Christy – Page 33

How to Cook White Rice and a Crockpot Chicken Adobo Recipe

White rice is a staple in many cultures. At our house full of part-Filipinos, it is an essential accompaniment to this version of our favorite Filipino dish, crockpot chicken adobo, which is featured today at Stacy Makes Cents Fix and Forget Friday.

Learning how to cook white rice is so simple, you’ll never buy instant rice again!

How to Cook White Rice

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups white rice
2 cups water or stock

Directions

Combine water and rice in a medium stockpot.
Bring the rice to a rolling boil.
Give it a quick stir, cover, and turn down to low.
Cook, covered, for 15 minutes without peeking! Do. Not. Peek.
After 15 minutes, shut the stove off. Don’t peek! Leave the rice covered for another 10 minutes—no peekie!
Your rice is done. Fluff it, scoop it, or shape it with a measuring cup.

You may notice that some rice brands and methods of cooking result in a stickier rice. Cultures that use fingers or chopsticks to eat their rice want the nice stick-togetherness that this recipe will provide.

No-measure tip: My Filipino grandfather-in-law always had a pot of rice on the stove, and let me tell you, Filipinos know how to cook white rice. Instead of measuring, he combined the rice and water in the pot, adding enough water so that when he touched the top of the rice with his finger, the water reached the nearest knuckle.

For a true Filipino experience, top your white rice with my family’s Crockpot Chicken Adobo, our version of a popular Filipino dish, which is featured over at Stacy Makes Cents. Your rice will thank you.

Click here for the Crockpot Chicken Adobo Recipe.

Here’s the printable recipe for how to cook white rice:

How to Cook White Rice

Recipe Type: Side dish

Author: Christy, The Simple Homemaker

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Cooking white rice is so simple, you’ll never resort to instant rice again.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups white rice
2 cups water or stock

Instructions

Combine water and rice in a medium stockpot.
Bring the rice to a rolling boil.
Give it a quick stir, cover, and turn down to low.
Cook, covered, for 15 minutes without peeking! Do. Not. Peek.
After 15 minutes, shut the stove off. Do not peek! Leave the rice covered for another 10 minutes—no peekie!
Your rice is done. Fluff it, scoop it, or shape it with a measuring cup.

Notes

No-measure tip: My Filipino grandfather-in-law always had a pot of rice on the stove. Instead of measuring, he combined the rice and water in the pot, adding enough water so that when he touched the top of the rice with his finger, the water reached the nearest knuckle.

10 Ways to Use Leftover Hard-Boiled Eggs

Eggs have a natural protective coating that keeps the inside of the egg fresh despite the porous nature of the shell. When you boil hard-boiled eggs, you wash the protective coating off the shell, taking away nature’s preservative.

If properly refrigerated, hard-boiled eggs are generally considered edible for a week after they are boiled. (No need for confessions here about how long any of us actually let those eggs go!) That gives you an incredibly short amount of time to use up the 9 dozen eggs you boiled for Easter.

Here are 10 ways to use up the eggs before they go bad. Some are common, others are unique. The combination will keep your family from saying “Eggs?! Again?!!!”

10 Ways to Use Leftover Hard-Boiled Eggs

Eat them as is…sort of: hard-boiled eggs make a great quick breakfast, easy lunch addition, or protein-rich snack. They are less boring if you use your mama powers to transform them into an adorable family of chicks or regal egg penguins.

Sliced on salads: a salad bar with sliced fruits, veggies, seeds, and hard-boiled egg slices makes a great lunch or light dinner.

Top soups: slice them and use them to top soups such as saimin, our personal favorite “fast food” noodle soup from Hawaii. Many saimin recipes call for scrambling the eggs, but we noticed that the locals slice hard-boiled eggs and drop them on top.

Potato salad: use as an add-in for potato salad. There are about 3 million different recipes for potato salad, so choose your favorite or check out this impressive list of potato salad recipes from Idaho, where they know potatoes!

Deviled eggs (or stuffed eggs): try this deviled eggs recipe or the accompanying tutorial for these darling chicks if you’re feeling creative.

Add-ins: chop the eggs and add them to just about anything, from a breakfast bake to a noodle casserole.

Egg salad: this basic recipe for egg salad also lists numerous variations as well as an egg salad quesadilla.

Scotch eggs: If you’ve never eaten these Scottish sausage-wrapped eggs, you’ve never…well…eaten them. If you’re intimidated by the traditional deep-fried Scotch eggs, try this recipe for baked Scotch eggs.

Make meatloaf: Huh? Okay, so this Filipino style meatloaf is not exactly quick and simple, but it is Filipino, and I married a Filipino, and, seriously, meatloaf with hard boiled eggs in it? Um, yum! You at least have to take a look. (You can vary the recipe if you don’t like raisins and sweet relish in your loaf, but why not be adventurous!)

Make cookies: here is a modernized approach to making Lezindoich or lemon dough cookies if you don’t have a ricer to rice the eggs. Fear not—it’s simple! Here are a few more hard-boiled egg cookie recipes, like oatmeal and chocolate. Mmmm.

And a bonus use–Target practice: if you can’t manage to eat up all the eggs before they’ve expired, send the kiddos into the woods to toss them at a tree. The critters will thank you.

What is your favorite way to use up leftover hard-boiled eggs?

Recipe for Egg Salad–From Basic to Fancy

I have a huge soft spot in my heart (and stomach) for egg salad sandwiches. Whenever I would go on an outing as a child or young adult with my grandmother, my grandfather would pack us egg salad sandwiches on wheat bread with lettuce, cut into rectangles, not triangles. I love them to this day…my grandparents and egg salad.

Enjoy this basic recipe for egg salad, along with several options for add-ins and serving variations. Please share your favorite add-ins or variations in the comments below.

Recipe for Egg Salad

Ingredients

8 hard-boiled eggs (figure two eggs per person)
1/2 cup mayo (or to your preference)
salt and pepper to taste
any of the optional add-ins or serving variations below

Directions

Peel eggs and toss into a bowl.(Read How To Boil an Egg and Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs for perfect eggs—easy to peel and a beautiful color.)

Chop or mash the eggs, based on your preference.

Add mayonnaise one spoonful at a time to your desired creaminess.

Salt and pepper to taste. Add your add-in of choice, if any. (We usually add a squirt or two of mustard.) Combine.

Serve as is or on bread, a bagel, or in a tortilla. We usually serve ours on this simple homemade bread.

Optional add-ins

mustard
chopped onion
chopped celery
chopped bacon
tuna
curry powder
chopped ham
pepperoncini or your pepper of choice
thawed, cold peas
See the comments for more!

Optional sandwich serving variations

lettuce
tomato
bacon
sprouts
avocado slices
sliced cucumbers
tortillas
your favorite bread
bagels

I recently heard of a creative cook spreading egg salad on one half of a tortilla, adding cheese, folding it in half, and heating it on a griddle—egg salad quesadilla! Olé!

What are your favorite add-ins or variations for this basic recipe for egg salad? Curious minds (and hungry stomachs) want to know!

Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs

Few kitchen tasks make a person feel more inferior than the often bewildering process of peeling hard-boiled eggs.

Here are some save-the-day (or at least save-the-egg) tips for a clean, easy peel (almost) every time:

Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs: The Prep

Boil the eggs properly. To learn how, read How to Boil an Egg: Making Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs. There are other recipes which have you boiling for even less time, which is fine, but do not boil longer!

Do not use fresh eggs. If you are using supermarket eggs, don’t worry about it. They’re not fresh. If you have your own chickens and ultra-fresh eggs, store the eggs for a couple weeks before boiling.

Plunge the eggs into ice water to cool as soon as you’re done making them. You may need to add more ice as the water warms up. The ice causes the egg itself to contract, thus separating the egg from the membrane and shell…but you knew that, because you totally paid attention in science class, didn’t you?

Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs: The Process

There are two main successful approaches to peeling hard-boiled eggs:

Crack the larger end with the air bubble in it where the membrane is most separated from the egg. Get in under the membrane and start sliding the shell off with your fingers.

Crack both ends. Then roll the egg between your palm and a hard surface until the entire shell is cracked. (Gently! You’re a 100+ pound human being. It’s just a wee little egg.) Slide the shell off.

There is a third approach, but I hesitate to mention it. Okay, fine, here it is.

Randomly crack the egg and pick little bits of shell off while muttering your egg-peeling frustrations under your breath…but you already know that approach, which is why you’re here reading about peeling hard-boiled eggs.

Give the egg a quick rinse and your beautiful masterpiece is ready to…smash into egg salad.

What are your best tips for peeling hard-boiled eggs?

Thanks to reader Theresa for submitting this question. If you have a question you would like The Simple Homemaker to answer, submit it through my contact page. I would love to hear from you!

How to Boil an Egg: Making Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs

Today I am honored to have as a guest blogger, my lovely daughter Hannah.

It’s almost Easter! And one of the most popular signs of Easter is the Easter egg. So I’m here to tell you how to make the best hard boiled-eggs ever!

You know what I mean by “the best”? I mean a perfect bright-yellow-yolk-minus-the weird-green-color, easy-to-peel, and superbly delicious hard-boiled egg.

How to Boil an Egg: Making Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs

What you need:

A pot and cover
Eggs–as many as you want, as long as they fit in the pot with some room to spare.
Water
A stove
A timer
A good book

How to boil an egg:

First, put the eggs in the pot and cover them completely with cool water. Set the pot on the stove.

Turn the stove on high; as high as it will go, its absolute highest, and wait for the water to come to a roaring boil. (When I say roaring boil, I don’t mean a few little bubbles at the bottom of the pot. I mean roaring, so that someone else can hear it from the next room.)

When it comes to a roaring boil, set the timer for three minutes. Then wait.

After the three minutes is up, turn off the stove, put the cover on the pot, and set the timer for seven more minutes. (Leave the pot on the burner!)

Then wait. Again.

When that time is up, take the eggs off the stove and rinse them in cold water. Sometimes I get lazy and just use room temperature water. That works too. (My mother, The Simple Homemaker, cools them in ice water.)

That’s it! Yep, you heard me correctly. You’re all done!

You can peel and eat them right away, or you can store them in the fridge. (It’s probably best to eat them within a week, but it’s a popular breakfast and snack in our house, so we have no trouble with that.)

So that, my friends, is how to boil an egg, the perfect hard-boiled egg.

It was cheap, it was simple, and it only took about ten minutes.

Here’s the boring printable version:

How to Boil an Egg: Making Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs

Author: Hannah

Prep time: 1 min

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 11 mins

The perfect hard-boiled eggs.

Ingredients

A pot and cover
Eggs–as many as you want, as long as they fit in the pot with some room to spare.
Water
A stove
A timer
A good book

Instructions

Put the eggs in the pot and cover them completely with water.
Set it on the stove.
Turn the stove on high and wait for the water to come to a roaring boil.
When it comes to a roaring boil, set the timer for three minutes. Then wait.
After the three minutes is up, turn off the stove, put the cover on the pot, and set the timer for seven more minutes. (Leave the pot on the burner.)
Then wait. Again.
When that time is up, take the eggs off of the stove and rinse them in cold water or plunge them in ice water until cool.

Notes

Eat within a week.

For easy peeling, read Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs.

Enjoy your perfect hard-boiled eggs! Happy Easter!

Hannah is my firstborn daughter. She was a “roadschooled” 15-year-old at the time of this writing, 2012. Now she is a budding photographer and a freelance writer who loves experimenting in the kitchen and cooking for people on restricted diets. She is currently working on a chocolate cookbook for people who can’t eat sugar, grains, dairy, or soy. Hannah makes all the hard-boiled eggs here at The Simple Home…the good eggs, anyway. She emphatically denies any accountability for yesterday’s batch of less-than-perfect eggs made by a certain someone (a-hem…her mother) who did not follow the above directions.

Free Online Quilting Class and How To Know If You Should Take on a New Project

I have wanted to quilt for…well, if I tell you for how long, you’ll probably do the math and figure out how old I am, and the unwritten, unbreakable code of illogical female behavior states that 39-year-old women must under no circumstances reveal their ages, so let’s just say I’ve wanted to quilt for a long time, and so have my girls. It’s finally time to begin quilting!

Since I am obviously about returning to the basics, simplifying, and decluttering, you may be wondering why I have decided to take on something new, which leads to an interesting question.

How does a person know if adding a project such as quilting (or crocheting or scrapbooking or making jewelry or refinishing furniture or…) in this season of life is appropriate? Ask yourself these questions, and if you have solid, realistic answers, you pass!

How to Know If You Should Take on a New Project

Have you decluttered all nonessential expectations, projects, and clutter? If you’re barely keeping your head above water, now is not the time to add more weight. There will be a time…it just isn’t now. Personally, I have whittled my life queue down to the basics and can take on one project with my children. (One project, not 100.)

Will you be sacrificing family time or personal sanity? Because we incorporate handicrafts into our schooling, quilting will fit neatly. My older children can learn with me, while the younger set can work on related skills their siblings have already mastered. Plus, I always find a way for littles to help and learn.

Is it realistic within your current skill set? This is a simple quilting class and a simple learning platform. In our case, our sewing skills are such that advancing to quilting is a logical next step, as opposed to trying to take on a large project without the previous ability to thread a needle or a machine. My four older children know how to sew and have tackled smaller projects, so all of us working together on one quilt—no problem!

Is this a beneficial use of your time? In other words, is it better than what you would otherwise be pursuing? Regarding quilting, it’s never a waste of time to teach children a life skill. Plus I’m cold, so making a big warm blanket is ideal!

Does it fit your budget, location, and schedule? Our quilting lessons are free, online, and at our convenience. The materials are also free, since we have scraps and fabric at our disposal from all those unfinished projects from my previous life as The Complicated Home Clutterer (The Simple Homemaker’s arch-nemesis).

What?! Free?!! You betcha! Here’s the info:

Free Online Quilting Class

Craftsy, the largest online crafting community (at least that I’m aware of) has a free online block of the month quilting class. The classes can be viewed at your convenience, with two blocks taught per month for ten months. The last two months are dedicated to putting the quilt together, so you’re not stuck with what would essentially amount to 20 placemats. Amy, the instructor (isn’t she cute?!) is fantastic and available for questions, and the price (free) is perfect!

Click here to check out the free quilting class!

Cheap Craft Supplies and Classes

Craftsy also sells discounted craft supplies…I mean seriously discounted. If you have an Etsy or other business, want your quilt to look exactly like the Craftsy instructor’s, or simply love to knit, make jewelry, sew, (insert your favorite craft here), check out Craftsy’s online prices for fat quarters, organic yarn, and more. Sign up to be notified of the deal of the day, or just browse. (I don’t receive a commission for what you buy, just so you know.)

There are also numerous other beginner, intermediate, and advanced online classes that Craftsy offers, each taught by professionals in the field. What?! No, you’re not too old! Our friend Jan the Pepper Jam Lady just learned how to do glass fusing and now sells her work…and she’s in her 80s!

See what I’m talking about by clicking here.

Cheap and Free Patterns

Craftsy’s newest addition is a pattern marketplace through which pattern designers can sell their patterns. Because Craftsy does not charge the designers to market their patterns, prices are ridiculously low and sometimes free. I like free.

Click here to check it out.

Joining Craftsy is free, too.

If your life is decluttered enough that you can comfortably add a class or project, if you need a more affordable source for craft supplies, or if you simply want to join a crafting community, Craftsy is calling your name. Seriously, I can hear it.

If your life is cluttered, hectic, and overscheduled, put down your mouse and walk away. No, better yet, run!

Do you craft?

3 Tips on How to Stop a Run in Nylon Stockings

The kids were already climbing into the van to hit the road for an early morning set of my husband’s concerts when I realized my nylons had a snag. Not just a snag, a run. Not just a run, the Grand Canyon racing down my thigh. With no time to spare, I could not change. I had about 20 seconds to implement Plan B: repair.

How to Stop a Run in Nylon Stockings

Nail polish–this is the old tried and true. Dab a little nail polish on the area around the run to keep it from spreading. Let it dry. Voila! Clear is preferred, but if all you have is red and the run is on your ankle, why not paint on a flower! (Unfortunately for me, I don’t have nail polish.)

Hair spray–another old favorite. Spray the area around the run. Let it dry, repeat. Depending on the mammoth proportions of the run, you may need to use about as much hairspray as a locker room full of teenage girl in the late 80s. (Unfortunately for me, the only mild hairspray I had in the house would be no match for the Civil War going on with my panty hose.)

Jam–dab a little jam on the area and gently wipe off the excess. Tear off a small piece of tissue or napkin to place on the jam, if you like, to keep it from getting on your skirt while it dries. Any sticky substance will work, as long as it will dry. (Peanut butter won’t dry, people! School glue will.) If your body heat keeps the jam slightly sticky, the tissue will make that a non-issue.

My jammed nylons survived two of my husband’s concerts, three hours in the van, an hour of set-up and take-down, and two extra hours of socializing and child tending. Sweet–in more ways than one!

What is your best tip for how to stop a run in nylon stockings?

Thanks to Blue Velvet Vintage for the great vintage stocking ad!