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Showing posts from March 11, 2018

Waste Not Egg Whites

We have a few dozen chickens. This may seem excessive, but it really isn't: besides selling a few dozen each week to our neighbors, we like to be able to eat all the eggs we want. I see fresh, homegrown eggs as an incredible superfood, loaded to the brim with vitamins, minerals, protein and the very best kind of fats. You might think that, with all these dozens of eggs lying around, I might be less than stingy in making use of them. Nothing could be further from the truth! These eggs are squishy gold inside a calcitic shell. Every one of them is a precious gift, not to be wasted or squandered wantonly. Eggs are one of the most luxurious ingredients known to man; in ancient times they were much harder to come by, only available in quantity on a seasonal basis, and therefore highly prized. Their emulsifiers are a key component in homemade mayonnaise; their richness makes a cheesecake even more decadent; their proteins add structure to baked goods that would otherwise crumble and fa

Oatmeal: the Definitive Waste-Not Guide

Hey, all! Today I'd like to examine the frugal breakfast enjoyed (tolerated?) by millions of Americans every day: oatmeal.  It's packed with vitamins and minerals, loaded with fiber, and relatively easy to prepare; it's filling and warming; and it's easy to amend with such pleasant additions as walnuts, shredded coconut, or even (my guilty pleasure) chocolate chips, to help keep the boredom at bay. There are dozens of "recipes" online now for overnight oatmeal that you don't have to cook, mix-ins to make your oatmeal resemble your favorite dessert (oatmeal brulee is a thing, y'all, I wish I was kidding), and oatmeal baked in a muffin tin. So with all these recipes to make the morning gruel more interesting, what could possibly possess me to think yet another oatmeal recipe is necessary? The answer lies where, you will find, it usually does: there's a less wasteful way. More specifically, there are three main ways in which oats could be used with