Nothing in the House But Eggs

After being a little under the weather last week, where food was the last thing I wanted to think about, I am here and ready to tackle the next decade for the culinary #tbt series.  This week's cookbook is 'Potluck Cookery' by Beverly Pepper (appropriate for a cookbook author, no?) from 1955.  With the promise of being full of 'delightful ways to make a royal meal from leftovers or whatever you have on hand,' there are 320 recipes of what to do with leftover poultry, leftover vegetables, cheese, eggs, or cereals.

Recipe No. 305.  Eggs Parmentier, under the 'Nothing in the House but Eggs' section.  Parmentier.  You may have seen a similar recipe called Hachis or Hache Parmentier, looking vaguely like Shephard's Pie, with mashed potatoes and roast beef.  Keep the mashed potatoes, ditch the roast beef, add an egg or two, and you've got Eggs Parmentier.  You also have a perfect weekend brunch dish, just add a salad and mimosas.

Eggs Parmentier
Adapted from 'Potluck Cookery'
Serves 2

3 medium potatoes, peeled and boiled
2 eggs
2 slices prosciutto, chopped and crisped
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp grated Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese
pinch paprika

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.  Lightly grease a small baking dish or pie plate (about 6 inches in diameter).  Boil peeled and cut potatoes until tender, about 8-12 minutes, depending on size.  Drain water from potatoes, add 1 tbsp butter, salt, and 1/4 cup of the milk.  Mash potatoes by hand or with electric mixer.  Spread potatoes in baking dish, making two wells for eggs.  In a small frying pan, crisp the prosciutto, draining any excess fat.  Crumble prosciutto over potatoes and in wells.  Crack an egg in each well (don't worry if the whites spread over the potatoes a bit).  Sprinkle cheese and paprika over potatoes and eggs.

Bake until eggs are set to preference and edges of potatoes begin to brown, about 15-20 minutes.  

A Lovely Shade of Spring

Can you believe that it's almost April?  We're just over a week into Spring, Passover began three nights ago, and now Easter is this coming Sunday.  Baskets full of fake grass overflowing with chocolate bunnies, jellybeans, and marshmallow Peeps in bright pink and purple will be in homes soon.

Then there are the eggs.  Despite the fact that I was not a fan of hard-boiled eggs (I would only eat the whites, and that's only if they were heavily coated in salt), dyeing and decorating Easter eggs was something I looked forward to every year when I was young.  There was the obligatory box of Paas tablets, along with the wax crayon, little hexagonal wire egg holder, and the rub-on transfers of rabbits, lambs, flowers, and other signs of Spring.  We used the same melamine coffee mugs year after year.  They were large enough to dunk and swirl an egg in.  (I'd bet money those mugs are still in my parents' basement.)

I loved building up the shades, dipping an egg into two different colours, carefully balancing it on the wire.  I would write my name on an egg, drawing a flower, or a band, or dots, dipping it back into the dye and watching the colour bloom, leaving smudgy, waxy designs in the dye's wake. 

Thirty-some years later, I decided to bypass the Paas tablets in lieu of colours little more natural, and found in the kitchen or pantry.  This is nothing new.  Martha  Stewart did this a few years ago, as I'm sure thousands of families have done before her.  You can watch Martha here.  I love hearing her East Coast inflection in 'water,' something you might catch me saying if I don't think about what I say before I open my mouth!

My measurements weren't quite as precise as Martha's, except for using 2 tablespoons of vinegar in each colour.  Whatever bowl or pot or measuring cup I was using is the amount of water I filled it with.  Not everything worked out well.  I originally started with a blood orange in a pot of water, and when I wasn't getting   the pale orange I envisioned in my head, I added a carrot...when that didn't work, I added paprika.  But even that didn't work out, so down the drain went that pot of water and it became a pot of coffee.  I also brewed a very dark and strong measuring cup of Earl Grey tea, which made two very pretty tea-stained eggs.  Tumeric does indeed become a beautiful warm gold and the liquid from a jar of pickled blueberries made a pale, pale violet that I darkened by actually mashing a tablespoon of the pickled blueberries into the bowl and rubbed onto the eggshell.

I only got fancy-schancy on two eggs...wrapping one in twine before dipping it into the tumeric water and putting smiley face stickers on another egg looking to get a polka dot effect.  I've got a couple more days of egg salad on the menu, but it was worth it.  

Happy Easter!

The non-cooperative orange dye

Tumeric and tea results with blueberries and coffee in the background