Goldenrod Eggs, an Easter Favorite

Every year for Easter lunch, my grandma made the same meal: egg gravy and toast (also called, more favorably, Goldenrod Eggs). It was a simple meal, made of simple ingredients. Mainly it was just a way to use up a surplus of hard-boiled eggs that we had at that time of year. We only had it one day a year, and so, naturally, it was my favorite meal. All year long I pined for it and when Easter came, I ate until I could not eat more. Decades later, I still love it just as much. It's a very frugal meal and uses items that are in most pantries. It is a good meal for times when there's more week than paycheck. Use the surplus of Easter eggs or just leftover hard-boiled eggs. If a carton of eggs gets a little too much past the use-by date, hard boil them for this dish.

It's not pretty, but it's oh so good!

Grandma's recipe is simple and frugal. It is the first recipe I ever learned to make myself. This recipe makes around 2 servings. I often make extra so we can have leftovers the next day.

2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 1/4 c milk
~4 hard boiled eggs (you can add more or less, depending on what you have and how hungry you are)
2-4 slices of bread

Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Sprinkle the flour over the butter and allow it to cook for a few minutes. Slowly pour in the milk while whisking. Allow to cook over medium heat until it starts to thicken, stirring frequently. While it is cooking, separate the egg whites from the yolks. Chop the whites into small bite-sized pieces. Mash the yolks. Toast the bread. Once the gravy is almost as thick as you'd like it, remove from heat and mix in the whites. The gravy will thicken slightly as it cools. Pour the egg gravy over the toasted (and buttered, if you'd like) bread. Sprinkle a generous portion of yolks over the top. Salt and pepper to taste.

The gravy gets very thick when it cools. If you are reheating leftovers, add some milk and mix it in before microwaving so it thins out.

Now I play with the recipe quite a bit to alter the taste a bit, make it healthier or use up something from the refrigerator. Here are some ways I like to alter it:

* Use homemade stock in place of half of the milk when making the sauce. If you are using bones leftover from cooking (thus making the stock almost free), you will lower the cost significantly. This is especially important if you pay extra for raw, organic, pastured or lactose-free milk. I am always looking for ways to sneak more stock into our diets for it's joint-healing benefits. If you are trying to limit dairy consumption, this is also helpful.
* Serve over good bread, not cheap white bread. It's perfect over a strong sourdough bread, but I've used everything from asiago bread to rosemary bread to foccacia. I've served it over bread-sliced bagels, english muffins and biscuits. I've also used savory scones like the bacon cheddar chive ones Trucker brings home from his job. Serve over whole grain bread if you want maximum nutrition and fiber.
* Replace some of the white flour with whole grain flour. It won't be as silky a gravy, but it works.
* Use bacon, sausage or other fats left over from cooking in place of the butter. This adds flavor and reduces the cost of the dish.
* You could mix in crumbled bacon or sausage to amp it up a bit, although there's plenty of protein in the dish without it.

Use It Up: Fried Rice

Many things are tossed into the garbage can when they still have lots of good life left in them. Use It Up is a section on how to use this "trash" to make new useful items for your home or to re-purpose items to avoid a purchase.

Fried rice is one of my favorite meals. It's simple, it's satisfying, it's delicious. To top it all off, it's also ridiculously cheap and a great way to use up leftovers and therefore reduce your waste. It's also an easy meal to make when I'm busy or tired. From start to finish, it's about 10 minutes.

When I make fried rice, I never go with a recipe. I know basically how to make it, but I leave room for experimentation, using up something that I have in surplus or using up leftovers or items that are getting a little too close to turning.

The basics: cooked rice, egg, fat of some sort.

Heat the fat over medium heat until sizzling, add the egg and scramble lightly. Once the egg just starts to solidify, add the rice. Cook thoroughly until heated through. Season with soy sauce if you'd like. That's it.

Now, of course, this is boring. So to jazz it up, look through your refrigerator and pantry and get creative.

Use different fats. Don't just stick to vegetable oil or butter. Use bacon fat. Or chicken fat. Or tallow. Or fat leftover from cooking this morning's sausage. Animal fats add a load of flavor without the cost of added meat. In fact, if you save the fat from cooking (draining the grease after cooking bacon, sausage or ground beef) or from making stock (just pop the fat cap off the top of cooled stock, scrape off the bit of stock clinging to it and store in the frig for weeks), it is free.

Before you add the egg to the skillet, saute garlic or onions til lightly golden, then add egg.

Use rice leftover from another meal. The older the rice (to an extent, of course) the better it works for frying. I never make rice just to fry it, but I will make extra when I do make rice so I can make fried rice later that week. This is especially good if the rice is cooked in stock (and then, oh my!). We've found that stir fry served over rice cooked in stock doesn't need meat and is very filling.

Add leftover vegetables of any kind-carrots, peas, corn, celery, broccoli, green beans, peppers, radishes. Dice any large pieces. This is a great way to use up random leftovers or bits of vegetables that are getting a little old in the crisper. If you make fried rice frequently, save little bits of vegetables as you cook throughout the week so you can add lots of yummy veggies.

Add leftover bits of meat-pork, beef, chicken, turkey, shrimp. This is a great way to use up little random bits of meat that aren't enough for a meal by themselves. If you are wanting to eat less meat for health or financial reasons, this is a perfect meal. Dice the meat small and you'll get regular bits of meat and good flavor, but what would otherwise be a single serving of meat will turn into 4 servings.

Serve with green onions, especially if you are growing them yourself. You can also use greens from garlic in the garden, garlic or onion scapes or even just the sprouts from onions that start growing in the pantry.

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