a hard-boiled tale

i've recently been learning my way around the kitchen. last week, i made my own variation on the fabulous pioneer woman's chicken salad, some wonderful fiesta whole-grain pasta salad, and my personal favorite--and ever evolving-- creation: mexican macaroni and cheese. next time i attempt that, i'll have to chronicle the experience. and write a recipe. because my method of culinary creation involves a whole lot of throwing whatever i feel like into a pot, disregarding exact measurements and any sort of order.

but that's my method. when it comes to the tough stuff, i consult the experts.

hard-boiled eggs are the tough stuff, for those who weren't aware.

prior to living on my own, i had only cursory knowledge of the kitchen. my skills were restricted to sometimes mixing cookie dough, microwaving easy mac, and--on a good day--not burning my own toast. there was once a debacle where i didn't realize that the toaster oven's dial had been switched off of "toast." my english muffin was less than crunchy that day. this is why i have to google things like how to hard boil an egg.

mr. kitchen was pretty helpful. he told me to fill my saucepan just so, bring it to a rolling boil, and then reduce heat to simmer while my bouncy little white lovelies were boiled to rubbery perfection.

and that's what i did. really.

except for, well, i didn't. i have an issue with properly reading the rotary dials on the panel of my stove. instead of reducing the left-rear burner to simmer, i turned on the left front burner to simmer. i couldn't figure out why my tiny saucepan kept boiling over. it could have been because i was bopping to journey's greatest hits while this was going on. who can concentrate on proper egg-boiling etiquette when steve perry is singing about his faithful woman?

obviously, not i.

so, i really hard-boiled my eggs. on high. for twelve minutes. but i at least had mr. kitchen's required bowl of ice water waiting for me. turns out, the eggs turned out a-ok. i used them in my own mish-mashed egg salad. like i said, no measurements. just some dill relish, two different kinds of mustard, and olive oil mayonnaise. yummm.

and, yes. my egg-salad was significantly uglier than the one pictured. that's why i immediately slapped it between two slices of bread with some spinach and tomato and moved on.