The kids had fun painting and decorating the hard-boiled eggs and parents had fun hiding them for the egg hunt. The holiday tradition is a happy one but fun is fun and food is food and in the end, when the fun is a memory, the food is going to waste if you don’t eat it.
Admittedly, it’s hard to eat up a pile of colorful hard-boiled eggs in a timely fashion. I mean, how many can anyone eat in a day or two no matter how much egg salad is available?
Now, hard-boiled eggs, still in the shell, will stay tasty and nutritious in the fridge a week or more. But why not use them up in special ways while the eggs and the memories are still on your mind?
Here are simple recipes that take little time but will entice you, your family and guests to eat up the holiday eggs. And, if not used right away, the dishes can be refrigerated, covered, for a week or more. In the case of the pickled eggs, your holiday bounty can last several weeks or can be gifted to someone special as a homemade thank you or a hostess surprise.
EGG CASSEROLE
From The Fresh Egg Cookbook, Jennifer Thompson, Storey Publ.
2 Tbls butter
1/4 C all-purpose flour
1 C cream
1 C milk
2 C (8 oz) shredded sharp cheddar or swiss cheese
1/4 C chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp EACH dried marjoram and thyme
1/8 tsp garlic powder
Pinch cayenne pepper
1 lb bacon, cooked, drained and crumbled
18 hard-boiled eggs, cooled
Preheat your oven to 350F. Butter a 9×13 baking dish. Peel the eggs and slice them thinly, crosswise. Set aside. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, stirring in the flour once the butter has melted. Continue stirring until mixture is smooth then lower the heat. Gradually add the cream, milk, cheese and stir to mix. Add spices and mix again.
Place the egg slices and bacon in layers the baking dish, adding the cheese sauce in between. End with the cheese sauce. Bake for 40 minutes and let rest about 10 minutes before serving. Makes 6-8 meals. Store leftovers in the refrigerator and reheat in the oven about 15 minutes.
CLASSIC DEVILED EGGS
From The Fresh Egg Cookbook, Jennifer Thompson, Storey Publ.
12 hard-boiled eggs
1/4-1/2 C mayonnaise
3 Tbls your favorite hot sauce
3 Tbls fresh lemon juice or 1 1/2 Tbls bottled juice
3 garlic cloves, crushed
Salt and white pepper to taste
Paprika and sliced pimiento-stuffed olives for garnish
Peel the eggs, cut in half and carefully remove the yolks. Put the yolks in a mixing bowl and mash to a fine consistency. Add mayonnaise a little at a time and keep mashing until the mixture is smooth. You want it spreadable, but not too soft. Add hot sauce, lemon juice, garlic and spices to taste, and stir together.
Fill each egg half with a mounded quantity of deviled mix, about a tablespoon. Dust with paprika and garnish with olive.
EASY PEASY PICKLED EGGS
The pickling mix is already made in your cupboard
1/2 dozen hard-boiled eggs, fully cooled
Juice from a 16 oz jar of pickles (see Note)
Pinch of spices or herbs to taste, optional (see Note)
Shell the cold eggs and leave whole. Mix half the juice from the pickles in a small bowl with the spices and herbs you desire and set aside.
In a large jar or other ceramic/glass bowl or container place the eggs and cover with the other half of the pickle juice. Then pour the juice mixed with spices over the eggs and swish container lightly to disperse the spices. The eggs should be fully covered by the pickle juice.
Cover the container tightly with a fitted lid or plastic wrap and place in refrigerator overnight to marinate. You can stir once or twice to bathe the eggs in the spices and herbs, but replace cover tightly when done. Juice can be reused once or twice if kept in refrigerator.
Note: Using different pickle juices will give you different versions of pickled eggs – dill eggs or sweet (gherkin) eggs, for example. Different tastes will be enhanced by your choice of spices, if you use them. Dill or bread and butter juice works well with savory spices such as black peppercorns, dry mustard powder, onion salt, or red pepper flakes. The sweeter gherkin eggs could be paired with ground nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, clove, tarragon. The fun is in the experimenting.
EASY PEASY PICKLED RED EGGS
1/2 dozen hard-boiled eggs, fully cooled
Juice from 1 16 oz jar pickled beets
1 to 2 pinches Allspice (optional)
Remove the shell and leave eggs whole. In a large glass container pour the juice from a jar of pickled beets. If desired, add pinch of Allspice to taste. (Store beets separately in refrigerator, tightly covered, for use as usual.)
Add cooled eggs, whole, to the juice and let sit, covered, in the refrigerator at least overnight. The eggs become a rosy red and take on the spicy, pickled taste of the juice. Good as a snack, appetizer, or sliced into salads or on sandwiches. The juice can be reused with more eggs one or two more times, if enough remains.
NOTE: To vary, add diced onion to the pickled beet juice before placing the eggs in, or just use the juice from a jar of pickled beets with onion.
By Jean Redstone
