Quentin--We might need some of those recipes. We were out of eggs on Monday and already have more than two dozen again. ^_^
This is a copy of my dad's article:
Thinking Outside the Carton
Eggs, look at all the eggs! We had plenty in the refrigerator. You can only do so much with omelets or scrambled eggs. I'm tired of over easy and sunny side up. Like they say, "real men don't eat quiche," besides it doesn't do much for me. The soufflé I made turned out well but again how many times a month can you eat that? So let me tell you the story of how we got the eggs and what we did with them.
Then a thought crossed my mind "they have a Hamburger Helper why don't they have Egg Helper," when a flash of inspiration crossed my mind: "why not substitute scrambled egg for hamburger and use the boxed mix?"
Besides that, scrambled eggs can be used in taco shells in place of beef. The sauce is the dominating flavor, therefore one can't taste the eggs though the texture will be different. This works well with Sloppy Joes, Chinese Egg Rolls, Lasagna, Stuffed Peppers, Chili, and Italian Wedding Soup which already requires eggs.
A few recipes of my own design, which all met with family approval include:
Egg Loaf
2 Cups of Shell or Elbow Pasta
1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup
8 Eggs,
1 Cup Summer Squash
Dash of Salt
Dash of Pepper
Mix ingredients together and pour into a greased and floured loaf pan, ring pan, or casserole dish. (It will stick, but the grease and flour help make cleaning up easier.) Bake for one hour at 350 or till the eggs set; 15 minutes less for a ring pan.
Remove and cut into slices. Serve with Tomato Sauce, Parmesan Cheese, Salsa, Cheese Sauce or Gravy.
My daughter thought the use of broccoli and cream of broccoli soup would be a good variation.
Egg Loaf #2
3-4 Cups Stuffing Mix
8 eggs
¾ Cup Milk
1 Cup Green Peas
Salt and Pepper to taste
Beat eggs and milk together, add stuffing mix. Let set for 3-4 hours. Bake at 350 for one hour or till eggs set. Remove and cut into slices. Serve with beef gravy or ketchup.
The bread made the loaf filling. My wife said it was like French Toast Casserole, and by using plain dried bread, raisins, cinnamon, perhaps a touch of brown sugar we could serve it for breakfast with syrup.
Stir Fry
1 Cup Rice
2 Cups Beef or Chicken Broth
Stir Fry Vegetables
8 Eggs
¼ Teaspoon Salt & Garlic Powder
1/8 Teaspoon Pepper & Ginger
¼ Cup Soy Sauce
Cook rice in broth. Add stir-fry vegetables of your choice to cooked rice. Mix in spices and soy sauce. Bake for 45-60 minutes or till eggs are set at 350. A ring pan works well. I Serve it with Sweet & Sour Sauce or Thai Sauce, however feel free to use your favorite sauces.
Thai Sauce Sweet & Sour Sauce
½ Cup Ginger Ale
½ Cup Sugar
¼ Cup Soy Sauce
½ Cup Vinegar
1 Tablespoon of Peanut Butter
½ Cup Maraschino Cherry Juice
1 Tablespoon of Corn Starch
½ Cup Crushed Pineapple
1 ½ Tablespoon Corn Starch
¼ Cup Cold Water
For Thai Sauce: Mix ingredients and boil till thick.
For Sweet & Sour Sauce: Mix first four ingredients together and cook until sugar is dissolved. Mix cornstarch into cold water. Add to pineapple mixture. Cook until thick.
Curry Eggs
1 Chopped Onion
1 Chopped Apple
1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 Cup Milk
2 Teaspoons Curry Powder
Dab of Butter
1 Cup Rice
8 Eggs
Melt butter in large skillet. Cook onions and apples until tender. Mix curry powder, mushroom soup, and milk together, pour into skillet, stir and bring to boil.
Cook rice and scramble eggs, mix eggs into curry mixture and serve over rice. (Eggs can also be hard-boiled, cut into quarters, and added to curry mixture)
Bean Burritos
5 Eggs
1 Can Black Beans
2 Teaspoons of Chili Powder
½ Cup Taco Sauce
1 Teaspoon Cumin
Garlic Powder to taste
Onion Powder to taste
Pepper to taste
Paprika to taste
Smash black beans in a skillet then add the spices, taco sauce, and eggs. Cook till the eggs are scrambled. Top with melted American cheese,(or cheese of your choice) and serve in a tortilla wrap.
Chocolate Meringue Pie
Pudding
Meringue
4 Egg Yokes
4 Egg Whites
2 ½ Cups Milk
8 Tablespoons Sugar
½ Cup Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
3 tablespoons Cocoa
3 Tablespoons Corn Starch
1/8 Teaspoon Salt
Mix 2 cups milk, sugar, and cocoa together and bring to boil. Separately, mix the egg yokes, corn starch, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup milk together. Pour hot liquid into the cold egg mixture. Stir, return to pan, and simmer 2-3 minutes till pudding thickens. Pour into pre-baked pie shell.
Meringue: Beat egg whites into stiff peaks and slowly add sugar and vanilla.
Top the pie with meringue, bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes till meringue turns a golden brown color.
I didn’t have cream of tarter for meringue so I skipped it. It still turned out fine, I just had to beat it a little longer. The only thing was the pudding seemed to shed some liquid which I poured off the pie, perhaps more corn starch was needed?
Ever hear of egg cheese? I found the recipe online. It comes from Slovakia. I cut the recipe down for experimentation purposes.
Egg Cheese
1 Cup Whole Milk
3 Eggs
½ Tablespoon Honey
1/8 Teaspoon Vanilla (Optional)
Combine ingredients and cook in a double boiler for 20 to 30 minutes till it separates into curd. The curd will look like scrambled egg. The water in the double boiler should not touch the inner pan but be just below it.
After it is cooked, put in a cheese cloth or a scrap of old sheet and drain in a colander. Let cool, place in the refrigerator and continue to drain. I found, however, when it was cool you could squeeze the remaining whey out of it so it didn't need to drain all night in the refrigerator.
The Egg Cheese didn't taste bad. . .it didn't taste good. . .it didn't taste like much at all! It would be good for a filling in something like lasagna, but not to spread on crackers. I wasn't satisfied yet. The original recipe was very specific stating, only whole milk--No Substitutes! So I substituted sweetened condensed milk.
Egg Cheese #2
1 14 Ounce Can of Sweetened Condensed Milk
3/4 Cup Whole Milk
4 Eggs
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla or to taste
I went through the same cooking process, combining ingredients and cooking in a double boiler for about 30 minutes. The whey didn't seem to separate out, even though it got the scrambled egg look. When it was cool enough to handle in the cheese-cloth, I squeezed a fair amount of whey out of it. This made a nice sweet dessert cheese although a bit crumbly. I used it in an apple cheese coffee cake and a plain cheese coffee cake. In the apple coffee cake the apple dominated so I didn't taste much of the cheese. I would recommend putting in a flavoring like vanilla, almond, peppermint, orange, anise etc. into the cheese when making it to give it extra flavor.
Next, I remembered a very good recipe for carrot burgers on Allrecipes.com. I decided to use it as a basis for vegetarian egg sausage, replacing the carrot--which would be too coarse--with winter squash instead.
Egg Sausage
1 Cup Winter Squash Cooked and Mashed
2 Eggs Beaten
1 Cup Bread Crumbs
2 Tablespoons Oil (Preferably Olive Oil)
1 Teaspoon Italian Seasoning (or your preferred spice)
1/8 Teaspoon Salt
1/8 Teaspoon Pepper
¼ Teaspoon Garlic Powder
Mix all the ingredients together, form into ropes about the length and diameter of a hot dog. Roll in extra bread crumbs. The mixture should resemble very soft cookie dough. Place on greased tray. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Best served fresh.
I had some failures with eggs, too. My chiffon tomato soup didn't pan out very well. I added egg yoke to the soup, whipped the whites into meringue, and mixed it into the soup while it was hot. It was too fluffy, kind of like a soup latte'. Then I had a wild idea of eggeroni; pickling eggs in vinegar and pepper and using it as a substitute for pepperoni on pizza. That didn't fly well with the family. The pickled eggs were good and worked well in pasta salad. They also added a nice flavor to egg salad sandwiches. There are some nice pickled egg recipes online. The National Center for Home Food Preservation had several.
So these are some recipes that we came up with to use eggs in a non-traditional way. With the economy looking like it's going to take another dive, being able to feed your family properly is going to be very important. Eggs can be an essential food during this time, but eggs can get boring, to prevent this a person certainly needs to think outside the box, or in this case, outside the carton.
Daniel Strauss, New York