Pre-Holiday Post-Holiday Planning (aka "What to do with the dyed eggs.")

I know that we've kind of covered this in the past, but this time of year I always think about hard-boiled eggs. Lots of them. And all of the cool colors.

For instance:

From a post I put up 5 years ago: The Wonderful World of Color.

I'm sure that some of you are wondering why a grown man would dye eggs. (Those of you who know me, however, know that this is one of the less-odd things I might do to amuse myself around a holiday.)

And, yes, I must also admit that I seldom dye them for the sake of an Easter egg hunt (after all - Cadbury eggs are just as easy to hide - and you can put them in more interesting, precarious locations.)

This year, for instance, I'm not doing any dyeing. (Is it just me, or does that word look really weird?) But I still want the eggs.

Yes, I know we've talked about egg salad before. Or, rather, we've talked about Faux Tofu Egg Salad before. But that recipe went for bigger flavors, and today I'm going basic. So basic, in fact, that this is a photo of eggs, just barely covered with cold water, in a pan:

You know the old adage "A watched pot never boils"? Well, that has nothing to do with simply staring at a pot on the stove. It has to do with an uncovered pot on the stove. Because a pot with a lid will boil faster than an open pot. In our case, we can watch the pot as much as we want, because the lid is clear.

I guess that - since we're waiting for things to boil - this is as good a time as any to mention that the first time I ever really thought about making egg salad was in college. I'm sure I'd had it sometime before that, but I'd just never thought about making it on my own. But one day I was in some friends' apartment, and one of the guys just threw things in a bowl and mashed them up. It was the oddest "a-ha" moment. And I've been making it ever since.

And, yep, even while watching it, it boiled:

Immediately after it started, I turned off the heat, and turned on the timer.

I don't know where I learned this technique - I just know that it works better for me than the "boil the eggs for X minutes" version of timing.

As soon as the timer started to beep, I took the lid off the pan and started running cold water in on top of the eggs to cool them and stop the cooking. (This can be helped by actually dumping the hot water out - if you're feeling brave about not accidentally dumping the eggs into the sink, as well.)

Once they've cooled to a touchable/holdable temp, you can start working with them. Which means it's time for... EGG WARS!!

Having lost the war, the first egg gets well cracked (all over, so that the shell will hopefully come off easier), and then it's all about trying to get the shell off without getting it everywhere - and without losing too much of the egg to the trash bin.

You can see which egg got peeled first - it was probably too warm, and I lost about 1/8 of the egg into the trash along with the shell.

And - finally - we have all of our ingredients together:

By the way... Here's what you get when your eggs cook to the right temp, in the right time, and peel nicely:

I'm so proud of the fact that there's no gray ring around the yolk. That's what happens if you cook them for too long.

At this point, it's really just about mashing everything together.

Oh - I did chop the pickles, first, since I didn't have any relish on hand.

Did you notice the extra yolks on the top in the bowl, above? They came from the one egg that I hollowed out to devil.

I'd love to say that I had a recipe for this, but I don't. The proportions change depending on my mood. But it's almost always bright yellow... (I've tried using other mustards, but I really like the basic yellow.)

And, yes, I did actually devil that egg. I didn't sprinkle it with paprika (because I'm not doing a retro post), but I certainly could have!

How did I do?

I must admit that, while I was looking into this, I was trying to think of other things to do with "leftover" cooked eggs. One of the things I found was Scotch eggs - which are basically a not-quite-hard-boiled egg, encased in breakfast sausage, breaded, and fried. I've never had one, but - as with the a-ha moment when I realized I could make my own egg salad - I may need to try them sometime soon.

And, yes, I'll happily try to make any of your a-ha foods, if you want! Let me know what it is/was, and I'll see what I can do - then post about it on here. Or else maybe I could just make another bunny cake. 

Geez. This is from 2011! Time flies when you're blogging!