The Great Egg Comparison

HEB (our local grocery store) Grade AA Large White Eggs

Versus

Olive Mueller-Rommel's Third and Fourth Organic, Mostly Free Range, Home Raised Eggs

I like experiments, especially ones that involve eating your test subjects.  Today I did a comparison between store bought and our eggs with mostly anticipated results. I used eggs from the same chicken, Olive the Wyandotte to keep the variables as consistent as possible.

Here's how it went:

 First comparison:  What do the eggs look like freshly cracked and do they crack the same?

Results: Olive's eggs had much firmer shells, harder to crack. Yolks much yellower, and a large yolk to white ratio than the store bought eggs: perhaps since they were smaller.

 Second comparison: Fried eggs.
Results: Our eggs have much darker yolks, and the area of white immediately surrounding the yolk is a darker, orangier color than the store bought egg. I suck at flipping, both were equally flippable or not. 

Taste: I, honestly couldn't tell much of a difference. Andy on the other hand thought our eggs were much better.

Third comparison: Scrambled Eggs
Results: Olive's shells again harder to crack with darker yolks. Both eggs seemed to scramble about as easily. Again the ratio of yolk to white seemed greater in our egg. Both eggs cooked the same, but it seemed the store bought wanted to turn into a fused flat object more than fluffy scramble moreso than our egg. The color of our scramble is way prettier.

Taste: No question: our egg tastes much better. The store bought scramble tasted more plastic, ours was rich and flavorful. This may just have been because of the higher yolk to white ratio, or because Olive is super special. I won't make that call.

Yum. That was a fun experiment. Consumed to the last drop. Now i start saving up our eggs for next weekend's Christmas baking adventure.

Do you have experience with fresh versus store bought eggs? What do YOU think? Taste or behave differently?

Grilled/Fried Butternut Squash

This is an oldie, but a goodie. The silly thing about it, is that i learned this recipe while living in Australia, loved it, and then made it for my folks, and then for my grandma when i lived with her a few years ago. Gramma Viv LOVES this squash.

Let me tell you about Gramma Viv. She loves cookies, sweets, and greasy chicken. She can't eat anything green, chocolatey, or really anything at all because of her evil stomach (which i've sadly inherited). But that doesn't stop her from indulging and being kept up all night with a bad case of gas, poor thing.

This squash recipe, however, fits the bill with Gramma Viv. She, over time, has lost the healthy details, and just makes it straight up fried squash with some olive oil and not much spice, in her cast iron pan. You could do that, it is delicious, but here's the original, un-gramma'd version. She just left me a voicemail mentioning how much she loves this squash - so i had to write it down for you all.

Grilled Butternut Squash
1 butternut squash, cut in half long ways, then sliced into thin half moons, about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick
oil (i use spray, non fat oil)
spices: salt, paprika, chilly powder, cayenne, pepper  -  really whatever you like. I like to do some pumpkin pie spice on one side, and cayenne and salt on the other - mix it up!

Heat pan to med- med/high. Spray with olive oil. Lay down as many squash as fit without overlapping in the pan.  Spray top with olive oil and season liberally, Heat til seared on one side with lid on the pan, flip, heat until soft through with lid on… store in oven on warm and repeat with entire squash. You can also do this on a propane grill if you're really careful - or even under the broiler in the oven.

            or if you're Gramma - just put a nice coating of olive oil in your cast iron skillet and fry those
           puppies up!

Serve with Asian sweet and spicy sauce, garlic mayonaise, or plain. The goal is to get the squash soft and wonderful in the middle and a little crispy on the outside - eat with skin on (or be finicky and strip it off like my mom does, but that's lame so don't do that)

Sorry, this picture is horrible and ancient. I told you this was an oldie!