Cooking Basics- How to Make Really Good Tasting Scrambled Eggs

Keeping Scrambled Eggs Simple

Sometimes the simplest things in life can be tweaked to the point of difficulty. Scrambled eggs are a good example of this. There are recipes everywhere for the perfect scrambled egg. The problem is that once you start bombarding this once simple dish with fifteen exotic ingredients, it somehow loses what it originally was and people forget the simplicity of it all and how good simplicity can actually taste.  Keep it simple.

The most important ingredient in scrambled eggs is the eggs. The fresher the egg, the better the dish will be. I have my own chickens in my back yard so I am lucky enough to have just about a never ending supply of the freshest eggs available. The eggs that I used for this recipe were laid sometime yesterday afternoon. You can't get much fresher than that!

If you don't have your own chickens, the best place to purchase freshly laid eggs is your local farmers market. You can expect to pay approximately $3.00 per dozen depending on your area and, believe me, it's worth every penny. Fresh eggs are more nutritious, have less cholesterol and create a much creamier texture scrambled eggs. The color might be a bit different in a fresh egg but that's a good thing because they haven't been sitting around long enough for the color to fade and the nutritional value to go out the window.

This recipe makes enough scrambled eggs for two people.

What You Need to Make Scrambled Eggs

1. 3 fresh chicken eggs
2. 2 teaspoons butter (do NOT use margarine, it is not even close to being the same thing)
3. 1/4 cup of milk or cream (I do admit that cream in scrambled eggs is even more amazing)
4. pinch of salt
5. pinch of pepper
6. cheese- optional and really good!
7. fresh cherry tomatoes- optional and again, really good!

How to Make Really Good Tasting and Simple Scrambled Eggs

You'll need a pan to cook your eggs in. If you pan is non-stick then you really won't need any butter. If you pan does not have a non-stick coating, you'll want to have a couple of tablespoons of butter to keep the eggs from sticking to the pan. Put the pan on the burner, add the butter if needed and set the temp to medium heat so the butter can melt while you are beating the eggs. If you don't use the butter, wait a few minutes before heating the pan up.

Crack your eggs open into a bowl and add the milk (or cream). I always poke the egg yolks to break them but that's optional. Next, as my grandmother used to say, you'll want to whisk the tar out of them. The purpose of whisking is to not only blend the milk and the eggs together, you want to do it fast enough to actually beat air into the eggs. This helps make them fluffier during cooking.  There's a video on the sidebar that will show you how to easily beat eggs in a bowl.

If you are using the non-buttered pan, now is a good time to turn on the heat. Add your salt and pepper to the eggs and beat them some more!

After a total time of about 5ish minutes, pour the eggs into the pan. Here's where your test of patience comes into play. Do NOT stir the eggs. You'll need to wait a few minutes and let them start to cook first. Turn the heat down to medium/low.

After waiting a few minutes, give the eggs a little, gentle stir. You should see that the eggs have started to cook and firm up. Wait a few more minutes, adjust the heat if needed and let them cook uninterrupted. That's one of the keys to fluffy eggs. You beat them when they are raw, not when they are in the skillet.

After about 10 minutes and between 3 and 5 quick, gentle stirs the eggs should be just about done. You don't want them browned. You want them to look solid, soft and a little bit glossy.

Right at that moment, it's decision time. Do you want to eat your eggs plain or do you want to add a few yummy ingredients to them? This time, I chose to add two things to my fluffy, yummy scrambled eggs. Fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden and some shredded cheddar cheese.

If you choose to have your eggs plain, cook them just a few seconds longer, put them on a plate and enjoy! For any added extras, now is the time to add them. I just tossed in the tomatoes after quartering them, gave it a quick stir and put the cheese on top. Turn the fire off and put a lid on it for a couple of minutes for the cheese to melt.

After the cheese has melted, the eggs are ready to enjoy! Or devour. No one could have ever guessed that plain jane scrambled eggs could taste so darn good!

How to Make Fresh Home Made Garden Vegetable Soup with Eggs

Eggs can be added to different dishes to add a little something different. In this soup, I added the eggs as an extra source of protein. It made sense to me since the broth base is chicken, the rest of the ingredients are vegetables and honestly, it just sounded good. The eggs are able to not only stand up to the vegetables, but they contribute very nicely to the flavor and texture of the soup.

The yolk of the eggs adds an extra creamy layer to this soup and blends in well with the broth, basil and other ingredients. I know that soup is usually enjoyed in the chillier months of the year, but this one can be served hot or chilled to blend in with the current season. Of course it's thicker when it's served chilled but still nice and very yummy.

This type of soup is a great and unusual way to help utilize any extra eggs that you may have from your chickens or from a sale that you took advantage of at the grocery store.

The ingredients can be modified to whatever you have on hand along with what is in season. Experiment with local, in season vegetables instead of boxed, bagged or canned ingredients. You'll notice a popular vegetable is missing in this version of our soup, corn. It's because right now it is not in season in Indiana and our corn isn't being harvested quite yet.

In the fall, I would omit the spring vegetables and use things like carrots, turnips, sugar snap peas and anything else that is ready to harvest that you have on hand or in the garden. Vegetable soup is extremely versatile and home made is so much better than out of a can without as much work as you would think.

Vegetable soup freezes very well in a plastic freezer bag. You can make the soup, minus the eggs and freeze in single servings to defrost another day. This is especially nice once these vegetables have spent their harvest and are no longer available in the area.

Keep it simple and that keeps it easy and fantastic! That's exactly what home made garden vegetable soup should be. Simple, easy and fantastic.

Ingredients for the Soup as Pictured

• 32 ounces of chicken broth
• 2 medium size potatoes
• 1/2-pound cherry tomatoes
• a handful of Chinese long beans
• a handful of fresh green beans
• 1 onion bulb and top
• a handful of fresh basil
• 2 okra pods
• 4 chicken eggs
• 1/2 cup barley

How Long Does it Take?

Prep time: about 30 minutes    Cook time:  about an hour   Yields:  3 VERY generous servings

How to Put it All Together

All of the vegetables will need to be washed and roughly chopped. I leave the skin on the potatoes because I happen to like that but you can peel them first if you don't. Leave the skin on the cherry tomatoes to keep them together during the cooking. If you remove the skin they will disappear in the soup!

Test your eggs to make sure they are fresh, there is a video on the sidebar (<----over that way) that will show you how if you don't know. Hard boil the eggs then put them into an ice bath until you are ready to peel them.

While the eggs are cooking, pour the chicken stock into your soup pan and add the onion, potatoes and basil. Do the first seasoning of salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 20 minutes. (Your eggs should be ready for the ice bath about now.)

Add the rest of the ingredients and turn the fire to about medium/low heat. Just enough to keep it at a nice simmer for about 40 minutes.

Drain and peel the eggs while the soup is cooking. Periodically stir the soup to keep anything from sticking. Since there is only 32 ounces of broth, this will be a very chunky soup as some of the broth liquid evaporates with the heat.

Cut the eggs in half and set them aside. By now the soup will have thickened up a bit because of the potatoes. If you can't resist the urge to press the cherry tomatoes to the side of the pan and pop them, go ahead because they shouldn't fall apart and disappear at this point. You'll do your final salt and peppering to taste here.

Scoop the soup out into bowls and top with the boiled egg halves. I suggest nipping the egg pieces with the spoon to get a little piece in every bite. It really is a fantastic ingredient in home made vegetable soup!

Add a nice garlic cheese flat bread, home made bread (my homemade wheat bread recipe is HERE) or crackers and you have a nice, healthy meal that won't weigh you down or make you feel like you just ate half the grocery store!

The last thing you'll need to do is enjoy it. Share it with friends. Share it with family. They will love you for it!  Refrigerate or freeze any leftovers to enjoy later.

My Twist on Eggs in Purgatory- Tomato Stew with Poached Eggs and Blue Cheese

Since we have chickens, we always have fresh eggs.  I despise food waste about as much as I dislike eating breakfast every morning so sometimes I have to find creative ways to get eggs into other meals throughout the day to keep from having to throw them away.  I know, I know... some people would be happy to have that problem.

This is my take on the classic "Eggs in Purgatory."  I changed a few things in the recipe to suit what we actually like in this house and I got it right for us so I thought I'd share this one with you so you can make it for yourself.

There are no fresh tomatoes right now so I had to use a can (GASP!) that I picked up at the grocery.  It will still be a few months before the tomato plants start producing and I can put away enough of them to last a full year.  I can't wait to taste this with fresh tomatoes.

If you don't have access to freshly made blue cheese, I suggest trying freshly grated parmesan in this recipe.  Please do NOT use the powdered crap out of a can, it's really just not the same.

Ingredients

• 28 ounces of crushed or diced tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 Tablespoons basil (I used purple)
• 1 Tablespoon oregano
• Salt and pepper to your taste
• 4 scallions, chopped
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• Fresh blue cheese

Prep time: 5 minutes  Cook time: about 30 minutes  Yields: 4 servings

How to Put it Together

 
Choose a pan that is wide and deep at the sides.  A nice iron skillet or large frying pan will work for this.  On medium heat, put the olive oil into the pan and let it heat up.

Once the oil has heated up, add your garlic slices.  Stir them around a bit and let them cook for a minute or tow.  DO NOT let them brown.

Add your tomatoes and stir.

Add the salt, pepper, scallions, onion, basil and oregano and give it a stir.

This is what it should look like once everything is added and stirred in.

Cover it with a lid and turn the heat down to medium low.  All it to simmer for about 20 minutes but do stir it occasionally.  You want the herbs to infuse and the tomatoes to cook.

This is what it should look like once it has simmered.  Sorry the pic does look a bit blurry in the middle, that's the steam.

Now it is time to add the eggs!  Crack an egg into a small bowl or measuring cup.  Let the lip of the bowl/cup go a tiny bit into the tomato stew and then slightly tip it forward while the egg slides out.  The tipping will cause some of the egg white to cover the yolk.  Do this with all four eggs in different areas of the pan.

Allow the eggs to poach in the stew for a few minutes until they are as done as you like them.

While the eggs are poaching, you can get the blue cheese ready.  I personally like crumbles so I sliced off the amount that I wanted and crumbled them up.

When the eggs are done, it is ready to eat.

Spoon out the tomato stew and top with the egg.  Right before serving, add in the blue cheese crumbles and enjoy the yummy!