A Hard-Boiled Life

A couple of months ago, I started a little diet you may have heard of:  Atkins.  I've had to give up my beloved bread, cereal, muffins, cookies, cakes, rice, noodles, waffles, chips, potatoes, corn, carrots, and so on and so on.  One thing that I CAN have as much as I want of is eggs.  It's a good thing that I really like eggs, or I would be in some serious trouble.  So, being that I'm now an egg junkie of sorts, and that this week there will be millions of little kiddos dyeing their eggs random, unnatural colors, I though I would share my favorite way to turn out perfect hard-boiled eggs (no green ring around the yolk).

I use the method devised by the fine people at America's Test Kitchen:

Hard-Cooked Eggs

To center the yolks, turn the carton of eggs on its side in the refrigerator the day before you plan to cook the eggs.


Place eggs in a saucepan large enough to accommodate them, cover with 1 inch of water, and bring to boil over high heat. Remove pan from heat, cover, and let stand 10 minutes. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with water and ice cubes. Pour off water from saucepan and gently shake pan back and forth to crack shells. Transfer eggs to ice water with slotted spoon and let cool 5 minutes.

Of course, if you're planning on dyeing the eggs, you won't want to crack the shells.  Just remove the eggs from the hot water to the ice water with tongs.

As for that diet, I've dropped 13lbs so far and I don't have that run-down feeling anymore that seemed to be a constant in my life.  I think I'll stick with it for now.