EGG ON A MOTHER'S FACE

Easter Sunday has come and gone but the hard boiled eggs still remained.

At some point, you may have done this too…boiled a dozen or more eggs in anticipation of decorating said eggs for an egg hunt that never happened or to have as an activity to keep the children busy while the adults prepare dinner.

Old Mother Frugal stocked up on large eggs right before Easter this year.  The prices were amazingly low.  With an overabundance of eggs that can be frozen, Old Mother Frugal had no qualms about what to do with so many eggs.  If need be, they would go into the freezer.

In advance of the Old Mother Frugal’s Grand Little Helpers visit, a dozen eggs were boiled and left in their shells awaiting dye and glitter.  The Grand Little Helpers were so busy with each other that time came and went while the eggs remained in the refrigerator. 

Slowly but surely, the eggs found their place in a variety of recipes.  Sliced hard boiled eggs on a tossed salad or hard boiled eggs made into deviled eggs.

Towards the end, the remaining eggs were transformed into an egg salad for a sandwich lunch.  A little mayo mixed with a little relish and a squirt of mustard topped with fresh ground pepper.  Viola! 

Ready to smear the mixture between two slice of soft, white bread so that with one bite it would stick to the roof of the mouth in need of a glass of milk to wash it down. 

But there was no bread.  No bread?  No bread.  No one was around to witness the figuratively “egg on the face” embarrassing moment. Phew!

There were crackers. When craving an egg salad “sandwich”, crackers were not an appealing option.

A scavenger hunt ensued in the freezer and refrigerator. There they were….a stack of pancakes. The light bulb was not only on in the refrigerator but also in Old Mother Frugal’s head.  Why not make a pancake sandwich!?!

Why not indeed!

It was a little messy. There was little room for spreading the chunky egg salad on silver dollar-sized pancakes.  But in the end, the egg salad mixture was salvaged into a uniquely delicious lunch sandwich.

Bread, on the other hand, can now be found on Old Mother Frugal’s shopping list.

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip:  If you have a surplus of egg , consider freezing them for a later time.  The “Incredible Edible Egg” website is a wonderful resource for such an idea.  Check it out at http://www.incredibleegg.org/eggcyclopedia/f/freezing-eggs/.  It contains eggs-actly what you need to know about freezing eggs!

THE UN-FAJITA FAJITA

Old Mother Frugal’s freezer is overrun with sliced peppers.  There are green ones, orange ones and red ones because whole peppers were on the “Manager’s Special” clearance table at the local grocery store.

It didn’t take long to slice, bag and tag them. They sit as the top layer of my deep freezer chest in the garage. Found a recipe for crispy chicken fajita wraps and what a perfect use of these discounted sliced peppers!  The peppers now have purpose.

Needing a fajita seasoning recipe, Google provided several from which to choose and all the ingredients were in Old Mother Frugal’s pantry.

It took some searching, but there was a rotisserie chicken breast in the freezer too.  No cooking required, just defrost and dice into cubes for this recipe.

An unopened package of flour tortillas lay in wait on the pantry shelf.  Twelve to be exact.  Twelve crispy chicken fajita wraps ready to be stuffed.

As each tortilla wrap was warmed, stuffed and folded into a rectangular burrito shape, it was becoming evident that the yield was not going to be twelve.  By the time six were made, the total was going to be eight wraps. 

Was there too much filling in the wrap?  Why wasn’t the yield twelve?  They looked lovely, all eight of them but they weren’ twelve.  Twelve.  What went wrong?!

And then there was the answer…the sole reason for undertaking this cooking project, the sliced peppers.

None of them made it into the recipe.  All those beautiful, colorful sliced peppers just became a forgotten ingredient.

Old Mother Frugal no longer had the expected “crispy chicken fajita wraps” but in its place were eight chicken and cheese burritos.  How frustrating!

Too late to un-wrap eight burritos and add peppers.  Instead, they were wrapped for the freezer with a memo to self.  Cook peppers and onions.  When ready to serve for dinner, the peppers and onions will be placed on top of the burritos. 

Instead of hiding these colorful sliced bell peppers inside the tortilla wrap, they will now be on full display outside the wrap making for a beautiful presentation when serving the meal.

The cooking project didn’t end as originally planned but it did have a happy ending!

SOUND THE BUGLE!  Today’s tip: The meal had a projected yield of 12 wraps and the yield was short. A side dish of beans and a salad can be added as healthy extenders to make this a meal to feed 4-6 people. Three adults/teens will each have two wraps and younger children can have one each and a side dish.