The Perfect Boiled Egg

This seems like a really stupid post when you say..."oh I think I will blog about a hard boiled egg!" But eggs are so incredibly versatile and the first question in every important long term relationship is "How do you like your eggs?" Well, this has taken me a while to get right...but when you know, you know...

I have finally perfected the hard boiled egg!

I have tried baking, starting in cold water, boiling water entire time, etc. The baking burned one side of mine, the cold water had me peeling shards of shell off for too long... But this! This is it.

Sure, the other methods work to cook the eggs, but I spent so much of my time peeling tiny pieces off the eggs, then they would be ugly and all nicked up. Some turned out too overcooked, some were too runny for my tastes. This has been my tried and true and I will never look back!

Here's how it's done. And if right now, you are saying, well I love my method and mine is the right way....that is wonderful! And you can stop reading here cause the rest of this post will not matter to you in the least.

The hardest part: Bring a small pot of water to a rolling boil.

CAREFULLY place your eggs into the hard boil with a spider or a spoon.  Immediately turn the heat to low and put 13 minutes on the clock.  The water will "slow it's roll"(pun intended) and reach a gentle simmer. Keep uncovered!

While they are simmering away, prepare yourself an ice bath to shock them once the 13 minutes are up. I do this in a small mixing bowl. Now go watch 12.5 minutes of Netflix (Jane the Virgin or Parks and Rec, just saying).

When you hear that beep on the timer, quickly but carefully scoop your boiled eggs from the water into the ice bath with your spider or spoon.

Once they are cooled (about 5 minutes) give them a swift knock on the countertop and peel away!

These are every so slightly underdone from what you would see at a salad bar, but these are so tasty and make a really creamy egg salad (mix with a quick squeeze of mayo and s&p).  I am telling you this because I eat egg salad 3-4 times a week now that I have mastered this egg boiling technique. So simple, yet such a game changer!

Try it just once! And if you hate them or it doesn't work for you, I will buy you 2 new eggs! Dig in.

Peel and Eat Shrimp

Sounds fancy, huh?

Nah it's all good. Sometimes even I don't even realize how many good things are out there that are easier to make than my go-to recipes. This shrimp was the perfect appetizer, especially when they were fresh from the gulf. Lucky for us Louisvillians, we get some of the freshest seafood flown here daily. My go-to in Lou is Highland Fish Market. Any other places you have seen that have great seafood?

How to do it:
Can you boil water? Good, great first step! ;-)

This shrimp is a breeze then.

Recipe adapted from Southern Living

2.5 quarts (10  c) water
1/4 c old bay
3 lb shrimp (preferably deveined) with shell on
Lemon

Bring water and old bay to a rolling boil in large stockpot or dutch oven. Add shrimp to pot, cover and take off heat for 12-15 minutes or until shrimp are pink. Sometimes takes sooner - you don't ever want to overcook shrimp!

Then drain, place in bowl with lemon slices and cover. Place in fridge until shrimp are cooled - or if you prefer them hot, they are ready for dipping in some cocktail sauce!

It is hard to wait for these to cool down, but so worth the wait in the end.

Soy Honey Glaze

We eat a ton of salmon. It's easy, relatively cheap, and delicious.  Needed to switch it up a bit and started to play with some different flavor combinations. It's not earth-shattering by any means, but this glaze to finish off the pan-roasted salmon we made the other day was super awesome. p.s. charred lemon squeezed over salmon is the bomb.com.

Sorry for the crap picture, but we were starving and it was delish...so real life happened, forgive us! ;-)

Here's the recipe:

1 tbsp honey
1/2 tbsp soy sauce (I used lite sodium, but live dangerously!)
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp lemon or lime squeeze

Whisk together ingredients with fork/whisk. When you take salmon off your skillet, I just poured this mixture in the skillet and rolled it around a couple of times to deglaze the pan and heat it up. Keep on the side or generously pour over your dish. I bet this would also be good with tilapia served on rice or even on chicken breast! Here's the baked salmon I've made in the past and this would be great poured on top right before serving.

Any other flavor combos you like to try?

Grilling Season - Shrimp and Veggie Skewers

When I think of Spring and Summer, I think of patios, cold beers, outdoor concerts, pools and most of all GRILLING. You can cook pretty much anything on a grill if you want to. In this particular case, I wanted to grill things on sticks. Worked out in my favor pretty well if I do say... 

The main trick to grilling things on skewers or sticks, is that if you are grilling with wooden skewers, SOAK THEM IN WATER first. I found some bamboo skewers at Kroger. Mine were soaking for about an hour or so. If you are able to, just plug up the sink and let them swim around in there for a bit. Otherwise, you'll have some pretty charred up sticks.

I went for the basic veggie skewer: zucchini, yellow squash, red onion, red pepper, mushrooms, and tomatoes. If it can be skewered, try it out! The world is your oyster.

I skewered them in no particular order, but just made sure there was a variety on each stick.  Coat or spray with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

The shrimp should be peeled and deveined - doused heavily with Old Bay (praise hands emoji for some Old Bay!) and about 5 fit on each skewer but it really depends on the size of your shrimp or your skewer. Say shrimp skewer five times fast...

A little secret for grilling shrimp: After putting all the seasoning on I gave them a quick spray with an olive oil spray to help them not stick too much to the grates on the grill.

Now for the fun part. Joey is the grill master here, so he cooked the veggies first over high heat, flipping occasionally with lid on until the veggies softened, around 10 minutes. You want the squash and zucchini to get tender and everything should be done by the time those are nice and charred.

The shrimp took about 3-4 minutes on each side, being very careful when you flip. Joey used tongs to grab end of skewer and rotated them over. When the shrimp are an opaque pink, you are good to go.

Serve it up!

It was a really quick dinner, pretty healthy and delicious! This will be a repeater all summer and into the fall!

Serves 3-4
1 lb shrimp peeled and deveined
2 red bell pepper, 1 inch cuts
1 red onion (really only need about a quarter) quartered
2 zucchini sliced into discs about 1/2 in
2 yellow squash sliced into discs about 1/2 in
10-15 baby bella mushrooms halved
Olive oil and salt and pepper
Old Bay ~ 1 tbsp

Pre-soak skewers in water for 1-2 hours
Carefully push veggies onto skewers - varying type of veggie. coat with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper set aside
Carefully push shrimp onto skewers and season with salt, pepper, and lots of old bay

Grilling:
Grill on high heat - veggies first, for about 10-15 minutes rotating occasionally
On med-high heat - grill shrimp for about 3-4 minutes per side, rotating once or twice.

Note: our grill is really small. If you have a bigger propane grill you can do both at the same time!

That's it. Seriously. Now make that this weekend!! Easy and a lot better than the plain old chicken and veggies you have been making lately (true story!).