Category Archives: Eggs

Eggs, Food, pulses, scratch cooking

Quick post about egg replacements…

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Well, the price of eggs is currently rocketing up, and it doesn’t look like they are going to come down for a while.

Now, eggs are marvelous things and it’s nearly impossible to replace them (over easy is my favorite way, and you can’t easily fake those), but for some things, you can use something else.

If you know me, you know I love my pulses. So I will let you know there is something lurking in a can of chick peas/ceci/garbanzo beans/ chana dal (I will never for the life of me know why the shortest names isn’t the one we settled on).

So get your can of ceci. Open it and strain it, SAVING THE LIQUID. That liquid is called ‘aquafaba’ or ‘bean water’. And 3 T of it will replace an egg in baking or cooking. Can you fry it over easy? No. Can you use it as a binder in your meatloaf? Yes. Can you use it in place of your egg bath when breading something? Yes. Can you use it in baking? Yes. Can you use it as an egg wash? Yes- but it will only brown, not get glossy.

Can you make angel food cake with it? Yes- but it will take a LOT of beating. But yes, meringues can be made out of it.

So, for scrambling and frying and dipping toast into, you’d have to splurge on real eggs. But for cornbread or brownies or breaded pork chops, you can use a little bean juice instead. And ceci just has no real color or flavor, so it works very well. It also freezes, so you can just pop a serving out when you need it.

And what to do with those beans (peas) that are leftover? Well, other than making hummus (who doesn’t love hummus?) I’m going to share with you a ceci salad and a ceci ‘scramble’— both good ways to eat them that are slightly eggy in their own way.

So get a medium sized fry pan and cook

      1/8 of an onion, diced

            1T oil

For about 3-5 minutes. Add

            2 cloves garlic minced

Cook about 1 minute. Add

1 cup ceci

            ¼ tsp turmeric

            Salt and black pepper

Mash and heat through. Add

            Pinch cayenne

            1 tsp lemon juice

1 ½ tsp parsley, minced

Serve it up. A bowl of that is a large breakfast and a great way to get your pulses in.

And a ceci salad that is decent on crackers or as a sandwich filling:

2 cups ceci (about 1 can), slightly mashed

1 dill pickle, minced (or pickle of your choice)

¼ cup red onion, diced

Mix those in a bowl. Dress with a mixture of these, and serve.

            2T mayo (use vegan if you are)

            2 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tsp prepared mustard

            ¼ tsp each salt and pepper

1/8 tsp turmeric

That’s that. Of course, trade out ingredients you hate or don’t have, but the turmeric does help the color and flavor. I made the salad the other day, so I have a photo of that.  

And here is hoping the prices go back down…

Eggs, Food, Pia, scratch cooking, Uncategorized

My Mom’s Potato Salad

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When my mom was a young mother in the 50’s, she spent a lot of time cooking and making up recipes. One of her meals was a potato salad that was a little different from the common one of the time, and a steak marinade.

The potato salad? At a grill out, I made a huge batch of it. One of the guests who tried it then brought *every new guest* over to it telling them to eat it, because it was so good.

I don’t think it’s *that* good, but it is extremely tasty. It’s a kind of bland plain 50’s potato salad (no pickles, no celery, no mustard, yes eggs) with Bacon added.

Y’see, my mom had married a kid of German descent, and her Mother in Law made the traditional hot potato salad that has bacon in it.  My mom looked at it and said ‘that would be good in plain potato salad’. And it is. I mean, how could it not be? So, it’s a plain, fatty potato salad with bacon. And eggs. Yeah. You eat it because it’s fatty. Mmmmmmm, fat….

All summer long, she’d make her steak and this potato salad, and even though she died a few years ago, I get to feel like we are home again when I make them.


I recently was asked if I’d be willing to share my mom’s steak marinade, and since I was making it for today anyway, I figured why not. And then I can’t picture the steak without this salad, so you have both! And like that woman who had her fudge recipe on her tombstone for all to enjoy, I know my mom would love to live on in other people’s cooking. Even if they change it to fit their tastes, like she changed recipes to fit her. So go ahead, add the pickle and celery and whatever else you think would work. I have actually in the past *drained the bacon grease* into the salad as well.

You did good, mom. <3 you and miss you.

Go here for Pia’s Steak.

For this you need

I use my Instant Pot and do my potatoes and eggs at the same time. Makes it harder to get salt in the potatoes, but harder to mess up.

4 cups of potatoes- salted, boiled, cooled, diced

2 hard boiled eggs- boiled, peeled, and diced (I do both of these in the instant pot. These were small so they got 7 minutes. I then peeled then, diced them and salted them.

1 finely chopped onion (about 1 cup of onion.)

1 tsp salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

5 sliced cooked diced bacon (I used three extra thick slices and drained them this time)

~1 cup mayo (add more if you like it gooey. I do.)

And the proof this dates to the 1950’s, after all the above is mixed well, paprika! It’s not just to decorate it. A nice hot paprika adds nice flavor to it.

And there you have it.

Pia’s steak, her potato salad and sauteed spinach. Dinner was silent because no one wanted to stop eating…
Eggs, Food, health, pulses, weight loss, weight loss

Make Your Own Beans or Ful Medames

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This morning I stepped on the scale and the number had gone up instead of down or staying in place. I had had nothing planned for dinner tonight (late on menu planning) so I have decided to make what our son lovingly called ‘make your own beans’ when he was a toddler. It’s basically an ancient recipe and possibly one if the oldest street foods, so I have been told. All it is is beans, cooked, served with seasonings- traditionally salt, olive oil, garlic and pepper.

Variations include cooking eggs in their shells with the beans and adding onion skins or coffee to the cooking liquor. We’ve decided that coffee makes the best ful for us, so that’s what I now use. 🙂 I also prefer darker beans for this recipe, as it’s dependent on the beans for flavor.

So I am going to start with three cups of these dark red beans (about a pound) in the pressure cooker. This would feed four people, if they like beans.

Then I nestle six eggs in the beans.

And then I add about a cup of brewed coffee and a quart of water. If I were using anything other than my Instant Pot, I would add more water and watch it more. I have made this in the slow cooker, on the range and in the oven. I have not yet tried it in the ashes of a campfire, but I really want to. 🙂

And that is it. Cool until the beans are done. I have all day and the pot will take under an hour. Other cooking versions take different times. The next step will come at serving, so by the magic of the internet…

Here are the beans, done and able to be crushed by the back of a spoon.

They will sit like that until serving time. Which is now. 🙂 We have sourdough bread, salt, oil, pepper and fresh garlic.

You can mash it together and serve like hummus. Make it into a wrap. Serve as a side dish. Skip the egg. Add tomato, chili, parsley, any seasoning you want. It’s a simple, healthy, filling meal that should be on rotation in any home that loves pulses.