[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I'm Sarah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Megan.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're two women in our forties who live in different states and have a lot of different interests between us.
[SPEAKER_01]: On this show, we talk about all the midlife lady leisure pursuits we are enjoying at this stage of life, like travel, hobbies, food, wellness, style, and more.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited to date a chat about eggs because I have a whole pile of them and maybe you do too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have fewer than you do, but I'm very excited about this, Megan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's episode is brought to you by our exclusive season sponsor and a long-time partner of ours, Vionic Shoes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have the City Walk sneaker in white with black accents.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now I'm seeing that these same shoes come in really fun bold colors, and I might need another pair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Though the perfect sneaker to finish off a casual outfit and just like every other pair of Vionics, they're ridiculously supportive and comfortable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Look for that in the show notes for this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, thanks to vionic for sponsoring this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now let's jump right into talking about eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I have a question to set up this episode, Sarah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But before I jump into that, I just want to talk about this kind of unsung.
[SPEAKER_00]: protein packed hero.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when they're expensive, when you look at what you get from an egg, it's a really good value.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have to just kind of say that right, right off the bat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love me some eggs.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're both coming into this pro egg, and this is not sponsored by the big egg globby incredible edible edible edible edible, incredible incredible edible egg.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, you got to love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We come by it both of us separately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we're just both big fans.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in case someone's brand new here, Megan, you come into yours via chicken tending, which we have a whole episode about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the time of year where quite seasonally appropriately, like there's a reason why eggs play into a lot of springtime content holiday celebrations all of that, because they are abundant right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: because chickens, they're like natural egg laying capacity, let's say, is influenced by the light, the daytime light, during the winter, like late fall and going into the winter, they slow their egg production way down, sometimes completely stop, and then as soon as the day start to get longer again, it's like the little egg factory.
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of start feeling along.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's really fun to watch because I have some younger hands that have been kind of just laying since really, since they stopped, they got going like in December as when they first first started laying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they've just been, just tugging along.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the older hands totally took the winter off like they were on vacation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then
[SPEAKER_00]: slowly I'd start to see different colored eggs pop up because they all lay a different color egg.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'd be like, oh, today there's like two browns and a green and then one day it's like two browns and a blue and then the next day two green or two browns a green, a blue and a dark green.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this has just been really fun and now we're on full swing and I'm getting seven eggs a day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the people that put a photo in the show notes, as someone who doesn't have backyard chickens and is buying grocery store eggs, I'm just like so that is such a dreamy image, all of those different natural colors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is really beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I will definitely share one of those in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even for people who don't have backyard hens, like I do, this is a time of year where perhaps you purchased a lot of eggs for,
[SPEAKER_00]: frivolous reasons of holiday celebration and now you've got a bunch to use up because as of this publication Easter was like two days ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a great segue into asking my first question, Sarah, which is is anyone at your house still dying eggs?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to say yes as of this recording, I have a senior in high school sophomore in high
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's sort of like a half-hearted and very chill.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever died eggs Easter eggs with small children, chill is like the last adjective that would come to mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's incredibly messy and sort of like frenetic.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the last couple of Easter's have been like, they don't want to let go of the tradition yet, but it's like, I'll buy a kit at the grocery store.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll set it up themselves sometimes outside of the weather's nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: teenagers wandering over dropping an egg.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, yes, we do it, but in this very lecanic kind of like, yeah, whoever wants to pop over and do an egg.
[SPEAKER_01]: My oldest is very artistic and always like looking at TikToks on how to do like some very specific like design.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, there's definitely egg dying happening in my house.
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot overemphasize how different it is than like 10 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: very much the same over here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I died eggs anybody died eggs last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like the year before we might have.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's like if the mood strikes me, there's people home who want to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have the stuff or I think to buy it at the store.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if all of those things line up, then egg dying may happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
[SPEAKER_00]: I also have a nearly three-year-old step-grandchild.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last year, I think I had some kind of idea that perhaps egg-dying would happen at our house because I feel like they came over on Easter or maybe like right around Easter but I think it was one of those like we had got the kit but there were a lot of other fun things to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the egg dying just didn't happen, and that was okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it didn't hurt my feelings at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: A three, well, last year we would have been not even two.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's not necessarily ideal, the ideal age.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like this is one of those things I've done so much of in my life that
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really okay with me if this is mostly in the rear view mirror, I don't have a lot of sad feelings about it or anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, now I will say though, also I don't buy eggs anymore at the store that would just feel kind of silly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I never have white eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so well, same over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I tend to be buying some kind of like,
[SPEAKER_01]: cage free situation that they're just usually brown the ones that I buy so I the last few years have had to make a special effort to buy kind of cheap white eggs for dying um so yeah yeah and I think too though that it does kind of open up
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe some new possibilities, because I could do something really fun with the brown and the pastel eggs, I could do like a tea dying, or I could blow the yolk set of the eggs, which I have done before with kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a whole thing, but that could be really fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could hand paint on them or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like there's a lot of opportunity to turn this into a very grown-up.
[SPEAKER_00]: mid-life lady version?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've done sharpies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like really, we did a whole episode about pens.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like a fine point, Sharpie just in black and like, I don't just use the internet to Google a kind of repetitive sort of artistic abstract pattern.
[SPEAKER_01]: That could look really cool on some of your natural colored eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, yeah, there's so many ideas out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just have to decide, this is something I feel like doing and maybe I will, maybe I will this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, well, this is a good way to segue into the next question too, which is what method do we each use for hard boiling eggs?
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to do the thing where you bring water to like a boil, then you turn the water off with the lid on and leave it for some certain amount of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem was I could never remember how long and I could never.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to look at this every single time I boiled eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to look up the so-called recipe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eric sold me on steaming eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, in the steamer basket, just like in a saucepan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not sure I'll ever go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: They come out very peelable.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're sort of a perfect amount of hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: But not too hard and it's very easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I do now.
[SPEAKER_00]: How about you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, do you have a certain amount of number of minutes for that one too?
[SPEAKER_00]: It depends on how many eggs that is the part I usually have to ask him because I can never remember is it like I think we do like 15 minutes if it's full, if the little egg basket is full, that goes in our saucepan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe I'm wrong about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that's too many minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know this is a sidebar, but I don't currently own a steamer basket like the kind you're talking about, I used to and I have a really strong memory of the one we had growing up so I am familiar with them, but we I don't currently have one they're pretty useful little things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, I.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do do the version where you so I'll just tell you exactly how I do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's funny because I know exactly what you mean when there's a method you always have to look up You can't commit it to memory for some reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not that for me I committed this to memory probably 15 plus years ago and it's just like ingrained in me So I don't have to look it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: I put the eggs in the bottom of a saucepan and fill it with room temperature, just tap water and cover them like an inch or so.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the water is not hot at that point and then put that on the stove and bring the water to a full like, you know, rolling boil and then turn off the heat, put the lid on.
[SPEAKER_01]: set a 12 minute timer and then when that 12 minute timer is up I drain the water and I add a bunch of ice and some then some more cold water so I basically turn the same pot into an ice bath and I let the eggs sit in that ice bath for at least five minutes and that seems to help with overcooking and with peeling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say this is Alton Brown's method originally I could be wrong about that but we were consuming a lot of that kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: content is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds similar to what it is to do it, and I actually think that that was all brown that I got that idea from.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so peeling these eggs is I would say good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not perfect, and every once in a while someone's like, well, my method makes it really easy to peel, and I'm always like,
[SPEAKER_01]: that's a little better.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say these peel pretty easily but not perfect every once and while you still get that stubborn where it's like cutting your fingers because you're peeling it off in like tiny little shards but it works pretty well it's I've committed it to memory it's just like I do it because that's how I know how to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well and there is a lot to be said for that and I think that I did not mention the ice bath that is definitely part of the steaming process okay as well and I think that's part of it
[SPEAKER_00]: cooking process so it doesn't go for too long.
[SPEAKER_00]: I often get a little befuddled by the ice bath and feel like I have to have it all prepared and ready to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it reusing the same pot as the ice bath would happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's what I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just put the whole pot in the sink, drain out the hot water and I get then go to the freezer and get just a big
[SPEAKER_01]: If I were going to die Easter eggs, that's when you have to be careful about cracking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: In any other circumstance, you don't care if they get a little cracked probably.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I could be kind of rough with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then yeah, they just sit in their same pot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only I add so much ice to that pot that it turns into its own ice bath.
[SPEAKER_01]: I might even add a little more ice because the pot is so hot.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like melting aggressively.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I might like a couple of later throws the ice on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually what I do is have a bowl that I'm just because I'm trying to delicately get them in there without breaking them, but it seems like a little time saver.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, let's just talk about the ways that we use leftover hard boiled eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like this is just one of the most, I wish there was like a whole bunch of different ways to use leftover hard boiled eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, slicing and throwing them at a salad, which I never do, but double the eggs and eggs salad would probably be the way I am most likely to use left over hard boiled eggs unless I'm just eating them.
[SPEAKER_00]: How about you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a question for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, if you have done well, I'm still stuck on diet Easter eggs for now, since it's just the season, but if you had
[SPEAKER_01]: do you how long if those were at room temperature for how long would you feel good about eating them not not long not long right no not long so then are you dying eggs and keeping them in the refrigerator unfortunately yes okay all right well that's validating and i and i struggled with this for a long time because i'd be like this is such a waste like we just did all this work but yeah i would maybe leave them out you know if i was going to eat them let me let me
[SPEAKER_00]: If I was going to eat some like that same day, I'm not really going to worry about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could sit out for hours and I'd just eat them that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I wouldn't leave them on the counter to display for three or four hours and put them in the fridge and eat them two days later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is validating because I've been a grown-up adult for, you know, like a married adult for over 20 years and I've never figured out like what's the right approach for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we tend to leave
[SPEAKER_01]: Some out because they're so pretty and we want to display them, and then we just don't eat them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alternatively, you die them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They look pretty and you keep them in the fridge.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we've always done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was why the blowing out the yokes was so, like, so we went in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we held out of those for years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, to answer your question, I also love eggs salad and double dags.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love both of those ways to eat hardboiled eggs.
[SPEAKER_01]: But most often, I think either because I don't plan ahead or maybe it's just me and it feels like a lot of work to do that for just me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I often eat hardboiled eggs just for a quick snack.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just peel them, slice them lengthwise, and then I remove the yolks.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I'm gonna eat a hardboiled egg, I do not like
[SPEAKER_01]: the hard boiled yoke if it's gonna like be part of a bite on its own.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not picky about eggs in any other way, but I don't like a bite of hard boiled egg yolk.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I actually will just toss that or give it to the dog or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I just salt and pepper the white and eat it like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, I could eat several of those for like a protein snack.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel about a jammy yolk?
[SPEAKER_01]: I like it better so I do like a jammy yoke better and if that's served with something I'm I've ordered at a restaurant or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would eat the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the chalky No, I get to it feels like it feels like your mouth goes immediately like your Parts and you can't
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't even like your song is all it's bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: It turns to paste.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, if that same hard boiled egg was chopped up and put in a Cobb salad, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not I'm not going to I'm not going to avoid every little chunk of hard boiled yolk, but I do not want a whole bite of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what mayonnaise is for.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also I have now experimented with shorter
[SPEAKER_00]: hard boiler to where it's not exactly soft boiled I wouldn't say it's that soft but where the yoke just never really sets all the way and I think it's delicious.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was as we were talking about the altum brown method I was literally in my mind thinking I need to start just cutting a couple minutes off of this because I think then I know exactly what you mean about that yoke and I'm fine with that that actually sounds quite appetizing to me so I think this is a solvable problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I should have mentioned before too, when we were talking about eggs sitting out on the counter, that just in case people listening don't know this, if you have a backyard chicken egg, it does not need to be refrigerated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I need to sit out on the counter.
[SPEAKER_00]: So another
[SPEAKER_00]: Alternative is just to have pretty eggs from your backyard in all different shades and leave those out on the counter all the time Then every day is Easter.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but once you die it done is ruined because You've taken off the protective like you wouldn't be able to just not Hard-boiled the eggs and die them because then the protective coating is gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So right, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so moving on from hard boiling because that is only one way to cook and consume eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're out like at a breakfast diner, how are you going to order your eggs?
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, let me say how much I love going out to breakfast.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is something in midlife.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not what this episode is about, but that is a midlife lady leisure pursuit of mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a standing breakfast state with my dad every single Friday, and then I have another friend that I have a semi-standing monthly breakfast state, and I could be like an old person who goes out to breakfast four days a week.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanna say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can be that old person.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can be, I'm halfway there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I'm gonna say almost always over easy,
[SPEAKER_01]: I love poached eggs, I love making them at home, and I love them in a restaurant.
[SPEAKER_01]: But usually the dish I'm ordering seems to lend itself better to over easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of Wavos Rinchero's where I live.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every restaurant has them, they're so delicious.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or maybe it's some other dish with a, with an, I just feels like over easy makes more sense than poached.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would say poached come in second, over easy first.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like homemade scrambled eggs, but I think restaurant and especially like buffet or hotel scrambled eggs do very little for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So scrambled would be at the very bottom of the list.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I'm eating out, um, over medium is usually my choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been ordering my eggs that way since I was 20 years old and I don't really even know why at this point like my over medium and not over
[SPEAKER_00]: Hard or over well I know why not over hard because I like a yoke, but why not over easy I guess I just don't really know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I want that skin you know on the top and I think I want the white To be pretty much cooked through, but do I I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not really sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm over easy because my Parents my dad specifically was over easy like since a little tiny kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've eaten over easy egg So I don't know why either
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I probably have not gotten a scrambled egg at a restaurant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that would have been what I would have gotten as a kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I remember a very specifically going to Denny's.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to say Denny's Denny's in college and getting the French slam.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was two eggs, two pieces of bacon, two pieces of sausage, two pieces of...
[SPEAKER_00]: French toast, I believe, well, yes, because it was a French lamb.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always got it with scrambled eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at some point when I switched to liking over medium, I just stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will make scrambled eggs at home like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually the way I do it because then you don't have to really put it on top of anything if you don't want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just good.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just salt it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can do them a little softer.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just so rubbery.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like them to be very wet medium.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very light and fluffy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I accidentally cook them a little too long,
[SPEAKER_00]: that I'm even kind of bummed out about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, poached is interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have noticed a few of the different brunchy type places that I go will suggest on the menu that something is served with a poached egg.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when it, that's the only time I ever see like the way the egg is cooked, called out like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've seen it kind of a lot, which makes me think there's a reason for that either the way their kitchen is set up, like they prefer to do it that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's easier for them to poach than to fry the egg for whatever reason or they just think that's how it should be So if it suggests poached on the menu, I will go with that otherwise Almost always a remedium if I have the choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you can also have poached media like you can also like do the Easy medium hard with poached it's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but like
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I just never do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just say whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I think poached soft is probably default.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all your Benedicts are gonna come with poached eggs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And unless they're accidentally over cooking them, I'm pretty sure those should be pretty runny, but I love poached eggs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love.
[SPEAKER_01]: One, I've told you this, and probably said it on a podcast, but I craved poached eggs during my second pregnancy, like poached eggs in toast with lots of salt and pepper, and it was pioneer woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that was the heyday of food blogs, and I followed her step by step method to satisfy my own poached egg and whole wheat toast craving, and it served me well, because I can make really good poached eggs now, because of that one time period in like 2009.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see if funny has sometimes those things just, I don't know, they just catch, yeah, yeah, and get stuck in like the Alt and Brown thing too, like there are definitely multiple things, and that and when I was listening to the America's test kitchen podcast, I've been like 2012, 2013, there were just a few techniques that got lodged in my brain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: and have just stayed there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yes, probably.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never listened to that podcast, but we had their cookbook, their family cookbook around that same time when we were kind of young married and still still locking in some of our approaches to things and, yeah, same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can name several techniques that just got solidified in those, the late odds through a food blogs and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's how we grew up, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm like a kitchen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, okay, something that is not eating an restaurant and is also not hard-boiled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: The category that's all the other ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are cooking eggs at home, what are some different ways, you cook them or you eat them at home if it's not you doing the cooking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my husband Brian, who's a very good cook, but came later to egg cooking.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we very first got together, I was much better at eggs and breakfast, and he was better at like grilling and meat and all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've sort of both learned each other's domains.
[SPEAKER_01]: He can make just a simple omelet, like a really, really, like a chef's omelet, like a really good one.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's so good at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he'll do that on the weekend sometimes, and I find it, it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like better than a restaurant on lip to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I think restaurant onlets are often too big and kind of rubbery.
[SPEAKER_00]: I 100% agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I skip it almost every time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so he's just, you know, watched a lot of cooking shows over the years and is, like I said, a very good home cook and his often have maybe maybe mushrooms or maybe a little bit of caramelized onion or maybe some chives, but it's really mostly about the egg.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not stuffed with a bunch of stuff and like, you know, he'll fine chop some dill or some chives on it like looks so pretty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so that is one of my favorite things is he's doing that on the weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: Over the holidays, I made my first
[SPEAKER_01]: like baked egg dish which is not hard at all but I just it had never been in my repertoire.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone had told me that you can use like Trader Joe's or another hash brown patties as the base of the egg bake so you lay these hash brown patties flat on the bottom of the baking dish and then that serves as almost like the crust and that is delicious and the rest was eggs milk and mine was vegetarian so it's like mushrooms and bell peppers and onions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then a bunch of fresh herbs on top, and I first made it for a brunch.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was hosting and then it was so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made it again on Christmas Um, it was really good not hard at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I have not done this, but I would like to see if I can incorporate you know like when you see those recipes for like
[SPEAKER_01]: Not a key, because it wouldn't have a crust, but like a muffin tin egg bite type of situation that you make in for Tata sort of Yes, and for Tata.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think my kids would totally eat those if they had like bacon and cheese And then I get 100% yes, and my kids like eggs So they don't like a bunch of vegetables in their eggs, but they would they would eat those and it feels like that would be so easy and I'm definitely in more of like a prep ahead think ahead
[SPEAKER_01]: cooking phase right now so it would be very easy to do a batch of those on the weekend and have them for breakfast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just haven't tried it, but I would like to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had a...
[SPEAKER_00]: sketchy is not the right word.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess my luck has been inconsistent with getting those two pop out of the muffin tin without sticking, and I've actually had muffin tin that were forever ruined, because I can't remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it must be some combination of like what the muffin tin is made out of the temperature of your oven, and
[SPEAKER_00]: How that actually reflects in your actual oven because just because you say it's 50 does not mean you're oven your specific home of And believes that to be the case it might actually be closer to 375 or there might be a hot spot So I've just I think I kind of burned out on trying those because I kept
[SPEAKER_01]: You're right, because eggs baked onto a surface is very, very hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: When it's, yes, it's seriously, it is seriously adhered.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't seem to matter the fat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I've always used some kind of greaser oil of different things and that didn't make a difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just something about the way the eggs were cooking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been a while, but now I just tend to do
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, breakfast casseroles with with bacon or cheese or whatever my kids would like in a glass casserole dish because it never does that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't stick and yeah yeah and um everyone loves it like it really is a very crowd pleasing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: A great to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, well, for me, I really need to up my game here because I have so dang many eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I definitely am eating a couple of eggs a day anyway, and then I'm baking with them or cooking with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few times a week, but that's not enough to keep up, and I, I like being in a position of abundance, where I can give things away, but it also feels kind of dumb to be like paying for my chickens feed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then giving away like half the product like right now is when I should be figuring out lots of egg Egg things I can make and what tends to happen is when I'm not getting eggs from them I just stop cooking with eggs because I don't really want to go buy them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just feel like okay Well, I'm on I'm on hold and then suddenly they come back with such a vengeance that I'm out of habit and I haven't quite caught up yet so
[SPEAKER_00]: the ideas are on my in my mind right now are pretty obviously kish i just need to be doing this probably at least once a week maybe twice a week it's so easy everybody loves it um the recipe i use is actually an america's test kitchen recipe i've released an adaptation of it
[SPEAKER_00]: and it calls for six whole eggs and then two or three additional yolks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it uses up a lot of eggs and it's so creamy and custardy and good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Custard is another one lemon curd is really fun to make it easy and bread pudding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like all three of those things a lot and I don't make them very often.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it would be a very special occasion for me to be custard.
[SPEAKER_00]: But why not?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, make custard and put it on some kind of a baked good or like roll it up in a crate or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is another good thing for like the ratio of egg to flour in a crepe is prepper crepe whatever you want to say is pretty high.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we make pancakes and it's four eggs per normal size batch.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can that's my only point of reference, but yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and French toast is another one.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are some ideas that I could start rolling out quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if I want to dig into the like ancestral cooking slash, getting a little more,
[SPEAKER_00]: outside the box, there is a book called Two Many Eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a free ebook or you can pay for a print copy of the book by an author named Mimmi Nop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mimi Smith Dvorak and she had chickens and then found herself with two many eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she did
[SPEAKER_00]: an egg cookbook that has like hundreds of egg recipes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of them are kind of from like dug out of history books or dug out of historical cookbooks or are adapted from other cultures.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's stuff that you maybe wouldn't think of.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love that it kind of comes from a time when you just had to use what you had.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so many I think of the recipes that we associate with different areas of the world or different time periods
[SPEAKER_00]: what they had and they had to figure out ways to use it based on maybe what there was available for refrigeration or what there was available for cooking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd love that this book kind of delves into that and I downloaded it a few years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: and scrolled through it and thought it was really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't really ever make much out of it and I think I'm gonna kinda commit myself to picking a few recipes that are maybe a little less, I don't know, obvious, yeah, trying those.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what popped into my head just now is fried rice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you ever make a fried rice?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And throw some eggs in there as it goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will say for me, I think a true fried rice would be fried with the eggs and I think for me it's been more like, oh, I have this left over rice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I have scrambled eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just throw it together with some veg.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I don't know that I'm doing it right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, um, I don't know that we have ever we ours has always been a little slap shot like that too, but we would be frightened with the egg would go in raw
[SPEAKER_01]: like toward the end and cook as on high heat as kind of like to bind it all together.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that's correct either, but it's tasty and a great way to get like more protein and fried rice.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't do it that often, but that's just another, they're just popped into my head as I was thinking of like savory and you know different, different cuisines that use an egg.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you kind of feel like no matter what the food is just add an egg?
[SPEAKER_00]: is almost always the correct answer like, oh, got a grain bowl.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did all the stuff about, you know, warm grains.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And grain salads like in big cells.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, add an egg.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got some rice.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got some beans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just an egg.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that jammy yoke is going to be my takeaway from this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like if I can get good at hard-boiling my eggs a little less hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I would even just add them to my own lunches and snacks and, you know, mid-life ladies need our protein, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We sure do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we get six grams with every egg.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: the British, what is it, something in soldiers?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, oh, I was thinking of towed in the hole, or whatever, that is different.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it's called.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's where you like, you slice up toast in like little strips and then you dip it into a runny egg that is like in an egg cup.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I looked it up and it is literally called toast and soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the strips of bread are the soldiers, and then the runny egg is in an egg cup, which I actually think if I had an egg cup, it would inspire me to just incorporate runny eggs more into my everyday life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the egg would be what soft boiled or poached or something, to be runny in that cup.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be cooked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it served in the
[SPEAKER_00]: in the shell.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's soft boiled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you be dipping your toast strips.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's cute strips.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the clever name made me think of isn't it towed in the hole or something where you get where you cut a hole and then you fry an egg in the middle of that piece of toast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brian has also tried that several times.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like the egg always gets overcooked.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not into an over-heart like a Friday that's over cooked.
[SPEAKER_01]: But but it's a
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, hopefully we have some brits listening because isn't there another dish that is if not called towed in the hole, then it's something similar where it's actually like like eggs with bangers like maybe I might just be using the wrong phrase.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what I think it's like two different things or maybe there's okay different versions of it or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about the one where you like cookie cutter, a circle out of a piece of bread, and use that as like a container to fry your egg, and so the egg is fried in a circle inside the toast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can use the cut out, you can toast the cut out, and then that's like another piece of toast.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like a little bit of like pageantry, or like trickery, it feels like over the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like playing with food shapes, which is fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, I just want it, it needs to also taste good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I just googled it and pictures of both came up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK. We're learning how to do my baked into egg and egg baked into toast.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, how can they both be?
[SPEAKER_00]: And this says that there would typically be a rich onion gravy as the accompaniment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm just my mind is blown.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know where I will.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will also where my brain is going looking at this pictures is a Dutch baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to learn how to make.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brian you know who we can shout out a fellow sub stacker Megan Splon who's a food blogger food writer.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've both known for a long time she did an Instagram series about Dutch babies years ago like eight or nine years ago and I remember showing it to my kids and to my husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: and Brian, I think used the recipe she recommended, and so Brian can make a really good Dutch baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never made it, but when my kids were younger, that was a very exciting thing, because it's like, it's very dramatic how it, like, puffs up in the oven, and yeah, I've never done it, but it was a big hit in our house.
[SPEAKER_01]: We haven't done it in a few years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this has been really fun talking about all things eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully, we've inspired people who have those colorful eggs sitting in their fridge and don't want to just throw them out when they forget about them months later.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe inspire you to like, worth this back into the rotation in your diet if they haven't really been used lately.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have noticed lately it doesn't seem like the prices are insane anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, even when they were really high, they are still a great value for what they are.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: What they offer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So eggs for everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: How to pull that a ball?
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The incredible edible egg.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could literally sing that, but I won't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that you won't really start to doubt our corporate ties.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, everybody, just a reminder that you can find our expanded episode story with photos and links on Substack at midlifeladyleisurebracutes.substack.com, and that's where you're going to find the special page we have set up with some of our favorite vionic styles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Use the promo code midlife at vionicshoes.com for 15% off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk to you soon.