Hard boiled eggs are arriving at the stores more fresh than ever before, and because of this, you may have noticed that when they are hard boiled (or hard cooked as some say) the membrane in the egg tends to stick to the egg white, making the eggs difficult to peel. While fresh eggs are great, this annoyance can make breakfast (or an egg salad lunch) a distressing event. I have been known to lose half an egg just trying to remove the shell. There are, however two simple techniques that will allow you to easily peel hard boiled eggs in a flash, leaving you with perfect looking eggs. The first method makes peeling hard boiled eggs so unbelievably easy that they have become my staple breakfast, and is an incredible time saver

Method 1:
Add a tablespoon or two of baking soda to the water when you boil the eggs. This will increase the pH of the water, making it more alkaline, which will allow the membrane to slip off the cooked albumen (egg white) easily. You can pull the shell right off, or, if you want to make it interesting, crush both ends of the egg, hold it in your hand and blow. The egg will shoot right out of the shell and across the room.

Method 2:
Hard boil the eggs, remove from the water when cooked, and wait until they are room temperature. Do not put them in the refrigerator, just leave them on the counter. Room temperature cooked eggs are much easier to peel than hot or cold ones.

Personally, I prefer the baking soda method because I can’t wait and I like showing people the magic trick of the egg shooting out of its shell, but how you do it is your choice. Now hard boiled eggs are an easy meal!

This may not come as a surprise to anyone, but did you know that you can make popcorn in a microwave? Yes, shocking, I know. But what I dislike about buying bags of prepared popcorn ready to go into the microwave is that they are mostly filled with unpronounceable substances that I would not put in my body given a choice. They are also a ridiculous amount of money for what you get. This afternoon, I went out and bought a bag of regular popcorn for almost nothing. I placed a handful of kernels into a brown paper bag, folded up the top and placed it in my microwave oven for about 2 1/2 minutes. 2 and 1/2 minutes later, I was enjoying a bowl of cheap as dirt popcorn seasoned with my favorite smoked salt. I’m not as surprised at how easy this is as much as I’m blown away by the idea that I hadn’t thought to try this long ago. I’m sure many of you reading this may already know how easy this is, but this was my mini epiphany. Now I can make popcorn flavored with just about anything I like and I don’t have to take out the pot and oil, or pay more than movie popcorn prices for a simple bag of microwaved popcorn. This is, by far, the simplest popcorn recipe I have ever come across and works incredibly well.

There are so many variations of this recipe, sometimes called Tuscan cannellini bean salad (the beans are also referred to as cannelloni beans as well), or white bean salad, and the ingredients are often varied and quite good. This is my version, which, of course, makes it the best. You may see a small bowl of this on the table at good Italian restaurants, and while the most common variation uses parsley instead of basil, I much prefer my version. You will too.

Ingredients:
1 19 oz can of cannellini (cannelloni) beans (or any kind of white bean such as butterbeans)
the juice of 1 lemon (~3 tablespooons)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon pesto (or a handful of basil leaves coarsely chopped)
salt and pepper to taste
A baguette or rustic Italian bread, sliced into small cracker-like shapes

Directions:
1. Rinse the beans under water as, while the liquid they are packed in is quite nutritious, it won’t work well if included in this recipe. Set the beans aside. If you prefer, you can use dried beans that you soak, cook, and prepare yourself, but unless you are comfortable doing so and know how to ensure their tenderness, I recommend canned beans.

2. Add the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and pesto (or basil leaves) to a bowl and stir together. The mix does not have to be a perfect emulsion, just a gentle stir will do.

3. Add the beans and stir it up a bit. I like to crush a few of the beans to thicken the dressing mixture allowing it to adhere better to the beans and giving it some texture. Then add salt and pepper to taste. Eat the whole bowl because you can’t stop after testing the flavor. Go back to step 1 and start over and try not to eat the whole bowl this time.

4. Place a spoonful of the bean salad onto each piece of bread and serve.

I always have pesto around so it is easy for me to use it in this dish, but basil leaves work perfectly well and so does parsley. I may experiment with the decidedly non-Italian cilantro to see how that goes. As I always say, experiment yourself, add other items that interest you, and you may chance upon something that blows you away. As you can see from the picture, I also added a lot more garlic than I indicate in this recipe, and woke up this morning still tasting the garlic, which I rather enjoy. Cooking is as much an art as it is a science, so tweak any of the ingredients or techniques to suit your own taste.

I also put the salad in the refrigerator for a bit which causes the olive oil to thicken somewhat. This helps the salad stay together a bit better and allows some tome for all the flavors to blend. I can easily make an entire dinner from a hunk of bread and a bowl of these beans, which is not just frugal, but also delicious and nutritious.

Chocolate covered strawberries

This simple dessert (or snack) looks like it takes a lot of work, but perfect chocolate covered strawberries can actually be a quick and easy treat. I’d say it took me about 5 minutes or less to make these, and then you should hide them if you will need them later, they are too easy to polish off immediately. The key to saving time is using milk chocolate chips and melting them in a microwave rather than a fancy double boiler.

Ingredients:
strawberries
chocolate chips (milk chocolate is my preference, but use what you like)

Directions:
1. Wash and dry the strawberries. Make sure they are dry as the chocolate will not stick well to them if they are wet.

2. Place the chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 15-30 seconds at a time. In between each cycle, stir with a fork to ensure an even consistency.

3. When the chocolate has melted, hold the strawberries by the leaves and dip in the melted chocolate and slowly rotate. Stirring them around will result in a lumpy chocolate coating, but slowly rotating them once and lifting them out straight up will leave a nice, smooth coating on the strawberries.

4. Place each strawberry on wax paper (or aluminum foil, or a plate that has been greased with butter) to set. The best place for the strawberries to set is in your refrigerator.

5. When the chocolate coating is set, take them somewhere safe and eat them all yourself.

Salsa

Per a request, this is my basic salsa recipe (enjoy this one, Tom). The great thing about salsa is that you can tweak it left and right to make the kind of salsa that suits your taste. Do you like cilantro, add an entire bunch (I do, it’s one of my favorite flavors). Hot or mild, play with the jalapeno to taste. Add a few chipotle peppers if you like it smokey. There are endless ways you can modify this recipe to make something incredible. I’m a huge fan of green salsa made with tomatillos, and I’ve even made salsa with spirits and odd spices. My point is that this is a great basic recipe and I challenge you to make it your own. Your taste buds will thank me.

Ingredients:
3 large tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup red onion
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon green jalapeno chilies
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
The easiest way to make this is to place all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse slowly until all ingredients are chopped but not pureed. I like a thick salsa, so I often add the garlic, lime juice and salt first, pulse (to get the garlic chopped well) then add the remaining ingredients and roughly process.

If you don’t have a food processor, or prefer to not use one, just chop up all the ingredients and mix together in a bowl. It is that easy. Sprinkle with a little dried cilantro, or even thyme or Mexican oregano for garnish.