Vacay

I won't be around for a week or so, but you can click here for a tasty matzo toffee recipe, just in time for Passover.

Or click here for the perfect hard boiled egg and here for crackle dyed eggs.

Or click here to read about my UK food adventures Part 1 and Part 2.

Adios amigos!

Pickle Party!

I would like to introduce my first guest blogger: Adam - pickle aficionado, meat lover, and beer drinker.

Nothing screams summer like home-made pickles, even when eaten in the dark days of winter they bring the tongue right back to sunnier times, but the following pickles are so good that they never make it for more than a few weeks in the refrigerator.

“Pickle” is a broad term. Alton Brown defines pickles in Good Eats: The Early Years as:

1) a solution or bath for preserving or cleaning, a brine or vinegar solution in which foods are preserved 2) any food item preserved via above definition.

There are three types of pickles, all have the same goal of limiting the bacteria that can grow and thus preserving the food.

Crackle-Dyed Eggs

For Easter this year I decided to do a more non-traditional dyed egg. I still used the Paas Egg Dye kit, but instead of dyeing the eggs in their perfect non-cracked form, I gently cracked the eggs before dyeing them. I also left out the vinegar (which gives the eggs a more vibrant color) so that I wouldn't end up slightly pickling the egg.

With your cool hard boiled eggs, gently tap the egg to crack the shell and then roll on a towel to create small cracks throughout the egg. Be careful not to crack the shell too much so that your entire interior of the egg doesn't become colored.
Place your eggs into the colored water and put in the refrigerator over night. Since there is no vinegar, it will take longer for the color to adhere.
The next morning, peel your eggs to unveil your masterpieces. I also dyed some eggs traditionally in case I was disappointed in these crackled eggs. Here are my results:
Note: Because the shell is already cracked, these eggs will probably perish quicker than normal dyed eggs.

The Perfect Hard Boiled Egg

Making hard boiled eggs are easy, but do you know how to make them perfectly? For years I thought there wasn't really a science to making them. I didn't realize that the gray ring around the yolk meant I had over cooked them. In The Elements of Cooking Michael Ruhlman gives specific steps on how to create the perfect egg, whether it be fried, poached, scrambled, etc. Since Easter is tomorrow and egg dyeing is a traditional way to celebrate, I thought I would focus on hard boiled eggs.

First, place eggs into a pot (size of pot depends on the amount of eggs) and fill with cold water about 2 inches above the eggs.
Bring eggs to a boil with the lid off. Once eggs are to a boil, remove from heat and place lid on. Let set for 10 minutes.
After 1o minutes, rinse eggs in cold water to stop the cooking process. Rinse or soak in cold water until the eggs are cool.
When you crack your eggs, the yolk should be a soft yellow with no gray rings.

Note: I used large eggs. The size of eggs you use will affect the amount of time your eggs need to set before you rinse them with cold water. The smaller the eggs - the shorter the set time, the larger the eggs - the longer the set time. Experiment to find the right time.