…EGG SALAD!
Yes, evidently if my family had their ‘druthers, all our sandwiches would be decked out in egg salad. Now, many moms would give pause if asked to prepare egg salad for a crowd on a regular basis. I mean, even with one of these
I know, old school, eh?
who wants to do all that choppin’ by hand? And really, if you do it with just a fork you end up with over-mushed yolks and under-chopped random-sized white chunks. Not good, especially with kids who are sensitive not only to taste, smell and appearance, but also size, uniformity and texture when it comes to food.
And that’s just the eggs! I vividly remember the first time I served up an egg salad sandwich to my husband. Eager for his praise, I asked how he liked it. "Why isn’t there anything else in it?" was all he offered. Like what? I wanted to know. "You know…crunchy stuff. Celery. Onions. My mom puts all that stuff in her egg salad sandwiches." Ouch. The Mother-In-Law card. How could I ever live up to HIS MOM’S egg salad cookery? I couldn’t, and didn’t. Until yesterday, all my egg salad sandwiches had in ’em was eggs, mayonnaise and a bit of S&P (if you’re lucky and not under the age of 7).
But then Cuisinart sent me their egg salad recipe (Download egg_salad.pdf), and I decided to experiment with it on my own family (insert evil scientist laugh: bwaahaahaahaahaa!). Egg slicer in hand, I prepared to begin the experiment:
Uh-oh, wait a minute…no egg slicer in the recipe. No. I am soooooo not going to chop a hard-boiled egg (read: slippery round object) with a sharp chef’s knife. Ohhh…wait a minute…keep reading through the recipe…chop the eggs in the food processor! EUREKA! It’s ingenious! It’s a one-bowl (and a dishwasher safe bowl at that) recipe for egg salad, including "crunchy stuff". Will wonders never cease?
Well…you get the picture. Acutally, you really DO get the picture…here’s one:
My "helper" was a bit over-zealous with the pulse button, so our egg ended up chopped a little too much…step AWAY from the pulse button…
And here’s a before and after of "the spread":
…it was a make-your-own-sandwich-lover’s dream! And every mom’s dream, too. Instead of hearing things like:
"Ewww…I don’t like meat", or
"Why is this orange?", or
"Gross! I don’t want this!",
I had the unbelievable good fortune of serving a dinner (other than takeout) and hearing:
"Can I have some more?"
Ahhh…bliss. Now if only I could get them to remember NOT to lick the spoon and then put it back in the egg salad bowl…