Pickled Eggs

Too Many EGGS?? Pickle ‘em…that’s what this farm-wife does from time to time…they make great hi-protein, low-fat snacks (bantam eggs are perfect little “2-bite” nibbles) Pickled eggs can be used to make egg salad, they can be added to potato salad, macaroni salad, pea salad, just about any recipe where you’d use a plain boiled egg, you can use a pickled egg instead…except maybe in giblet gravy or to make creamed eggs on toast…

Now, I like to take short-cuts, and I also hate to let anything go to waste, so I “cheat” and just use leftover pickle juice…my favorite is bread ‘n’ butter, the Farmer prefers dill, li’l brother likes the juice from pickled jalapenos…Of course, if you don’t have leftover pickle juice, here’s a basic recipe:

BASIC PICKLED EGGS FROM SCRATCH
INGREDIENTS:
1/3 cup water
1 1/2 cup white vinegar
3 teaspoons table or pickling salt
1 teaspoon peppercorns
1 Vidalia or other sweet onion, sliced
12 medium size hard-cooked eggs, peeled

DIRECTIONS:
Boil water, vinegar, salt and peppercorns together for a minute; then pour over hard-boiled eggs in quart jar. Add sliced onions on top. (I usually put the onions into the vinegar mix and let them “cook” while I’m bringing it to a boil and boiling it. Then I just pour it all in on top of the eggs.)
Cover with canning lid and band. Ready to eat in 12 hours. Refrigerate.

This BASIC RECIPE can be tweaked to suit your taste: add a dash of red pepper flakes; add a couple peeled garlic cloves; or a Tablespoon of pickling spice…some folks like to use cider vinegar or half cider/half white. Possibilities are limited only by your culinary creativity…My Granny did assorted colors of pickled eggs one year for Easter. She used the basic pickle solution and added food coloring to it.

Speaking of colored eggs, some folks like to use the liquid from cooked beets in place of the water to make pink pickled eggs…and the the bread ‘n’ butter juice will give you lovely chartreuse colored eggs…lol…For my “Bread ‘n’ Butter Pickled Eggs” I like to leave them set about 2 days before using and they make THE BEST deviled eggs with a nice tart-sweet tang…