells easily and 100% completely slipped off the firm egg whites leaving behind smooth and whole boiled eggs.  I am hoping that this new-to-me technique becomes my go-to technique for making perfect and pretty hard-boiled eggs.  Cautiously, I will need to replicate my positive results before I make a definitive conclusion.

Mountain Glen Farm fresh eggs -

beautiful and so tasty

The steps are easy…I placed my eggs in plain boiling water for 2 minutes, then turned down the heat to the lowest flame and simmered for another 11 minutes.  I then placed the eggs into a bowl of ice water for 15 minutes.  I peeled the eggs effortlessly and cleanly.  Even those hard-boiled eggs stored in the refrigerator overnight peeled with ease.  Finally, a perfectly peeled hard-boiled egg.  The taste was exceptional, too.  Again, homegrown/home raised food is the best.  Kudos to my chickens.

Now, I see a plateful of deviled eggs in my future.

This old dog is always learning new tricks.