Hard-boiled eggs not so easy to peel
I like hard-boiled eggs so much that I happily ate one in elementary school nearly every weekday morning for six years.
I swear. The subject of cholesterol never came up, and I never thought there were too many eggs in my life.
I will never learn. Every year, dyeing Easter eggs seems like such a marvelous idea - no iPods, no television, totally engaging in a family endeavor - that I do not stop to think what we, a family of three, will do with the four to five dozen works of art.
Reality sets in even before the holiday ham is carved.
It is comforting to know that many people are in this same basket. Last year, according to the National Egg Council, about 136 million dozen eggs were eaten in the United States in the week after Easter - most of them hard-boiled, I bet.
You can be sure that the number actually refers to those sold, not eaten. There's no Dumpster-diving count of unconsumed Easter eggs to figure out how many go to waste, and which are tossed due to egg-overload or frustrated egg-peeling.
As always, shelling this year's batch of eggs has been as maddening as picking pills off of sweaters.
So I was heartened to find a video on the Internet showing a way to peel eggs efficiently. The clip shows someone peeling bits of shell off of both ends of the egg, then blowing hard into one of the ends. The egg plops out, miraculously naked.
My family members have made fools of themselves trying to make this happen - no luck. What has worked better is cracking the eggs all over, rolling them around on a hard, flat surface to break the membrane below the shell, then peeling the shell.
Because older eggs tend to peel more easily, we intend to take the counterintuitive measure of not buying very, very fresh eggs for future Easters.
But for now, we are racing against time. Food safety experts recommend throwing out hard-boiled eggs if they've sat in a basket (or at room temperature or higher) for more than two hours. Technically, even hard-boiled eggs that have been constantly refrigerated should be eaten in a week to 10 days.
So, aside from eating them out of hand, what shall we do with the Easter bunny's gifts?
In the recipes here, hard-boiled egg yolks dissolve into a Laotian salad dressing to give it flavor, color and body. Whole hard-boiled eggs add protein and team with seasonal vegetables for a springtime pasta dish. In another, they contribute flavor and creamy texture to a sandwich.
Our daughter loves the revisionist Green Eggs and Ham - deviled ones that blend tradition, innovation and Dr. Seuss.
Still, as I stand over the sink's garbage disposal peeling a hard-boiled egg that is the color of a popular antacid, I think about the movie, Cool Hand Luke. In that 1967 flick, Paul Newman's character speed-eats 50 hard-boiled eggs in a prison wager.
I also recall that Sonya Thomas, a real, skinny, 41-year-old competitive eater, ate 65 hard-boiled eggs in less than seven minutes in 2003.
As I reach for another hard-boiled egg, I wonder if either is free for dinner.
Green Eggs and Ham
Makes 4 servings 4 large hard-boiled eggs, peeled and halved lengthwise 1/3 cup (or 1) mashed ripe avocado 1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro 1 tablespoon minced scallion, white and green parts