How to Peel Hard Boiled Eggs...It's Never Been Easier!

Right before Easter, I saw a post on Huffington Post about how to perfectly peel a hard boiled egg.  The video showed the egg being shaken in a glass of water.

Anytime I see a kitchen hack, I'm skeptical.  So many of them simply don't work.  Is your spaghetti water foaming too much and boiling over?  Don't put a wooden spoon on top of the pot.  It doesn't work.  Do your hands smell of onion after slicing one?  Don't touch them to a stainless sink.  They'll still be smelly.  You get the idea.

I did try this shortcut though because with Easter coming, I knew I'd need to peel eggs for deviling.  I wanted my job to be as easy as possible.  To start, I hard boiled the oldest eggs in my refrigerator.  Fresh eggs are harder to peel.

After the eggs were hard boiled and cooled enough to handle, I put one in a lidded container with about an inch of water.  Sure enough, I shook it vigorously and the shell popped right off in the water.

Peeling hard boiled eggs has never been easier!  Here's my egg popping right out of its shell.

I repeated the process with three eggs in the container.  The shells cracked and came off in one piece when I peeled at them.  They were not floating loosely in the water.  Of all the eggs I peeled using this method, I only found any shell on one egg.  A shard of shell had stuck into the egg white.  If I had not inspected each egg, I would not have noticed but it would've been an unpleasant surprise to whoever ate the deviled egg later.

Bottom line: this technique works!  Don't crowd the eggs in a container.  They need to be able to shift freely.  Inspect the eggs after to make sure no shards stick into the eggs.  Biting into egg shell is the worst.

Food.com Recipe Test: Sliced Baked Potatoes

I keep calling these "Pinterest Potatoes" because I keep seeing them pinned.  They're not difficult to make--just baked potatoes with thin slices about three-quarters of the way through.  But they're so good.

I had a few extra Yukon gold potatoes that I wanted to use up, so I decided to take the Pinterest plunge.  The last time I made something from Pinterest, I hated it.  Cheeseburger Soup is never a good idea.

I Googled a quick sliced baked potato recipe and the top one was written by Karen Anne Newton and posted to Food.com.  I followed it relatively closely--slicing the potatoes, drizzling with butter, and baking at 425 degrees.  Here is Karen's recipe:

http://www.food.com/recipe/sliced-baked-potatoes-286965

The two differences--before I sliced the potatoes, I sprayed them on all sides with non-stick canola oil spray then sprinkled them with salt and pepper on all sides.  This really gives the skin extra flavor.  Next change: I really like crispy potato skin.  So I broiled for the final 10 minutes.  I also omitted the cheese from my potato (still minimizing the amount of dairy I consume, so the butter was enough!)

Fresh out of the oven, the potatoes had that perfectly crispy skin.

The final product--bacon on both, and sour cream and cheese added to my husband's potato.

Insider tips: 
-Definitely sprinkle the skin with salt and pepper beforehand.  I prefer sprinkling it to rolling the potato so it isn't too salty.

-Use an old pan.  The non-stick spray in the bottom of the pan, as well as the salt-pepper blend that falls off the potato tend to burn and blacken.  I keep a few old pans for tasks like this that I know won't be pretty.

-Don't sweat when you slice the potato and there isn't noticeable space between the cuts.  As the potato bakes, it will open up a little bit.

-And definitely broil the potatoes at the end.

This technique just upgraded the boring baked potato to something fun looking and better tasting!

Restaurant Review: Blaze Pizza

"It's the Chipotle of pizza, right?"  That's what one of my friends asked me when I mentioned I'd been to Blaze over the weekend.  He was absolutely correct.  Blaze is a chain that prides itself on "fast-fire'd custom built artisanal pizzas."  In Indy, it's located near IUPUI and has a blend of hipster-approved Radiohead and Hinds (formerly Deers) playing.  It's loud and looks like a Chipotle or Qdoba, but with pizza.  You walk down the line and select the things you want.

Why Blaze?  I miss pizza.  I'm trying very hard to eat as close to a dairy-free diet as possible.  I Googled vegan pizza and Blaze and WB appeared to be my options in Indy.  WB was about 30 minutes away.  Blaze was a walk, bike ride, or quick car trip away.

We arrived at Blaze at around noon on Saturday and the place was packed.  The wait was short though to move down the line.  They're very efficient.  The first choice is a standard or gluten-free pizza crust.  Next, a choice of pizza sauces--standard red, spicy, or white.  Then the cheese--a variety of really nice options ranging including mozzarella, goat cheese, and vegan cheese (for an upcharge).  I'd love to have gone for the goat cheese.  But I selected the vegan cheese.  I noticed that they've thought this through--as a person who worked at Domino's in high school, I know that the toppings and cheese get mixed in the little wells during a busy shift.  Little bits of cheese are in the pepperoni.  Little bits of green pepper get in the onions.  The vegan cheese was neatly covered with a lid, protected from its animal-ingredient neighbors.  It was a nice touch.  Well done.

After selecting a cheese, the staff either prepares your pie by some of their suggested combinations, such as "Art Lover" with artichokes, ricotta, garlic, and mozzarella cheese or "Simple Pie" (it's just cheeses).  Prices vary based on whether you want a Simple Pie ($5.00), one topping ($5.95), house menu pie ($7.25), or to build your own ($7.25 plus any upcharges).  The upcharges I noticed were gluten-free crust (+$2.00) and vegan cheese (+$1.00).  When they say build your own, they mean it.  There are seven cheese options, six meats, and eighteen veggies (technically seventeen since one is pineapple).  Papa John's gets weird when you start adding seven or more toppings.  They talk you out of it since they say the pizza will be soggy.  No one at Blaze tries to talk you out of indulging.  I was particularly happy when no one batted an eye when I ordered a vegan cheese pizza then promptly added bacon and pepperoni.  Props.  I then added green peppers, green olives, black olives, and mushrooms.

After you select your veggies, they ask if you'd like oregano or sea salt.  I opted for oregano.  If you get the vegan cheese, get salt.  Or both.  The vegan cheese left me wanting just a pinch.

Next up, they pop it in an oven with a big fire inside and shuffle it around.  My husband was a little jealous--my pizza had more charred edges than his pepperoni pizza.  After 180 seconds in the oven, they take it out, chop it into six slices, and top it with arugula, olive oil, BBQ sauce, or pesto if you ask.

Our pizzas in this oven baking for just three minutes.

We sat at a hi-top table with metal stools.  The pizza wasn't bad.  A little thin and greasy for my taste, but I was so happy to have pizza that I was pleased.  My husband's pepperoni needed some blotting with napkins.  After this, and meals in the last year at Pizzology and Napolese, I've decided that I'm over the thin artisan style pizzas.  I want some doughy crust to sink my teeth into at this point instead of all these thin, trendy pizzas with charred edges.

My vegan cheese pizza.  All the toppings were tasty.  The vegan cheese needed a little salt.

Bottom line: great options.  You can get all the pricey stuff--goat cheese, pesto, bacon, arugula--for the low price of $7.25.  You can't leave McDonalds for that price anymore or have something nearly as fresh or with as many fantastic options.  But if you want some crust to hold up all those ingredients, this isn't it.  This is like a Neapolitan style crust, but less puffy.  You can't fold it or hold it with one hand because it's too floppy.

If they had a thicker crust option, I'd be here every day.  Until then, I'll probably be back when I'm too lazy to drive up to WB to try their pizza with vegan cheese.

Restaurant Review: Verdict is still out on China Bistro in Greenwood

Every once and awhile, I leave the I-465 loop in Indianapolis.  Granted, it's not often.  Pretty much everything in my life is inside this circle around the city, so there's no need.  Today, I found myself on a work-related trip to Greenwood.  On my way back towards the city, I decided to try China Bistro.  Right now, the link to their website appears to be broken, but maybe they'll fix it soon.  Why China Bistro?  Recently, I was craving squid.  Not the typical Italian restaurant, fresh from the freezer bag of calamari rings.  The kind of calamari that is chewy, grilled or fried, and where you actually taste the squid.  I'm particularly fond of Asian preparations.  I searched Google for it, and found just a handful of restaurants with it.  China Bistro was one of them.

I drove past China Bistro at first, looking for a stand alone restaurant or something in a nice, mixed use space.  Instead, it's smack upside Walmart in a really generic strip mall.  It's kind of sad since inside, you find something much nicer than "Walmart" and "strip mall."

The China Bistro space is expansive.  There's a huge chandelier in the entry.  The main dining room has many booths and tables and decorative vases on shelves with lights.  The space is relaxing and comfortable.  It was much more than I expected from strip mall Chinese.  One Yelp reviewer named Joseph nailed it when he wrote that China Bistro "is much too nice of establishment to be located where it sits."  My favorite spot in SoBro to grab a Chinese lunch, Bamboo House, is the kind of place where you'd rather eat in the car.  The dining room is dirty and usually stacked with boxes.  The restrooms are downright scary.  It's definitely a take out kind of place.  But the food makes it all worth it.  China Bistro puts that interior to shame.

Entry at China Bistro.  You weren't expecting this in a strip mall by Walmart, were you?

But anyway.  The China Bistro menu is expansive and varied, with Thai entrees like Tom Yum soup and Japanese fare like seaweed salad.  I ordered tea, seaweed salad, and the salt and pepper calamari.  The server came by after I was seated, and without asking for a drink order or any pleasantries, just looked at me and said "you know what you want?"  So perhaps they sacrifice some of the chit chat for efficiency.

The tea was loose leaf tea in a large pot.  The seaweed salad was a generous portion, fresh, glistening with sesame oil, and icy cold.  All as expected.  Served quickly.

Seaweed salad and tea.

The salt and pepper calamari didn't hit the spot I needed today though.  The little nuggets, with the occasional piece of tentacle chopped up and mixed in, were soggy and heavy.  Also dark, like perhaps it was time to change the frying oil.  While not as light and crispy as a great preparation, it tasted authentic.  It wasn't anything that came from a bag in the freezer.  So I do give credit where credit is due for that.  And it was on a pretty paper doily.  Usually I expect a lighter coating, with visible black pepper.  There was no discernible pepper.  And no photo of it on my phone when I got home.  Oops.

Recently, I gave Formosa Buffet a shot on the northside.  While the food wasn't anything amazing, their salt and pepper calamari was spot on.  It was light and crispy, with the visible pepper.

And an on point fortune.

The total for my one-person lunch of tea, seaweed salad, and appetizer portion of salt and pepper calamari was $14.05 before a sufficient tip exceeding 15 percent (but not overly generous given the shortness.)

The bottom line: gorgeous spot to eat Chinese.  But curt service and soggy calamari left me wanting more on this visit.  I'd give it a second chance though, just not for the calamari.  It's not often I eat Chinese in a spot so aesthetically appealing.  This is a Chinese place you could take a date.  There aren't a lot of those in Indy.  Verdict is still out on the food though.

Cooking Light recipe test: Pork Chops with Balsamic Roasted Vegetables and Gorgonzola

I'll save you the suspense: this recipe is definitely a keeper.

I love pork chop recipes, but after the Chef John Smothered Pork Chops, I was a little gun shy.  I have my own way of making pork chops learned while working at Gourmet Grazing for a summer in Prospect, Kentucky.  They're impossible to beat.  Interestingly enough, the Chef John chops were just named the top pork chop recipe by Allrecipies.  For this reason, I feel compelled to unsubscribe from Allrecipes.com emails.  Allrecipes is for people with really basic palates and poor cooking skills.  Their top recipes are basic recipes that lack interesting ingredients, a deft hand, and artistic presentation.  I picture them as nursing home food.  I'm routinely disappointed by the recipes I find there.

Anyway, so I saw this recipe on Cooking Light.  After a lot of winter hibernation, I could use some lightening up.  It didn't disappoint.  The veggies came out delightfully sweet in that balsamic way with just a little of the tasty char from modification of the cooking instructions.  The Gorgonzola was the perfect amount of tangy creaminess.

Here's the original recipe:
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/pork-chops-balsamic-roasted-vegetables

I followed the original recipe for all the ingredients and quantities.  To marinate the veggies, after all the slicing I put them in plasticware, drizzled with the balsamic mixture, then shook the container vigorously.  The veggies were evenly coated quickly and efficiently.  Then I left them in the fridge for a few hours this way to let the flavors meld.

Place veggies in plasticware.  Drizzle with balsamic mixture.

Now seal.  Check for a tight seal twice.  Then shake vigorously.  You'll end up with evenly coated veggies like this.

Potatoes browned, veggies in.  I recommend hitting broil instead of baking at 425.  After about 10 minutes, the veggies had perfectly charred edges.  I think those are the key to tasty roasted veggies.

After the 10 minutes on broil, I added the pork chops and left the oven at broil.  This gave the pork chops some nice charred edges, too.  I watched the chops and removed them once the golden broiling marks appeared.

The final product was a hit at my house.  I went light on the Gorgonzola for my portion since I try to minimize the dairy I consume.  You can sprinkle more generously like my husband's portion if you crave cheesy creaminess.

Pork Chops with Balsamic Roasted Vegetables and Gorgonzola

Bottom line: make this recipe as soon as possible.  You won't regret it.

Insider tip: broil to yield more crispy edge, charred veggies.  That's the good stuff.

Allrecipes Recipe Test: Andy's Spicy Green Chile Pork

Everyone loves tacos.  What everyone doesn't love is working a full day, working out, then trying to cook a perfect dinner at 9:00 p.m.  Enter tacos from your Crockpot.  When my Allrecipes daily email included Andy's Spicy Green Chile Pork, touted as a quick and easy way to make tasty pork tacos, I knew I had to try this one out.

Here's the original recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/andys-spicy-green-chile-pork/

While at Walmart, I picked up the simple ingredient list: pork shoulder roast, tortillas, green salsa, two serrano peppers, cilantro, and an onion.  The recipe called for a white onion, but I used a red onion.  I like red onions better.  I also picked up some cumin since I was out, even though it wasn't on the ingredient list, and some pico de gallo to top the tacos before serving.  Some of the comments to the recipe suggested adding some cumin.  The total cost was just under $12.00.  Thankfully it was inexpensive because (spoiler alert) it wasn't good.

How easy is this?  You probably have garlic salt and pepper, so you'll just need five ingredients, then your choice of how to serve--tortillas, rice, or something else--and toppings if you choose to serve as tacos.

The recipe was insanely easy:

1) Line Crockpot (I added this step).  Makes for easier clean up.

2) Chop the onion.  I also chopped the serrano pepper into thin rounds but removed the seeds.  Per the recipe, it may have called for the peppers to be dropped in whole to infuse.  I couldn't tell.  I like it hot though, so I thinly sliced both peppers.

3) Remove cilantro leaves from the stems.  I find the stems really unappealing.  See this blog entry.

4) At this point, I put the onion, serrano peppers, and cilantro in a tupperware and stored in the refrigerator overnight so I could literally dump everything in the Crockpot in the morning.

Ingredients all chopped and ready to go in the refrigerator.

5) In the morning, I poured the onion-pepper-cilantro mix into my lined Crockpot.  Then I added the pork shoulder roast (I left the strings holding it together on to hold in moisture as it cooks), seasoned with garlic salt and cracked black pepper on both sides.

Line the bottom of the Crockpot with the veggies.

Place the shoulder roast on top.  Season with garlic salt and black pepper.  Flip and season the other side.

6) Last, I added the can of green salsa and dusted the whole thing with cumin.

I purchased the smallest jar of green salsa.  If you're going to use the sauce, or want lots of salsa verde flavor, consider using a larger container.

7) I set the timer on the Crockpot for 8.5 hours and let it cook on the low heat setting.

When I came home from work, I could smell subtle flavors of pork cooking but nothing too spicy.  I opened the Crockpot and cut away the butcher twine.  I also regretted leaving it on since some of the salsa and spices stuck to it.  The pork instantly melted.  When I went to separate it with forks, it pretty much disintegrated.  At first, I thought it was the most tender pork I'd ever seen.  Then I reconsidered...it was too soft!  Even with the two serranos chopped up in the mix, it was not spicy.  Just minimum hints of the salsa verde.

Cutting the butcher's twine off the roast.

Finished product in the Crockpot.  A lot of soft, mush pork.

I warmed the tortillas, chopped a third serrano pepper into thin rings, plucked more cilantro from its stems, and assembled the tacos.  Mine were tortilla, pork, cilantro, and pico de gallo.  Greg's included tortilla, pork, cilantro, cheese, pico, and sour cream.

It almost looks pretty dressed up with the pico, serrano peppers, and cilantro.

I tried to be open minded, but it just wasn't good.  The pork might as well have been ground pork because it was so mushy.  Or old person food.  Or cat food.  The flavor was fine--subtle pork with a little zip from the pico and serrano peppers.  Without the pico or peppers, I wouldn't have been able to eat it.

It's gross--absolute mush!  Kind of the texture of canned tuna.

It was slightly more tolerable without the tortilla--just a few bites of meat on a plate with pico, cilantro, and serrano peppers.

A little better without the tortilla.  But still mushy.

Admittedly, I'm confused.  The Allrecipes reviews are almost completely good.  Either everyone likes mushy food or something went wrong with this.  I'd consider making it again, but roasting it to try to get some firm edges and soft pork in the middle.  The flavor was pleasant enough--subtle--but nothing to warrant all the four and five star reviews.  That or I've developed a really discerning palate!

Insider tip: don't make this.  Or make it in the oven so you can keep an eye on it after browning the outside and getting some really roasted edges.  Or make it if you lost your dentures.

Cooking Light Recipe Test: Nor-Cal Veggie Sandwich with Hazelnut Butter

Here's another food I saw on Instagram and instantly wanted.  It's a vegetarian sandwich.  While I'm not vegetarian, I appreciate a meatless meal.  I usually feel less weighed down and in need of a nap without the meat.

How amazingly fresh does this look?  I was suckered in by the pretty picture.

As it turns out, this should be called the $30.00 PITA sandwich.  Whether it was worth it is certainly debatable for me.  The ingredients sent me on a scavenger hunt around Indianapolis.  The sandwich was a considerable amount of work and it was very expensive to make.  I may be a foodie at heart, but by the time I finished all this, I think I just wanted a meatball sandwich from Subway.

Nevertheless, here's the original recipe:
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/nor-cal-veggie-sandwich

And here's the journey it took to get to the finished sandwich.

It all started with finding hazelnut butter.  While I was in the grocery section at Target, I checked just in case.  They had almond and peanut butter, but no hazelnut butter.  I wasn't surprised though, so I called Fresh Market (no, and was hung up on in the process) and Whole Foods (also no).  I could order it on Amazon for about $14.00, but then I'd have to pay that much and wait for it to be shipped.  I decided to follow the instructions in the recipe to make my own.

The next time I was at Marsh, I tried to buy hazelnuts.  They didn't have them.  So off to Fresh Market.  I purchased .7 lbs of pre-packed hazelnuts and artichokes for about $14.00.  But Fresh Market didn't have sprouts.  So off to Whole Foods for the rest of the ingredients--another $15.00.  And a fun adventure through pillaged aisles since there was snow coming that night.

Evidently the first thing they run out of at Whole Foods before a blizzard isn't milk, bread, or eggs...it's bagged salad!

I also ended up swapping sweet pea shoots for the radish sprouts since my husband isn't a big fan of sprouts--he thinks they feel like hair in his food.  The stems are slightly wider than radish sprouts.

Four stores later, I had the ingredients (finally), it was time to begin.  A little online reading turned up a useful nugget of info: if you're not used to natural nut butters, leaving the skins on hazelnuts can make the final butter too bitter for your palate.  And toasting the hazelnuts imparts a nice flavor.  With that info, I started to peel the hazelnuts.  It was impossible.  The skins refused to move.  More online reading turned up this tip: boil the hazelnuts for a few minutes with a few tablespoons of baking soda.  This worked well.  The skins released easily afterwards.

If you use the boiling water with baking soda method to remove your hazelnut skins, don't be concerned when the water, your pot, and your utensils turn black.  It left ashy residue on everything.  Here are some of my hazelnuts taking a bath in boiling baking soda water so I could peel them.

After peeling the hazelnuts, I toasted them for about 15 minutes at 350.  They had a nice golden color.

After they cooled, I added them to my blender and proceeded.  The final product using a blender was not as smooth of a butter as I prefer.  It wasn't a terrible texture, but it wasn't creamy.  It definitely tasted more "natural."  The flavor itself was fine.  If I do this again, I'll use less mayo,  I'll either use a tiny bit, or perhaps just a drizzle of oil.  I noticed the mayo too much for my taste.  Definitely don't forget to salt the butter.  I tasted before and after, and liked it much better after some salt.

The final product using .7 lbs. of hazelnuts was a softball-sized glob of hazelnut butter.

I let the hazelnut butter sit overnight--at that point I'd done enough work!  I also used the artichokes for double duty--made Moroccan chicken with charmoula that night and served the artichoke as the vegetable.  My husband had never eaten artichoke petals before, so it was an adventure for him.  I kept the hearts for the next day.

Double duty artichokes: dinner the night before included the petals.

The next day was sandwich day.  I began by pan frying slices of the artichoke hearts in the olive oil as instructed.  I ate one slice and really liked it--I never realized how yummy artichoke hearts become with some crispy, golden brown edges!  Then I assembled the sandwiches--the hazelnut butter, golden artichoke heart, dressed arugula, avocado, and pea shoots subbed for the sprouts--on Silver Farms Squirrelly sprouted bread.  I served with a side of veggie chips since sandwiches and chips just go together.

My sandwich, served with veggie chips.

Close up of the side of the sandwich.

The final product was alright.  I would've liked this sandwich a lot more open faced.  The delicate veggies got a little lost with that much bread.  I figured this out halfway in.  Beyond this too much bread issue, the sandwich was nutty and fresh but nothing special.  I think I probably enjoy a sandwich or wrap with cucumbers, sprouts, some bell peppers, olives, and some pesto or chipotle mayo more because there's more crunch and moisture.  I'm glad I tried this...and now I have leftover hazelnut butter for breakfast, sprouted bread for toast, arugula for salad, and pea shoots for something yet to be determined.  But overall, it was a lot of work for a sandwich that was just okay.

If I make it again and do some modifications, I'll update this review.  But for now, I think my next sandwich will be something more straightforward.

Insider tip: buy the hazelnut butter.  And call your grocery to make sure it has all the ingredients, or you'll be on a grocery scavenger hunt for awhile.