Some People Say, “I Love You.” I Say, “Do You Want Me To Make Deviled Eggs?”

Treats, ready to be dispensed to my in house OCGP.

My husband is many things, but chief among them is “Official Culinary Guinea Pig.” The OCGP, as I like to call him, is a highly useful creature in our home, if for nothing else other than to reassure me that whatever I’ve whipped up is sufficiently tasty. Or, at least, won’t poison anyone. If you don’t have an OCGP in your household, I highly recommend you find one post haste. It doesn’t have to be a significant other either, and in fact, many people prefer their OCGPs to not have such finely tuned sarcasm meters, like mine does. In this case, dogs are great substitutes. Never use teenagers (I find their feedback data to be highly suspect).

Now, to convince said husband to continue being my OCGP, I occasionally have to feed him treats. And if there is one thing he goes nuts for, it’s deviled eggs. Don’t ask me why. For some reason, this 1950s appetizer staple is bribe enough that I can usually get away with feeding him all sorts of different experiments for long stretches of time, and if he ever balks at trying something, my canned response is usually, “Well, if you don’t like it, I’ll just make you some deviled eggs.”

Of course, his answer is almost always, “Will you make me deviled eggs, anyway?” and I usually cave and say yes, because, hey, I love him, and I like to keep my OCGP happy at all times.

And because, if there’s one thing the world needs, it’s another deviled egg recipe. Try this one out on your OCGP and let me know how it goes:

INGREDIENTS:

12 hard boiled eggs*

1/4 cup Greek yogurt

1/4 cup dijon mustard (I love stone ground)

handful of fresh, chopped dill (roughly equivalent to 1/4 cup, or 2 tbsp dried)

4 hot and sweet pickle chips, finely diced + 2 tbsp juice

1-2 tbsp Old Bay seasoning (it’s not just for seafood!)

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp ground mustard

Salt and pepper to taste

Paprika, for dusting

MOVE INTO ACTION:

This may seem obvious, but make sure you’re starting with cooled, hard-boiled eggs.*

Split all eggs lengthwise, dividing the whites and yolks into two identical halves. Scoop out the yolks into a medium mixing bowl and let the egg white cups hang out on a plate until they’re ready to fill.

In a medium mixing bowl, mash the yolks until it resembles very small bread crumbs. Add the finely diced pickles, dill, and all the dry seasonings (Old Bay, ground mustard, salt & pepper). Mix with a fork until thoroughly combined – not only does this look rather pretty, but it ensures that the flavor and spice is distributed evenly, with no uneven pockets of flavor. Add yogurt, dijon (or stone ground) mustard, and Worcestershire. Mix well and gradually add pickle juice until you reach the desired consistency (it should be thick, but creamy and smooth).

ESSENTIAL SKILLS:

*BOIL THE PERFECT EGG

You know what sucks? Gray yolks. They taste rubbery, they look gross, and no one wants to eat gray food. Friends do not let friends overboil eggs into an inedible rubber ball. Oh, you don’t like hardboiled eggs? I guarantee it’s because you think all eggs, regardless of cooking method, turn out this way. You are a sad, distrustful human, and I am here to reinvigorate your faith in culinary humanity. Or something.

First, you need a LARGE pot for boiling water. For a dozen eggs, I like using a 12 quart stockpot (convenient math – 1 egg per quart. This is the only math I know how to do).

Place the eggs gently (as opposed to roughly) int he bottom of the saute pan and cover with cool water. Make sure you fill the stockpot a good 3/4 of the way (don’t just barely cover the eggs). You want enough room for them to roll around and swim without bumping into each other.

Heavily salt the water to season and add roughly 1/3 cup of distilled white vinegar. I still haven’t quite figured out the black magic of the vinegar yet, but all I know is that ever since I started using it to boil eggs, the whites have been more flavorful.

Place the stockpot on the stove over high heat. Step away from the water. Remember, a watch pot never boils (well, it does but it takes forever, it’s really boring, and there has got to be a glass of wine or a cheese plate somewhere with your name on it).

At some point in the future (usually about 10-15 minutes, depending on how much water you have and how high “high heat” is on your stove), the water will boil. HOORAY! Now for the hard part. TURN OFF THE DAMN HEAT. Wait, what?

“Bu…bu…but the salmonella! The bacteria! Raw eggs are poison! THE CHILDREN! OH WHY WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!”

Relax, Chicken Little (ha…chicken references. See what I did there?), it’s going to be okay. Turn off the heat, cover the stockpot with a lid, set a timer for 15 minutes and walk away. The water will retain enough heat to thoroughly cook/hard boil the eggs without turning them into Superballs.  Once the alarm goes off, transfer the entire (full) stockpot to the sink and run cold water over your little grenades of protein until they are cool to touch.

For best slicing/mashing results, I transfer the eggs back into their container and into the fridge until I am ready to devil them (at least an hour or two).

EASY PEASY SHELL REMOVAL

You’re on your own. I don’t know any sorcery (YET) to make this a painless process. Someone, please enlighten me on this one.

HOW TO MAKE A GHETTO PASTRY BAG:

1. Get a Ziploc sandwich bag.

2. Scoop the yolk mixture into the bag.

3. Squeeze all the air out of the bag, and twist so that all the yolk is gathered into one of the bottom tips, then snip the tip.

4. Snip according to how big of an opening you want (this will control how much yolk comes out and the finished look really impresses people, for some reason).

5. For deviled eggs, 1/4″ snip is a good way to go

BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED ACTION

Pipe the yolks into your deliciousness delivery system (aka egg whites) and dust with paprika. Stand back to admire your work before it is devoured by your friends and family.

An Overview of Being Vegetarian

I miss eating meat. Like, really, really miss it. Not the taste, or the lack of strange looks whenever I order anything, or the joy of hearing the sizzle of it on the grill. I miss the simple experience of being able to go into a restaurant and not have to play twenty questions with the waiter about what does or does not have meat in it. I also get the puzzled “pug watching TV” look from anyone with whom I am about to share a meal.

Now, many people get confused (translation: 99% of my fellow Americans lose their FUCKING MINDS) when I tell them I’m vegetarian. Here, in brief, is a rundown of the sadly hilarious and pathetically commonplace questions and/or remarks that I usually get:

1. But what if you’re at a barbeque?

2. So, you still eat chicken, right?

3. There are a ton of vegetarian options at this restaurant – just look at all the fish selections!

4. How do you ever feel full?

5. So are you, like, one of those tree hugger hippies that works for PETA?

6. I could never do that; I don’t get how you survive. Meat is delicious!

7. Isn’t that against your religion? (Also, from the religious: Haven’t you read Genesis? God WANTS us to eat animals!)

8. How do you ever get enough protein?

9. If you were stranded on a desert island and there weren’t any plants, and you could only eat animals, what would you do?

10. But WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

Now, I know all of you out there have never asked any of these questions, but just in case you have (or have less than tactful friends who inflict these questions on others), please allow me to answer:

1. There are these magical things called vegetables, almost all of which can be grilled. Not cucumber, though. That just sucks. I’ll even rub my veggies with the same spice blend that goes on pork, beef, or chicken. Meat has not cornered the market on spice rubs.

2. Chicken is meat. Just because it’s a white meat, doesn’t make it any less of an animal product. Unless it’s McDonald’s chicken nuggets. Still not convinced that those are made of any kind of meat known to man.

3. Show me a fish tree and we’ll agree that it’s a vegetarian option. Otherwise, nope, still meat.

4. You didn’t pay much attention in biology, did you? Vegetables do not disappear in the digestive tract, or vanish the moment they hit the stomach. I get full the same way everyone else does: eating until my stomach says, “Yep. I think we’re good here.”

5. No. PETA only dislikes me marginally less than you because I still eat cheese (and on a rare occasion, eggs).

6. Agreed, meat is delicious. I even got my husband a t-shirt that says: “Meat is murder! Tasty, tasty murder.” I don’t eat meat anymore because my choices are either:

(a) Eat delicious meat and be in horrible pain; or,

(b) Eat delicious vegetables and frolic happily like a baby deer in the wood.

7. No. There is no commandment that says, “Thou shalt eat everything on Ye Old McDonald’s farm.” For those that read the Bible, let’s turn to Genesis 1:28-30, shall we?

“God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.”

First of all, if God is anything, he seems to be a vegetarian himself, since he told humankind that every plant with seeds and every tree with fruit was there for us to eat. Then he said that he left the green stuff to the critters. HE DID NOT TELL US TO EAT THE CRITTERS (and seriously, isn’t that kind of a douchey thing for us to do, anyway? I mean, if God made the animals, we’re kinda destroying his stuff. Not cool). And before you tell me that I’m wrong because Genesis 1:28 tells us that Gold commanded that we “subdue the earth,” Merriam, Webster, and friggin’ Oxford do not use the word “kill” in the definition of “subdue.” The definition of subdue is to overcome or bring under control. Still not pleasant, but it doesn’t necessarily command the drawing of blood. Jesus.

8. Nuts, beans, sprouted grains, quinoa, lentils, hemp, tofu, tempeh, and literally every. single. plant. in. nature. There are small amounts of protein in quite literally everything we eat. The reason why most people eat meat as the preferred delivery system of protein is because there is a higher concentration of protein ounce for ounce. What most Americans don’t realize is that, because of our meat centric diet, we actually consume much, much more protein than our body really needs to work efficiently. And meat is addictively delicious.

9. Fucking seriously? Why does everyone use this question like it’s a trump card? Because, how in the blue hell are the animals surviving on this deserted island without plants, anyway? Are they all carnivorous and eat each other? Then how do they breed? How are they not extinct? And if they are by some horrifyingly monstrous quirk of nature all carnivorous, well, I guess they’re getting some prime human flesh, because it just sounds way too stressful to try and survive in that environment. And messy.

10. Because my ongoing health requires it. Period.

Now, go forth and spread the good news!