Harelipfrog

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Brace yourself

I had intended for my first cooking post to be on my mother's "Famous Boneless Turkey". But the computer that has the pictures for it lobotomized itself and so I am doing pickled eggs instead.

Why Pickled Eggs??

My husband found the recipe on Mostly Cajun and decided he wanted to try it.

It turns out that making pickled eggs is actually quite fun once you get past your husband swearing at the eggs because they won't turn loose of their shells.

Here is the recipe as posted on Mostly Cajun:

hardboiled eggs
white vinegar
pickling spices
yellow onions (optional)
whole peppers (jalapeno, cayenne, tabasco, whatever, also optional)
Glass jars with lids. You can buy these at a good grocery, but we always used clean mayonnaise or other glass jars. We didn’t know we were “recycling".

Process:
Peel the eggs. Slice the onions. Wash the peppers.

Sterilize the jars by immersing them in a big pot of water and bringing it to a boil. If you’re using official canning lids (recommended) boil them too.

While you’re boiling things, bring a pot of vinegar to the boil, too. Don’t do this in an aluminum pot unless it has an intact teflon coating. Hot vinegar will react with aluminum. Produces hydrogen gas. Not enough to blow anything up, but I just thought you’d be interested.

Starting with a clean jar, insert a few eggs, some onions, peppers, a dose of pickling spice, and repeat until the jar is almost full. Fill the jar to just above the solid stuff with hot vinegar. Screw on the lid.

Repeat this process until you’re out of eggs, jars, vinegar, or patience.

Now comes the most difficult par tof the process: Wait at least two weeks. Some people say you should refrigerate them for this time. I’ve done it both ways, with and without refrigeration, and I’m still alive. It’s an old Cajun recipe, and old Cajuns didn’t have much refrigeration. Of course, I’ve skipped the “boil the jars” step, too. I’m just trying to be responsible, though, telling you to do it the full-blown, nanny-state way.

At the end of the two weeks, your eggs are ready. These things will improve with age, though, so make several jars, and at two weeks, start eating the first one. Just fish it out of the jar with a clean fork. Your nasty ol’ fingers will contaminate the rest. Use your fingers only if you’re planning on eating the whole jar…


Now since I can't leave well enough alone and saw this interesting container of "pickling salt" while shopping for jars at wally-world, I added salt to the pickling spice. I decided that a "dose" is about a teaspoon.

Here are our boiling eggs (we have no kids so no multicolored novelties).



Here is the first jar with the first layer of eggs and stuff.



Here are the three full jars we finished with, from the right they are Jalapeno, generic small red pepper, and generic small green pepper (I honestly don't know what they are).



We had a few eggs left over so we just dumped them into a jar with the rest of the onions, jalapenos, salt, pickling spice, and topped it off with vinegar.



They are currently sitting on a shelf in the kitchen, counting down to two weeks. This being our first effort at canning at home (I have till now done it with my mother or sisters at their homes) they have been getting a lot of attention.



I have been looking at them a bit differently the last two days though. I discovered that I may actually have a time-bomb sitting quietly on the shelf. My MIL has advised me that pickled eggs tend to have a deleterious effect on the male members of her family. To put it bluntly they produce gas, and I don't mean the basic "pew" variety gas, but the "hold onto your hats, roll the windows down, and hope we can outrun it" variety.

Check back in two weeks, I let you know how big the bang was.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Can you pass the third grade??

Someone at work sent this to me. I passed (passing does not do anything except send you back to the begining to take it again), but an amazing number of people that I work with did not.

Explains a lot.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Hi

Well, the last week has been pure unadulterated hell.

My step-father died Monday evening and I have spent all week helping mom with the preperations for the memorial yesterday.

I sincerely hope that I don't have to do this again anytime soon.

Monday, March 21, 2005

News

I just thought I would post that Elizabeth and her mom could use some good thoughts and prayers right now. This afternoon her step-father passed away. His health had been failing rapidly and we all knew it was going to occur soon but it is still painful for my wife.

Thank you

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

By Dustball

This is cool!

Monday, March 14, 2005

Welcome

Thanks to everyone who has dropped by from the Rocky Top Brigade.

I am glad to have joined the neighborhood.

I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce myself.

I am married, and have been for more years than I am sometimes willing to admit (I occasionally plead temporary insanity).

I have no kids, but more than enough nieces and nephews to take care of my maternal instincts.

I write on most anything that happens to catch my interest, so my blog tends to be a bit eclectic.

I also play with my template on occasion. (I took a class on HTML last spring, and have been having fun with my template ever since. Great fun.)

I am sure that I will regret letting this out ...

If you have linked over from No Quarters, I am the one he sleeps with.

Considering his occasional statement, I will probably wind up wishing I had kept that to myself. I am sure by now there are a great number of people out there who are sure I am some sort of pervert.

Oh, by the way, Harelipfrog is one word, not two.

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Have Patience

Well, between the lack of internet connection and work I have been unable to really even visit my own site, much less even post.

Bear with me, I will be back.