Poached Eggs: Cheap, Fast, and Easy to Cook

First things first, eggs have their critics but ignore them right now because poached eggs are a good thing to know how to cook.  And poached eggs are a great thing to have in your family menu plan. 

They are cheap.  They are easy. And poached eggs can be used in so many ways: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Here’s the thing:  they can be hard to do.  Some say.  I haven’t had a big problem – but I do a couple of things that help.  First, I never think I am so clever at cooking that I can just dump an egg into the water.  I always use a little cup to gently lower the egg into the pool.  One at a time.  Slowly.

Also, I don’t let the water boil … I let the water get just … about … to boiling, then the eggs go into the bath. 

And, I’ve done it without vinegar.  It will work if you don’t have vinegar handy.  (I’ve also used rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar, whatever was in the pantry, and things turned out fine.  You so have a taste difference, but that’s not a bad thing.)

Here’s the deal.  Eggs are cheap. Poaching means no fat to cook them.  And the runny centers are KEY to how these things can spark up a salad or a sandwich. 

For more:

Here’s step by step instructions on poaching.

Here’s a recipe for a great salad using poached eggs.

As for sandwiches, I like a runny sandwich (wet, to coin a famous author of murder mysteries).  I like to take great bread, homegrown tomatoes, thinly sliced cheese, some dijon mustard or yes some Miracle Whip or both, lotsa romaine lettuce, and get all that ready for a poached egg to set on top.  Smush together.  The egg oozes.  It’s hot, it’s oh so good.  And doesn’t cost much. 

Yum. 

Is Candy Spelling The Ultimate Simplifier? Maybe. Sorta. Kinda.

I don’t watch reality television much, but I surfed by this show yesterday – a repeat of HGTV’s Selling Spelling Manor. 

Wow.  Aaron Spelling’s monster mansion – Spelling Manor – has been sold by his widow and she’s moving to a Century City condo and getting rid of an amazing amount of stuff.  Anyone downsizing or who has downsized can find something with which to identify here. 

Admittedly, there’s much to be said that all of this is the Anti-Simplicity lifestyle.  True, so true.

However, this woman has undertaken a major life change and she’s gone through all those same pangs other simplifiers have:  letting go of the vase that has memories but needs to be tossed; boxing stuff for donation; giving away things that you’ve discovered in the attic stash to someone who’ll love them. 

Look, this country is in a depression and we all know it even if so many are too afraid to use the word.  Is it the Greater Depression?  I don’t think we know yet.

However, when so many are having to scale back and scale down, maybe knowing that Aaron Spelling’s widow Candy has vacated Spelling Manor to live in a condo the size of her former attic may help them feel they are not alone.

Just don’t ask about the slabs of pink Italian onyx going into the kitchen or the private swimming pool being built on the 42nd floor. 

Happy week, Dear Reader! 

Happy 2012: Where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light….

Dear Reader, welcome to a blog that I’ve been writing since January 2005, some years with more dedication than others.  I’m hoping that I’ll keep to a better writing schedule here this year than last, fingers crossed.   Did I make this as a New Year’s Resolution?  Not really. 

I did take the time to count my many blessings as one year passed into another, and thanked God for them.  The big and the small.  One of the things that I thanked God for blessing me with was this blog and the ability to write it, the simple life I’m living, and you, Dear Reader, who sometimes leave comments or sending emails to me.  The internet is amazing, isn’t it?  People connecting who would otherwise never meet.

I’m not Catholic.  However, I do appreciate a lot about the Catholic Church and one of those things is the Catholic observance of the New Year.  Here’s a discussion of how Catholic families all over the world celebrated New Year’s Day yesterday.  Thought I’d share this prayer from St. Francis of Assisi, which I find particularly beautiful.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

R. Amen. —St. Francis of Assisi

God bless you and yours, Dear Reader.