Adventures of a Girl Who Can't Cook

Today’s conquest was egg salad.  The recipe came from Gooseberry Patch’s Homestyle in a Hurry.  I was excited to try this one because, a) I really like egg salad and b) how hard could it be to hard boil eggs?  (Let’s ignore the fact that I’m 26 and had never hard-boiled an egg, shall we?)

So, first step was to figure out how to cook the eggs.  I had the general idea…boil them, right?  I consulted the resources.  According to Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedia Cookbook (which has an astounding amount of information in it) and this website, you aren’t actually supposed to boil the eggs at all.  Ok.  I assume all of these people know what they’re talking about so I go with it.  Maybe it’s me, or maybe it’s them, but not boiling the eggs didn’t work out so well.  For starters, they were really difficult to peel.  This could also be due to the fact that older eggs are easier to peel.  Good to know for next time.  Additionally, the yolk was definitely not done.  I’d already cooled the eggs down by the time I discovered this so I began to wonder if I could re-cook the eggs I hadn’t yet peeled.  According to Yahoo, yes.  Well, that still didn’t work.

The hubby called to tell me he was on his way home and I informed him that there would be no egg salad.  Not to be daunted, he picked up another dozen eggs so we could give it another go.  His solution was to ignore the experts and boil the eggs for about 20 minutes.  Good job, Hubby!  It worked!

It took me forever to chop the eggs up, but that’s just me.  After two dozen eggs, we came up with an excellent egg salad.  Yum!

As a side note, this one’s dedicated to Grandma.  The whole time I worked on this I kept thinking about all the Easters we spent coloring eggs at her house.  I love you Grandma and hope the doctors can make you feel better.

I’ve decided to try making at least one new dish a week.  This week’s new dish was enchiladas!  The recipe came from Gooseberry Patch’s Comfort Foods.

I made my grocery list and headed off to the store.  Produce is in the front of the store so I decided to get my onion first.  There, I ran into my first problem.  What’s the difference between white and yellow onions?  I had no clue, so I chose a white onion.  When I returned home I consulted the internet.  If anyone is as clueless as I am, here’s your answer:

Yellow onions are usually used for cooking because when cooked they “add excellent flavor.”  The article went on to say that when a recipe calls for an onion, it usually means yellow. …well, crud.

But wait!  As I read farther the article also said, “White onions are commonly used in Mexican cuisines.”  Score!

Here’s the link if you’d like to read about red onions as well.

I think the actual process of making the enchiladas still took me longer than necessary (I took forever to chop the onions.  Maybe I need a slap chop.) but the outcome was good!  According to the hubby it’s the best dish I’ve ever made…not that there have been many.  Now on to bigger and better things!