What the Devilled Eggs?

Making devilled eggs was much faster with leftover Easter eggs than it was starting with raw eggs. I made devilled eggs a couple weeks ago for a munch-n-mingle after church. I devilled a dozen eggs and only got to eat half of one. I’ve been wanting to make some more ever since.

I tried something new today. It didn’t turn out as well as the eggs I devilled for church, but it’s pretty good. The sliced olives looked like they were going to be fancy, but they were a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping to chop up some sun-dried tomatoes into my eggs, but I guess we’re out. It’s not something we use often enough to keep it stocked.

Tamara made egg salad last night. I hadn’t really realized how similar that was to devilled eggs: mostly just a little more chopping and a little less paprika.

Normally I dump the mixed yolks into a Ziploc freezer bag and squeeze the yolks back into the eggs like frosting, but today I used a cookie scoop. The frosting-like method works better (if you beat the yolks completely smooth and use a large nozze), but the cookie scoop was more convenient.I just had to pat the yolks down with the back of the scoop afterward to make them look halfway decent.

Homemade Pop Tart Adventure FTW!!

 

I was reading Lifehacker.com the other day and there was a post about how much better homemade pop tarts are than the store bought variety. Of course I wanted to make some right away but I don’t have time for that just any day during the semester. I’ve been intending to make them any day ever since. The article I read, which ultimately had come from the New York Times or something, had recommended making frangipane to fill the pop tarts. That sounded really good, but it turns out that I don’t just keep almond paste or any such thing around the house normally, so that wasn’t an option.

Fortunately, I remembered my love of dates. Grampa Slim had given me a nice big box of dates and I don’t use them nearly so often as I would like. I thought date pop tarts would be just the thing. I used 16 dates, no recipe, a cup of water and a cup of sugar with some heat and a bean mashing tool. The next thing I knew, I had a smooth, yet chunky date filling ready to go. I won’t tell you how good it was because I’m trying to be modest. (Maybe I’m failing to be modest, but just think how bad I could be without even trying!)

I made the pastry according to the recipe I found, mostly. I didn’t refrigerate the dough or take any suggested precautions to make sure it turned out well. I thought it turned out pretty well anyway. They don’t look professional by any means, but these were made for eating, not selling. I documented the process with my camera phone. I plan to put up the recipe on the recipe blog soon and insert the link here.

Update: Recipe posted.
Robertson Family Chefs
Turner Family Recipes