Hard boil your eggs in your microwave. No, really!

When I need a whole bunch of hard boiled eggs, I steam them on a rack, in a large, shallow pan. It works flawlessly. 

When I need just a few eggs, I turn to the microwave.

Yes, skeptical one. I said the microwave.

You may know that if you put an egg in the microwave, it will explode. And no one wants to clean that up. 

But with a little magic (or science, if you prefer) you can cook eggs in the microwave with very little fuss. 

I've had this microwave egg cooker for more years than I can remember (but Amazon says I bought it in 2016), and it's seriously the only way I "hard-boil" eggs when I need from 1-4 hard boiled eggs.

Before you go there, yes, I've tried cooking eggs in my Instant Pot, and ... no. Just no. I never found the exact formula for the right timing, and about half the time I got distracted and overcooked the eggs to death. 

The microwave gadget is easier. I just stick the thing in the microwave with eggs and water, set the time, and walk away. At worst, I get distracted and the eggs sit a little too long before I cool them off, but they're not continuing to cook at high temperature - they're busy cooling down. So although they might overcook a little bit, they're not on their way to becomes sauna eggs.

So, the science here is that the eggs aren't actually getting cooked via microwaves. They're shielded by the metal in the cooker, so the waves never reach them. Instead, the microwaves heat the water and turn it into the steam. The steam rises from the bottom reservoir and enters the chamber with the eggs. The eggs cook from steaming, just like the ones on the stove.

There are no adjustments or settings or buttons. It might take a few tries to get the timing perfect for eggs the way you like them, but after that, it's just a matter of setting the time on the microwave and then letting them rest a short time before cooling them in cold water - I just dump out the hot water in the reservoir and drop the eggs in there and add cold water.

Cleaning is simple. Unless an egg breaks (which rarely happens, but it can if an egg has a crack that I don't notice) there's not much to fuss with. I just rinse it off, and let it dry and I'm done.

The one I have is made by Nordicware and when I bought it, it was the only one available. Since then, other brands have produced similar microwave egg cookers. 

Nordicware is a quality brand, and I've been happy with my little egg cooker for a long time, so I recommend it. But if you find another one that appeals, I suspect there aren't a lot of differences. The bargain ones might be a tad less sturdy, but let's face it, this isn't a super-complicated device.

Yum

I'm BACK! Just a little rusty, but it will get better!

Stella says "Hello" and wants a treat

After a long hiatus, I've decided to get back to blogging. Just for giggles.

Since I've been gone, I've gone low carb. Not no-carb, not keto, not carnivore. But no sugar, for sure. I occasionally have white or processed carbs, but on a splurgy day, like when I go out for a burger craving. But mostly not. So, no white bread and no white rice and no regular pasta.

I've substituted whole grain foods for the "white carbs" but I limit those, as well. What does that leave? Well, meat, eggs, dairy, vegetables and fruits (in moderation with the fruits, too.) I eat well, and now it's become a habit, so it's a whole lot easier than it was at first. And my doctor is happy.

For many of the foods that could be carby in their original form, I simply remove the carbs. Chinese food that's not sitting on top of rice, for example. Or I turn a sandwich into a salad. Or a charcuterie nosh. 

On this blog, I might do some recipes or review some cookbooks with an eye on what recipes are naturally low carb because that's where I am now.

There are also lots of low carb substitutes for things like pasta and rice that I've been checking out, so you'll get my opinions on those.

The one good thing about cutting sugar entirely is that things taste sweet to me that other people would say are not sweet. Like unsweetened whipped cream. So, that's a plus. Then again, actually sweet things make me shudder, just to think about them. Glazed donut? No thanks. Nope.

Also, in the past few years, my sweet dog Snickers passed away, and now I have Stella. For the first few weeks I had Stella, it was tough. She was a small white demon with too much energy and negligible training. Now, she's a weirdo sweetheart snugglebug, and I'm happy she's here. Like Snickers, she came from the Longmont Humane Society.

I'm also reviewing like crazy, mostly for The Spruce Eats, but I'll be dropping reviews here as well. There are plenty of things that The Spruce doesn't want to review, but I'm curious. So, they'll get dropped here. I'm also going to review things that may not have anything to do with food, like, oh, maybe some dog things. Because we have a lot of those. Or maybe not. And I'm going to drag some things out of the cabinets that I use all the time, but have never gotten around to reviewing. 

In short, it's gonna be what I want, when I wanna, and the heck with the algorythms, and SEO. We'll see how that goes, eh?

Yum