Deviled Eggs

While working on this post, I decided to do some research on Deviled Eggs so did a Google search. There must be hundreds of recipes out there…some look very good and others, well…… Did you know that the deviled egg originated in ancient Rome and that in the Netherlands and Germany they are usually filled with Caviar and served with a remoulade sauce? Think I’ll pass on that one….They are a common dish in the United States and are served as an appetizer in the Midwest and South and are so popular that special carriers have been made to transport them, and that they can be purchased in the supermarket. Not surprised by this and I do have a couple of those egg carriers but have yet to purchase them at a supermarket….that kind of scares me a little.

Once again, this is another dish that my sister Dorothea makes that my family and I love and that we expect her to bring to our family parties. I think that if she was to show up at the door without these or potato salad, she would be refused entry. When I asked her how she made these, I did this at the same time I asked about her potato salad, I was again given a list of ingredients.

So here is my version of:

Dorothea's Deviled Eggs
Print Recipe

1 1/2 - 2 dozen hard boiled eggs, peeled and cut in half (I like to use Jumbo but any size will do)
1 - 1 1/2 cup Miracle Whip Salad Dressing (depends on how many eggs you use and how dry/wet you like your filling)
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish, or to taste
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce, or to taste
mustard (optional)
paprika (optional)

Cut eggs in half and remove yolk. Mash the yolk either using a fork, food processor or food mill.
Mix in the Miracle Whip, sweet pickle relish and worcester sauce.
Fill holes in eggs with yolk mixture.
If desired, Sprinkle with a little Paprika.
Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Note: Dorothea says that she sometimes puts a little squirt of yellow mustard in the filling....mostly for color than anything else.

Here is another recipe where I use Miracle Whip...as I said in my potato salad post, this what my sister uses and I want my eggs to taste like hers. The Worcestershire sauce is a nice touch....adds a little zip to the taste.

Whenever I made deviled eggs at my mom's house, I would take my food processor along with me. One day while at my sister Jean's house, I noticed that she was using her food mill to mash egg yolks for deviled eggs....I don't know why I never thought of this....Mom had a food mill. After that, I left my big old heavy food processor at home. It works great!

Doesn't this look nice?

Combine mashed egg yolks, Miracle Whip, worcestershire sauce and sweet pickle relish.

I like to use a pastry bag and tip to fill my eggs...I think it takes less time and not as messy. Since I wasn't making these at my house, I didn't have a pastry bag and tip so had to improvise........

I took a food storage bag, put filling in the bag and used a pair of scissors to cut a small hole in the end of the bag.

Sprinkle with a little paprika then put in the fridge to chill for a bit. These are sooooo good...bet you can't eat just one.

Potato Salad

It's that time of year again.....the time of year when I think about picnics, family reunions and grilling out. When I think of all of those events I also think about food.....who am I kidding, I always think about food, but I especially think about it for special occasions. One of my favorite dishes to have at a summer gathering is potato salad....deviled eggs is another but I'll talk about that in another post. Potato salad....what can I say about it.....except that there are many variations on how to prepare potato salad and I’ve noticed that most people are very picky about which they enjoy eating. I like my sister Dorothea's potato salad which is just your basic mayonnaise based salad...actually our whole family likes it, we like it so much that potato salad is what she is always expected to bring to our family gatherings.

Several years ago I decided that I wanted to make potato salad and asked my sister for her recipe. Unfortunately, she didn’t have one. She told me that the way she learned to make it was from a job that she had when she was in high school. She waitressed at a local place called, I think the Sunshine Restaurant, where the cook made the potato salad; Dorothea said that she liked it so much that she asked the woman to show her how to make it. Anyway, my sister gave me a list of ingredients and then proceeded to tell me how many pounds of potatoes and dozens of eggs that she used…of course this was enough to feed our large family. Other than that, she couldn’t give me any help with the amounts of anything else. To start out…I decided that since I didn’t plan on feeding an army, I would definitely cut down on the amount of potatoes and hard boiled eggs. Once I decided on that, all I had to do was work with the rest of the ingredients. So, after a lot of trial and error, I’ve come up with something pretty close to.....

Dorothea’s Famous Potato Salad
Print Recipe

3 pounds potatoes, peeled and cubed (I prefer red or Yukon Gold but Idaho will do)
1-2 dozen hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped (I use about 1 1/2 dozen)
2-2 1/2 cups Miracle Whip Salad Dressing
2 tablespoons onion flakes. or to taste
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon celery seed, or to taste
Salt, to taste
Paprika (optional)

Cover potatoes with water and boil for 13-15 minutes, until tender. I add a little salt to the potatoes while they are boiling.
While potatoes are boiling, in a large bowl make dressing by combining 2 cups Miracle Whip, onion flakes, sweet pickle relish and celery seed.
After the potatoes had been cooked and drained, and while hot, add potatoes to the dressing mixture.
Mix in chopped eggs.
Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours but it's better if it sets in the fridge overnight.
The next day stir the potato salad and if it looks a little dry, add the rest of the Miracle Whip...or more, depending on how moist you like it.
If desired, sprinkle with paprika before serving.

*Ingredients can be adjusted according to taste.

You'll notice that I use Miracle Whip Salad Dressing instead of mayo...this is one of the few times that I do this. This is what my sister uses so I decided to do the same....afterall, I wanted it to taste as much like her recipe as possible. She told me that she uses dried onion instead of fresh because a lot of people don't like biting into onion...this way she gets the taste without the texture. The potatoes that I like to use are either red or Yukon Gold, I feel like they hold up better than a russet....that's just my preference. I generally use jumbo eggs...the only reason for this is that, since I'm boiling and peeling eggs (a job that I really don't care for) I figure I may as well boil enough to make deviled eggs and I just like the larger eggs for that....besides they fit in my egg carrier better too. As with all cooking, you don't have to be exact...you can use mayo, fresh onion, any size egg and any potato that you choose.

When I first started making potato salad, I was always told to boil the whole potato, skin and all, drain them and peel while the potato is still hot. I often wondered what sadist came up with this idea....have you ever tried to peel a smokin' hot potato? It isn't easy or fun! Come to think of it, I think it was my mom who told me that...maybe she was trying to get back at me for the pain of childbirth. Lately I've noticed that whenever I see someone on a cooking show making potato salad or a recipe, they peel and chop the potato first, then boil it. This time, I decided to try it this way...... It worked perfectly, was painless and also cooked in a lot less time. By the way, you don't have to peel potatoes, especially if using red or Yukon Gold but I do....I prefer my potatoes naked.

Boil potatoes until tender - I usually put a little salt in with my potatoes while they are boiling.

Combine: Miracle Whip, dried onion, sweet pickle relish and celery seed.

 

After the potates have drained and while they are still hot, gently mix in the dressing mixture then add the chopped eggs. At this point, I like to give it at taste to see whether I need to add a little more pickle relish, celery seed or salt. Cover and refrigerate. I like to make mine the day before I need it so it can chill over night. The next day stir the potato salad and if it looks a little dry add a little more Miracle Whip.

I like to sprinkle on a little paprika before serving.

There you have it.....my favorite potato salad! I don't think it compares to my sister's but it's almost there...

  

Fluffy Oven Eggs and Bacon

Happy New Year!

Since Michael and I rang in the New Year in such a wild and crazy way....he napped until about ll:45, then we watched Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve until the ball dropped, toasted to the New Year with sparkling grape juice, (no midnight kiss...he has a cold and I didn't want his cooties) then went to bed....we decided to take it easy this morning and not rush out to breakfast. By the way, we decided that we are really old...not only did we have a difficult time staying awake until midnight, but everytime a new entertainer would come on the show, we would look at each other and ask, "who is that?"  We also decided that we couldn't understand how the young people today could listen to that music...our music (music from the 70's) was much better. Yes, our generation gap was definitely showing last night. Anyway, back to food, I went to one of my favorite breakfast recipes..Fluffy Oven Eggs and Bacon...an egg casserole...I love these things!

I got this recipe from a friend and former colleague, Cindy Keller. She brought this in for one of the many breakfast parties that we had at work. That's usually how we celebrated, we all loved to eat but really loved breakfast so for any going away party (like mine) we had breakfast. If I remember correctly, she told me that she got it off the back of the Bisquick box.

Whenever I make this for myself, I make it as the recipe reads...I have enough for that meal and plenty leftover for a few more. When making it for Michael and me, I triple the recipe, except for the bacon (just used one pound), and the salt.

½ lb. bacon
onions, finely chopped (to preferred taste)
½ c. Bisquick® baking mix
3 eggs
1¼ cups milk
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
½ c. shredded cheddar or Swiss cheese

Heat oven to 375°. Grease 1½ quart casserole dish. Cut bacon slices into thirds. Cook and stir bacon in 10-inch skillet over medium heat until almost crisp. Add onion. Cook, stirring frequently, until bacon is crisp; drain. Spread bacon and onion in bottom of casserole.

Beat baking mix, eggs, milk, salt and pepper with hand beater until almost smooth. Slowly pour egg mixture over bacon; sprinkle with cheese. Bake uncovered until knife inserted in center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.

If using a glass baking dish, lower oven temperature by 25 degrees.

I sometimes triple this recipe for a 9x13 dish. Add about 5 or 10 min. to the baking time too.

One pound of bacon cut into thirds. Next time I make this, I may chop the bacon...I think I would like it better in smaller pieces.

I used my largest frying pan for frying the bacon. Since I was frying a whole pound and was trying to keep the splatter down, I drained off the fat a couple of times. I saved it for later use....I'll be making fried potatoes later and they taste wonderful fried in the bacon drippings.

Since I was frying so much bacon, I did it in batches, I also fried it longer than the recipe says...I like my bacon well-done.

Onion...finely chopped. I didn't measure the onion...I had half of a large onion left over from something else so just used that.

Does anything look or smell better than this?

Ingredients for egg mixture

Since I was making a tripple recipe and needed nine eggs, I beat them a little before adding the dry ingredients.

Eggs and dry ingredients

Egg mixture

Bottom layer...bacon and onion

Add egg mixture

Top with cheese...I didn't measure here, just put a lot of cheese on top...we like our cheese.

This was sooo good! Of course by the time we had to smell the bacon and onions frying, then smelled it while it baked, we were definitely ready to eat. We had plenty for breakfast and enough left for a few more meals.

One thing I like about egg casseroles is that, once you have the basic recipe, you can add anything to it that you like. You can easily make this into a Western Egg Casserole by substituting ham for the bacon and adding some green pepper. Or if you want sausage instead of bacon...just use that. As for the cheese, this time I used cheddar Jack cheese...my favorite...yum!

Crab Benedict

While Michael and I were on vacation in South Carolina, one of our favorite places to eat was Toast , in Charleston. His favorite dish was Eggs Meeting Street...it reminded me a lot of Eggs Benedict, only with crab cakes and fried green tomatoes. He enjoyed that so much that I planned to try to come up with something similar...minus the tomatoes.

One day I was watching Paula Dean on the Food Network...she was preparing breakfast foods and one of her recipes caught my attention...Crab Benedict. She made it look easy...even easy enough for me to attempt. The whole thought of making a hollandaise sauce and poaching eggs had me feeling a bit intimidated but she made it look so easy that I decided to give it a try. So I printed off the recipe and forgot about it for a while.

I was going to Michael's for the weekend, actually his birthday weekend, and was going to do a good bit of cooking so before leaving, I packed the Crab Benedict recipe along with my other cooking supplies. I knew I was making crab cakes and would save a few to prepare Crab Benedict.

Monday morning, I decided to attempt making this meal. I was a little nervous preparing this since I've never made or eaten hollandaise sauce or poached eggs. I had to make the hollandaise sauce twice...the first time egg yolks were scrambled...the second time, it was perfect. My first poached egg had to be tossed but the other three worked out well...one egg..the white started to separate from the yolk so I took that one and gave Michael the two nice ones...once it was covered in hollandaise, it looked pretty good.

I didn't follow her recipe, exactly...she made a crab salad (which looked very good and that I plan to prepare in the future), where I used crab cakes, but I did exactly as the recipe said for the hollandaise sauce. So after two attempts at the sauce, one poached egg in the trash and one emergency run to the grocery for more eggs (thanks to Michael), the food was plated and ready to eat. If I do say so myself, it did look yummy (sorry no pictures, but I was too stressed and didn't even think about pictures until after we had eaten). I couldn't wait to try it but was sadly disappointed after my first bite. The sauce was sour....horribly sour; I was not at all happy. Poor Michael took it like a man and ate every bite of the two that I had plated for him....not saying a word, even when I said something about the sour taste. He eventually admitted that it was a bit tart but not bad...the man must have a cast iron stomach.

The next day, I posted a question on BakeSpace about my hollandaise sauce, asking if it was supposed to taste sour and telling them that I had used the juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 T of white vinegar in the sauce as the ingredients and directions said. Both DD and Karen wrote back and said it shouldn't taste sour and that they had never heard of putting vinegar in hollandaise. So we came to the conclusion that this had been a misprint.

I will attempt making Crab Benedict again and use the same recipe, omitting the 1 T vinegar...I may even make the crab salad instead of crab cakes. I think it's definitely worth a second try. I promise pictures next time too...

Here is the recipe...as I said before, I substituted crab cakes for the salad and used toasted English Muffins instead of the cheesy biscuits and as you can see, I've removed the offensive vinegar from the sauce ingredients and directions.

Crab Benedict

Recipe courtesy Paula Deen, 2008

Prep Time: 20 min Inactive Prep Time: hr min Cook Time: 15 min Level:
Easy Serves:
4 servings

Ingredients
Crab Salad:
1/4 cup finely chopped bell pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (recommended: Tabasco)
1/2 lemon, juiced
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups lump crab meat, picked free of shells

Hollandaise Sauce:
2 egg yolks
4 tablespoons cream
4 large tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 lemon, juiced
Dash cayenne
Pinch salt
Pinch sugar

Poached Eggs:
3 cups water
1 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
Parsley, for garnish
Cheesy biscuits, to serve

For the Crab Salad:
Directions
In a large bowl, whisk together all ingredients except for the crab and red peppers. Gently fold in the crab and peppers. Reserve.

*Cook's Note: When mixing the crab and peppers, be careful not to break up the crab too much.

For the Hollandaise Sauce:
Combine all ingredients, except the vinegar, in the top of a double boiler, over boiling water. Whisk until thick, approximately 3 minutes; set aside until ready to use. Do not reheat or cover the pot. Thin, if needed with a little chicken broth.

Bring the water, vinegar and salt to a low simmer in a medium saucepan.

Crack an egg into a small ramekin and gently slide the egg into the water. Crack another egg into the same cup and while the water returns to a low simmer, slide the second egg into the water. Repeat. Let lowly simmer until the eggs are set. This will take about 2 to 3 minutes for soft runny yolks. Remove with a slotted spoon onto a paper towel lined plate.

To Plate:
Top a cheesy biscuit with a poached egg. Add a small scoop of crab salad on top of the egg. Spoon the hollandaise over the egg and garnish with parsley. Serve immediately.