Tomorrow night some friends are coming over for dinner. After making a list of the things I will need, I went shopping yesterday afternoon. I’ve decided I’m going to make a pie for dessert. Why on earth I decided to make a pie when baking isn’t really my forte is another story entirely. Anyhow, other than just a few things, I had most of the ingredients at home already. One that I didn’t have was an egg. An egg wash is used over the top of the pie to brown up the crust and also as a glue to adhere the sugar and sea salt on the top. I only need one.
Now eggs are not something I keep in the house. I don’t eat eggs and rarely cook with them. Buying eggs for a recipe is always a bit of an irritant for me. Buying one is not an option so inevitably, I’m stuck with extras. As much as I try to plan other meals that have egg, I’m not really a fan, and in the end the remaining eggs go to waste.
Luckily the grocery stores sell eggs in half-dozen cartons in addition to the full dozen packs. On this week’s shopping trip, I picked out one of these half-dozens and put it in my cart. At the time, I didn’t notice the store employee nearby so was surprised to hear, “It’s better to buy the full dozen.”
I looked around not knowing if that was directed at me or someone else. The store worker was stocking shelves nearby. “Excuse me?” I asked.
“You should buy the full dozen. It’s cheaper,” he answered back.
“Oh, well, not really. I only need one, so this one is fine,” I said pointing to my half carton.
“But it’s cheaper,” he continued. “If you buy the full carton they’re only about $0.20 an egg, that one is about $0.25 an egg.”
“I understand. But I don’t even like eggs, so buying twelve is lost on me. Eleven of them would go bad and get thrown away,” trying to laugh him off.
His response was quite adamant, “Then you should give them to your neighbors, to your friends.” I’m not quite sure where he thought he was, but in my neighborhood we’re lucky if we wave at each other. I don’t live in a community where we pass out eggs.
I could see this was going nowhere and I would be going nowhere unless I agreed to the dozen carton. So finally I nodded in surrender, “You talked me into it,” exchanged the half for the full, added it to my cart, and nodded as I walked on.
I continued my shopping, the whole time thinking, “I am not buying a dozen eggs!” And after I finished gathering the last of what I needed, I backtracked to the end of the egg aisle and looked around for the egg police. The coast was clear so I switched back to the half-dozen in my cart and jogged off to check out, trying not to look back for fear of being caught.
I’ll make my pie with one egg tomorrow and will have five left over. Anyone need some eggs?
When you are feeding the dog crack an egg over her dry nuts/kibbles. The shine of health from her coat with a few eggs every month is unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteAs to the egg nazi, the weirdo, there are certain forms of words designed especially for those people. And sometimes it's best to use sign-language/hand signals, there's a few of them when deployed correctly can deliver the self same message, and with substantially less effort. :-)
Why did you choose pie. A tart in our lingo ?.
Do you make Sorbet. A sort of blitzed ice broken down to sugar sized chips and infrused with lemon or orange juice and zest. You can get real bold with it too with a good glug of Baileys or kahlua. Or anything really that's a bit syrupy like a Grenadine or Benedictine.
Yes, I was tempted to tell him off, but in the end what was the harm in letting him think he won. It seemed better than hurting his feelings...this time. Or maybe since I'd just come from shopping at Costco, which is like fighting in a suburban war, i had lost all patience. If I had started in on this guy I would have annihilated him. I shop their regularly so pretending was more appropriate. :)
DeleteAs for the pie, well Vince recently I've been slightly obsessed with all things salted caramel. Someone shared a salted caramel apple pie recipe with me and said it's amazing. I'd never make something like that just for me but have been dying to try it, so company seemed like a good time.
Oh, and the egg over the dog food is a good idea. I'd never thought about giving them to her. Have you done it? I wonder if salmonella something I need to worry about with dogs. Even if so, I could scramble them up for her too. At least they wouldn't be wasted. Thanks for the idea.
DeleteWell I do anyway, granted my one prefers it cooked. However I've seen her pick up the egg coated little nuts and lick the egg and then spit it out to go for the next one. As to salmonella, given the number of times I've seen Jess lick her behind with true dedication I'll say between her gut and a few bugs the dog will win.
DeleteBest of luck with the C-C. Do you blind bake a quiche base, then stewed apple and the C-C over the top. Or is the C-C a sauce in a boat on the table like cream over tart/pie.
As I said, best of luck with the creating/making/erecting/baking.
Here is the link to the recipe. http://whipperberry.com/2013/10/salted-caramel-apple-pie-recipe.html
DeleteOther than making my own dulce de leche which gets mixed with the apples and served over the top,I followed it exact. The apples weren't cooked long so they didn't break down and get mushy. I liked the way they were prepared. I found the crust extremely hard to work with, but once prepared and baked it turned out light and flaky. It was very good and seemed to go over well. I'm not sure what the technique was I used for the crust...it felt like I was blind baking, but I'd call most of my baking blind. :)
And yes, ha, on the dog!
We use eggs all the time, but the kind that comes in a milk carton. Mr BC calls them 'pretend' eggs.
ReplyDeleteI thought about the carton of egg beaters, but I don't know enough about them to know if it would have the same effect as real eggs.
DeleteYou are funny.
ReplyDeleteMy neighbors do borrow eggs sometimes. : )
It always makes me happy when I have something to share.
You should have told the store employee, "Way to go using your math skills."
Those were pretty impressive! What he didn't seem to grasp though was that the half dozen was only costing me $1.50 for an egg and the full dozen was costing me $2.50 for my egg. Because no matter what he said, I was probably still only going to use one of those darn eggs.
DeleteYou must remember when I write about ice deserts it's because it's pitch dark here at 5 in the afternoon and such meals are a fond but very distant memory.
ReplyDeleteThat pie would deffo be what we'd call a tart.
What I hear is relatively without problems is marzipan chocolate or pistachio and honey balls made into choc surprises with a liqueur injected into it to give the 'adult'. All you really need is a palate knife used for icing cakes. I'd love to try, but since I can't eat it it would be wasteful.
When is the 'do'.
I made it last night - actually I guess two nights ago now. If I had been smart I would have made something cold like sorbet or ice cream. As it was I made soup and this apple pie...total "comfort food" for a cold January day which turned out to be about 80 degrees.
DeleteYes, that wouldn't be as much fun to make them if you couldn't try your work. :). They would be fun to make though - honey/pistachio sounds good. I've never been much of a liquor in sweets fan, even when I drank socially. A couple of years back I got a huge box of candy from a student for Christmas. I didn't think much of it until I tried to give it away to a work colleague that I send the sweet treats I get home with, but when I did we noticed that it was all liqueur infused chocolate...at least 50 bottle-shaped little chocolates filled with high quality alcohol. I'm sure it was being regifted and the parents probably didn't even realize, but it was kind of funny that this child brought in his teacher a box of alcohol filled chocolate. :). We tried a couple, but I didn't care for them.