…and without a KitchenAid mixer, electric beater, or even a mechanical eggbeater. Yep, it is possible to whip up egg whites by hand, just be prepared to put in a little elbow grease.

After making lemon-lime curd with 5 egg yolks, I couldn’t let those egg whites go to waste, and meringues sounded lovely. So I pulled out the whisk, and started to work. Let me tell you, it is quite a bit of work to beat egg whites by hand, but I think it was worth it. The meringues turned out light and airy and a mere five egg whites turned into two full cookie sheets of meringues. My oven temperature needs a little perfecting, as they browned just a little more than I would have liked (se picture below), but they got eaten up quickly anyway. My husband was a big fan, especially since gluten-free cookies like meringues are the only cookies can eat.

As usual, I pulled together a recipe from various sources around food blogs. Instead of the usual vanilla, I opted for a little almond extract, which turned out to be a good choice. And you know, there’s all sorts of fancy techniques out there, like straining the egg whites, aging the egg whites in a bowl in the fridge, rubbing the bowl with a lemon, squirting the meringues out of a pastry bag, and I skipped all of them, and these turned out just fine. (And to tell you the truth, I even just eyeballed the sugar, so I’m estimating the measurement here. I really recommend just using your judgment, especially when it’s not crucial to the chemistry of the recipe, as there’s no better way to hone your skills in the kitchen, or at least to end up with food YOU want to eat.)

Meringues

• 6 Egg Whites
• 1/2 C. Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon Almond or Vanilla extract

Start by whipping the egg whites. If you do this by hand, be prepared to whisk for about 20-30 minutes. I’m not sure how long it will take in a mixer, but whip until they are stiff. I found that if I stopped whisking, the egg whites began to separate out again, so I really had to keep going. Add the sugar and flavoring and keep beating or whisking until the sugar is dissolved. Spoon (or pipe) onto a cookie sheet lined with a silpat (or parchment paper), and bake in a low oven (220 degrees) for an hour and a half or more, until the meringues have dried out.

For more traditional, pure white meringues, this recipe looks good. Let me know if you try it!

Lemon curd is a fantastic idea. Sweet, tart, and a beautiful rich yellow color make it highly appealing, and I figured homemade could only surpass expectations. Well it did, and it’s sure tasty. The only problem is, I don’t really have a good use for it. It’s wildy delicious when licked off the end of a spoon, but spread it on bread? No thanks, too sweet. Perhaps I need to find a good shortbread recipe or cake to use it as the filling for. As it is, I made it a couple weeks ago and have barely touched the stuff. And they say to only keep it for three weeks or so, so I better figure it out quick.

The basic ingredients, eggs, butter, sugar, lemon, will spoil without the preservatives added to supermarket-bound varieties.

When choosing a recipe, I came across several that asked for whole eggs, and several just egg yolks. All used plenty of butter and sugar, and both juice and zest of lemons. As I had lemons, limes, AND and orange on my counter, I went with the zest from all three, and juice from the first two only. The orange juice didn’t seem tart enough. Also, as lemon curd is a British phenomenon, most of the recipes out there are in metric measurements. Mostly out of the sheer laziness of not wanting to convert from metric, I went with Alton Brown’s recipe, with some variations from various other sources.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with it!

Lemon-Lime (and Orange) Curd

• 5 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 1/3 C. sour citrus juice, plus zest
• 1 stick butter, cut into pats and chilled

Mix egg yolks, sugar, and citrus juice and zest in a blender. When combined, pour mixture into a small pan and heat over low heat, whisking constantly, until it turns light yellow and coats the back of the spoon. Remove from heat and whisk in the pats of butter one at a time. Throw it in a clean jar and cover the top with a layer of plastic wrap directly touching the curd.

Voila! Delicious stuff that I don’t know what to do with!

I’ve always thought of Eggs in a Nest as the dish where you cut a hole in a piece of bread and fry an egg in the center of it, but I recently found this version, which is a family dish of delicious leafy greens, with poached eggs nested in them. I found it in Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which chronicles her family’s year of growing and eating local food. It’s a fabulous, poignant, funny, and informative book, and if you haven’t read it, you should grab a copy. It includes recipes appropriate to every season’s harvest, and this one is for the spring when roots and seeds and beans are not yet mature, but leafy greens are popping up all over.

As usual, I modified the recipe in a few ways, you can find the original here (alas, Kingsolver and her family didn’t seem to get a picture either in the dim winter light). I halved the recipe since it was just for my husband and myself, and I didn’t fancy poached eggs going into the refrigerator for leftovers. I also used what I had on hand, such as dinosaur kale, and, I hate to admit, a little ketchup in lieu of dried tomatoes. The result, however, was outstanding; healthy, flavorful, low-fat, and very filling. I highly recommend trying your OWN version of this recipe.

Eggs in a Nest

2 T. olive oil
1 medium onion
2-3 cloves of garlic, smashed with the flat of a large knife
2 carrotts, sliced into rounds
1 bunch kale or other dark cooking green, washed and chopped
1/4 C. or so of water
salt and pepper to taste
4 eggs

Saute the onions and garlic in the olive oil in a large skillet or pot until translucent. Add carrots, and continue to saute for a few more minutes. Add kale, and enough water to have a little bit of liquid pooling on the bottom of the pan. Cover. When the greens are soft, make 4 depressions in the vegetable mixture for the eggs. If there is not enough liquid to poach the eggs, add a little more water. Drop eggs in each depression, being careful not to crack the yolks. Cover until eggs are done to your liking, 3-5 minutes.

I’ve had a craving for tea eggs ever since this little tea house that I used to go to to study in college closed down. Lucy’s used to serve rice plates that included a drink for like 4.99, an incredible steal, even 10 years ago, and the plate always included a hot tea egg.

Little did I know how simple these are to make. I found a few recipes online, but this one in particular from Nook & Pantry appealed to me for it’s simplicity, as it’s really just 4 ingredients.

Tea Eggs

a dozen eggs
3-5 T. dark soy sauce (like Shoyu)
a small handful of loose black tea, or two tea bags
one star anise (optional)

Boil the eggs for 5 or 6 minutes to harden them. Pull them out of the water to cool. When they are cool enough to handle, use the back of a spoon to crack all the shells thoroughly, but without peeling the eggs. The more cracks you get, the more the flavors will seep in, and the nicer your spiderweb pattern on the egg inside will look. Put the cracked eggs with their shells on back in to the water and add all the other ingredients.

Simmer as long as you have time for, 1 hour at a minimum, or 3 or 4 if you have time. The longer they simmer the more flavorful the eggs will be. Add water to cover the eggs as the water boils off.

When they are cool, strain the solids out of the tea brew and store the eggs in the brew to allow the flavors to continue to mingle.

You can peel the eggs at this point to allow them to absorb more of the brew as they sit in the fridge, but you’ll lose the spider-web designs on them.