Jen Blogs - Deviled Eggs

Hi- me again.

 

Well I don’t cook much but I do like to party.  When my sister is gone I am forced to make my own dish to pass.  I hate that (and the friends I am bringing my dish to hate that also). That said, one of the things I can make and that taste pretty decent is deviled eggs.  It’s a fairly standard deviled egg recipe what makes them better (and gets me compliments) I’m pretty sure is the “secret” ingredient of spicy mustard.

I add light miracle whip (might as well save the fat where I can) until it looks creamy, a few squeezes of regular mustard until bright yellow (I like mine mustardy) then a few squeezes of the spicy mustard depending how tangy you like it.  like I said, everywhere I take them people rave that they are delish.  

Hey I’m no Jill but I gotta do what I can.

Perfectly Peeled Hard Boiled Eggs

I have been making hard boiled eggs for years the same way (put the eggs in a pan, fill with water, bring to a boil for 5 minutes, turn off heat and cover, let rest in hot water for 20 minutes) and they are foolproof, perfectly done everytime. But if the eggs are too fresh then it's always a crap shoot if I could peel them easily (did you know that fresh eggs are the culprit behind difficult-to-peel hard boiled eggs? Yep!) and if I wanted pretty deviled eggs then it was such a pain hoping to get enough nice ones.  I'm making deviled eggs to take to a friends house and of course bought brand new eggs this morning...and then I saw this method with the claim that even fresh eggs will peel perfectly...well of course I'm going to try it!

Bring a pot of water to a boil and then carefully lower the eggs into the pan. Let them boil in a gentle simmer for 15 minutes. Drain; then put the hot eggs into a bowl of ice water and let cool for 5-10 minutes. And sure enough, every one of the eggs peeled super easy - I'm shocked. A couple have a sort of dent on the side (I put them on the top in this picture), not sure what that's about, but when I halve the eggs I'll just make sure to put the dented side on the bottom.

Click here to see where I found this - my new method when I need perfectly peeled hard boiled eggs!

Deviled Egg Chicks

DEVILED EGG CHICKS - saw this idea on Pinterest and it's just too cute. These are a HUGE hit!

Make traditional deviled eggs (I make mine by mixing the yolks with mayo, yellow mustard and a dash of brown mustard, salt and white pepper in a food processor until smooth and creamy). To make the chicks: cut the narrow top off the egg (instead of splitting them lengthwise down the middle) and scoop out yolk. Fill with deviled egg filling mounding it up a bit on the bottom part - that's where the eyes and beak will go. Replace the top of the egg that you cut off, add pieces of black olive or black peppercorns for eyes and little bits of carrot for the beak. To keep them standing upright I put a dab of filling under each one to help stabilize it.

Super Bowl Party Planner

My sister is going to a Super Bowl party and asked if I have any suggestions for something she can take - just to force her to read my blog and think about being crafty I'm going to put some thoughts on here and tell her to come check them out :) Here are a few things I have made in the past if you want any ideas:

- cupcakes topped with marshmallow buttercream frosting, tootsie roll footballs, and sprinkles in the colors of the playing teams. To make the frosting I fold marshmallow cream into buttercream - delish. The footballs are flattened tootsie rolls that I cut into football shapes and piped white chocolate laces on. I also added a little green colored frosting for some "grass". I know there is no way she is going to make these, she stopped reading this part at "tootsie roll footballs" I bet. Not hard tho so try them!

- strawberries dipped in chocolate, piped white chocolate to look like football laces.

- deviled eggs with chives on top to look like football laces.

-carve a round watermelon into a helmet shape, fill with fruit.

-a football stadium: layer 3 different dips next to each other (this is cheese dip, guacamole, and spinach dip) in a smaller rectangular dish, top with shredded cheese to divide the "field" and black olives (lined up to represent the players), pipe sour cream for the lines. Put into a larger container and fill around it with assorted crackers, chips, veggies, pretzels, etc.

And finally, a very easy idea is to make some dip (cheese, 7 layer dip, whatever) and put it in a plastic football shaped bowl :)


The menu for our party this year so far is (not counting the munchies hopefully everyone else will bring):
- mini pigs in a blanket (my friend Patty requests these every year) that I make with mini turkey smoky links and crescent roll dough (cut each triangle into 6 or 7 smaller triangles then wrap around the sausage, bake at 350' until golden brown). You can make these ahead of time and freeze, then bake from frozen - it'll just take a few extra minutes in the oven.
- pulled pork I'll make in the crockpot for sliders. This pulled pork recipe is super simple: rub a mixture of lemon pepper, seasoned salt and garlic powder all over a 5 pound pork shoulder butt. I put a crockpot liner in my crock pot for easy clean up and then put the pork, one sliced onion and a bottle of beer in the crockpot on low for 10 - 12 hours. Remove from liquid and shred apart using two forks.
- I saw a recipe for "Touchdown Brownies" on Pinterest (click here) - they are topped with caramel, pretzels and chocolate chips that I think I'll make.  I'm sure they'll be good, what can go wrong with brownies topped with caramel and pretzels - salty and sweet! I will leave out the nuts for Dave who is allergic, and so far I haven't found the football shaped pretzels so will use the extra butter snaps I have left over from making pretzel hugs the other day.

Oh, and I'll use this football runner I made a couple years ago for decorating the table - it's just a long strip of green felt with white electrical tape for the lines, and numbers cut out of a piece of white duct tape sheet (they have sheets of this now in lots of different colors that has a peel off back - cut out the numbers or letters or whatever then peel off the paper backing and stick to your project as needed).

it got wrinkled in the drawer,
hopefully no one notices!

The other thing I will do is print out a football pool/squares thing for the "gamblers" among us - click here for the one I'm using. Have everyone who wants to buy a square (or 5 squares, or 10 squares!) put their initials in one of the white boxes. After the grid is filled in (there are 100 squares), rip up little squares of paper and write 0 thru 9 on them and put in a hat, someone draws the numbers while someone else fills in the 10 gray squares across the top - then put the numbers back in the hat and draw again to fill in the 10 gray side squares. We like to give prizes to whoever has the correct score at first quarter, half time, 3rd quarter and then final score. You could also give prizes for other random stuff just to keep people paying attention to the game - for instance who is going to win the coin toss, how many times they show the cheerleaders, how many beer commercials there will be...whatever you can think up!! Have fun :)