Because I am Aversive to Dying
 

If a hard-boiled egg cracks when I'm cooking it, can I still use it?

Only if there is no one there to see it crack.

Well, I was a bit busy watching a tree fall in the forest.

Oh my goodness YES.

You never had a hard boiled egg crack when you boiled it??

I don't have any specific evidence that it's safe, other than the fact that I've been eating them that way for over a decade. At least one or two of mine always crack while boiling.

yes. assuming you're not boiling it in a toxic liquid.

Although that said.... my mom and nan always had a special pan for boilng eggs because they reckoned toxins came out of the shells when you boiled them and impregnated the pan so you couldn't use it for other food. i've never been able to find concrete evidence for this belief and I figure if it were true (a) it would be widely known and (b) Paula Deen and Martha Stewart would include egg pans in their product ranges.

I work nights. I don't cook on a regular basis. I make fudge like a pro, and can turn out a masterly omelet, but the simple act of making hard boiled eggs mystifies me. I tried doing it differently than I usually do tonight ... I boiled the water, put the eggs in, turned the water to a simmer and waited 14 minutes, just like the Joy of Cooking said to do. I usually start with cold eggs and cold water and have to pay attention to my magic egg timer thingy in the pot.

I didn't feel like paying attention tonight, and went for the book and the electronic timer.

NO!!!1 . . . It might get water on it!

Its okay unless you're making Easter eggs. Then all that dye seeps into the egg and will kill you if you eat it. :thepain:

OMG, you'll dye! :eek:

And if you don't wanna hard-boil, you'll blow the eggs, too. Next spring.

A bit of advice that I got from my mother : about a teaspoon of vinegar in the water. Works like a charm but you still have to keep an eye on the timer.

Yes.

If you put eggs in a glass of water and they float toss them out, otherwise you should be fine.

I've never heard that Griff. So if they float, they're spoiled? Is that because they've creating a little bubble of gas inside as part of the rotting?

Yeah, they out gas but it is trapped inside the membrane. Floating them is an old dirty hippie trick for those of us who collect eggs and sometimes have an uncooperative hen stashing them in odd places.

In fairness, you are stealing and cooking her fetuses, she's got good reason not to trust you.

Just remind her if she doesn't give up the goods, it's the stewpot for her. :rtfm:

:lol:

Is it something to do with there being traces of chicken poop on the outside of the egg? I've heard that washing eggs can cause the dreaded poop molecules to be soaked through the shell into the egg. I've heard a lot of things, though.

No more poop there than you'd get airborne flushing a toilet. ;)

In fairness to Griff, dirty hippy that he may have been, he was likely stealing her gametes to cook, after she doomed them, fertilized or not, to death (can a gamete die?) from exposure, being in "odd places", ones not covered by a warm hen, for example.

I don't doubt she had good reason for her distrust, though.

Oh no, you've started an abortion thread.

I am really pushing the edge of the envelope. The uncracked, hardcooked eggs have now been in the fridge for 8 days, and I am still eating them.

I will likely finish them tomorrow, on some bread that's past date.

I finished the expired mayo last week, though.

If one of my eggs cracks while boiling it, I just eat that one right away.

Griff, you're a funny one!

I raise chickens and sell their eggs. The following is a little primer about eggs that I give to new customers. Any other egg/chicken questions (except the obvious one)? :D

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/8...loredeggs3.jpg

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3563/eggsizes2.jpg

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/430/eggtrays9.jpg

Quiz: How can you tell a raw egg from a hard boiled egg without cracking it open?

Spin it. If it spins well, it's hard boiled. If it wobbles, it's not.

Awesome info, thanks!

Spin it. While it is spinning, briefly but firmly press your finger on the center of rotation to quickly stop the egg from spinning and *lift your finger from the egg*. If the egg magically begins to spin (slowly) again, you're looking at a raw egg. A hard boiled egg stops completely, but the liquid contents of the raw egg will keep spinning after the shell has been stopped.

ftfy

Glinda, that's a great post!

When I was growing up, our local grocery store offered double yolk eggs. I guess the local egg producer would sort the eggs out and package the double yolk ones together. My mom would always buy the double yolk ones. I bet they were cheaper.

This same egg producer would advertise on tv. I remember the jingle well. "Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh." They sold brown eggs and were trying to make wary consumers understand that they were just fine.

Glinda I wish you lived near us :(
The 'rents won't drive to buy free-range local eggs (reasonable I guess) so the choice is supermarket ones, or local - caged - ones. I fall down on the side of the supermarket ones, all things considered. But I'd LOVE to get those pretty colours and still feel as if I was doing the right thing.

There is a supermarket that sells breed-specific eggs, but it's 8 miles away.
And plenty of local farms, but again within that kind of radius.

If I save an egg carton there's a teacher at school that is happy to pass on eggs from her own coop. I rejoice in that. But they are all brown anyway... How shallow am I?

Aw, you guys knew the spinning trick! :p:

More arcane chicken facts for your Encyclopaedia of Useless Information:

Did you know that hens can crow? No kidding. Happened to me.

My first roo ("cock" for the naughty in the crowd) was a real bastard. Oh, he did his job keeping the girls safe and protected (and properly coited), but he apparently considered me as much of a threat as the hawks and coyotes that live out here in the woods. Came after me all the time.

After two bouts of infection from being spurred by that little fuck, I gave him away. Within about a week of his departure, one of my hens stopped laying eggs and began beating up the other hens. Then, she started crowing! It was a pretty lame crow, to be sure, but by god, that little bitch was turning into a roo!

I had to separate her from the flock, because she had become so mean. She apparently thought she was a roo, and that all the other hens were roos, too, so she had to fight them. And because freaked out hens won't lay eggs, she had to go. Since then (it's been about two years), she's had the run of the yard and sleeps in the greenhouse with Marlon, one of my bantam roos, and they get along just fine. Marlon had to be separated from the flock too, because once the big roo was gone, Marlon started fighting his brother (who was the No. 2 roo) for the top spot.

Now, I have a big, ugly leghorn roo in the chicken yard who does his job and doesn't harass me in the least. (Yay!)

Chickens are weird. :D

Here's a pic of Butch and Marlon hanging out on the front porch:


http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/4365/img0405hy.jpg

Yes, my front door is purple. :cool:

Awesome, just awesome. And thanks Glinda for some great posts. I love learning about your chickens.

Yeah, knowing what I do about how big egg farms work, I could never buy commercially produced eggs and sleep at night. Of course, my neighbors laugh at the way I pamper my birds, but they sure LOVE the eggs they make!

:D Buy your school teacher a few Araucana (Easter Egg birds) pullets next spring and in six months, you'll have the colored eggs you dream of! Do you have a garden? If so, why not get yourself a few pullets (yes, they come in the mail!) and have at it? Chickens don't take up much room at all, they eat just about anything, and they're so interesting to watch - cheap relaxation/meditation plus delicious, pretty eggs!

Thank you and it's my distinct pleasure. I LOVE chickens and promote them, whenever possible. :)

Mom always had chickens when I was a kid, so when I bought my first house with a yard, I ordered chickens before I'd even moved in. The birds arrived four days after I did (yes, in the mail!).

I see that you're in Seattle. If you're even down Vancouver (WA) way, let me know. I'm just a few miles north of there, and would be pleased to show you my cocks...

HA!!!! :D

Everything you always wanted to know about eggs but were afraid to ask.
By Glinda.
:)

STOP!

you boiled them for 14 minutes!!!??

nononono

put the (large) eggs in hot tap water. put them on the stove. watch them. once they begin to boil, 5 minutes = perfect egg (cooked thru with just a dot of liquid yolk) . run cold water into the pot and over flow it , dump water, and run directly under cold. this halts the cooking. 6 minutes for even yellow yolks, 7 minutes if you like them dry and hard. 8 minutes if you're going to dye them. 14 minutes, my god woman. were they green in the middle?

also....

this was funny, monster. unfortunate page placement.

thanks, that page placement about summed up my day....

and I love the chicken info too, thanks, Glinda.

Double yolk eggs used to cost more when I was a kid -they were "luxury" items.

How do you know it's a double-yolk egg without cracking it?

candling

Good grief, that will ice up the cooling coils. If you have a self defrosting refrigerator as most people do, it'll cost you ( pulls number out of ass) 50% more to run.

Srsly? Any self-respecting dwellar knows if you pull a number out of your ass, it's going to be 85%

If I want to buy eggs, I can either go to the village store and buy them there (choice of locally farmed, or cheap and cruel)... or, I just walk up Upper Lane and buy them from the little farm there. If you just want to buy a few for the day, there's a basket of eggs and a pot for coins. It's done on the honour system (couldn't do that in an urban setting I suspect). If you want to buy half a dozen or more, then you just knock on the kitchen door.

Dana, you should "blow" a couple eggs, and leave them in the basket. :lol:

Blowing eggs, is putting a small hole in each end and blowing the egg out of the shell. This leaves an empty shell for decorating at Easter.

Actually, they came out perfect, just like Joy of Cooking said they should.

I do prefer starting with cold water, bringing to a boil with my magic egg timer in with the eggs, but I didn't want to stand and stare at the thing until it was the right amount of blue.

A friend of mine's daughter wants to keep chickens, but I don't think the township will let her. They already have bees, a bunch of rabbits, a guinea pig, and a macaw.

:lol:

I'll see how well we get on in the next few months - at present I think it would creep her out a bit :)
ETA - have just looked up Araucana and found a place that supplies them. I may subtly court Mrs G all through the Spring term so that a present becomes a natural consequence of friendship...
Mum said if she had her time again she'd have kept chickens. They look after them at a number of housesits and she loves them.
They would be wrong for this neighbourhood though - too noisy for our packed-together houses and gardens.

If you didn't keep any roosters, you'd find that a few hens really don't make any noise other than soft clucking...

Griff we really live on top of eachother here. And Mum is hyper-sensitive to noise-making. She even considers windchimes anti-social.

When I win the lottery she can have them.
She's getting a bungalow in a respectable part of town (all one level will be increasingly necessary with Dad's knees). And a gardener, so they have a bit of space witout the worry.

That's right, and you don't need a roo at all. Hens will lay eggs whether or not there's a guy around.

Oh, come on! You know you wanna! :D

That is a pretty low threshold. :)

Depends on the wind, and the chimes. Our chimes are over 2 feet long, and the wind can get up to 50mph gusting to 90 in a bad winter. That's why we keep the windchimes indoors :cool:!

Let's put it this way - I got black looks all day when I had a cold.
Reason? I kept Mum up all night.
That would be the coughing and excessive nose blowing then.
She had to go downstairs and wrap herself in a duvet, and she could STILL hear me.

On the flip side, imagine her pain at living with two people with poor hearing, and having a Dad who is partially deaf. No wonder she lives life of the verge of a scream...

renassiance man.

You've outdone yourself there Sundae.

Maybe you should consider weather sealing.