Chubby Bunny

Incredible Protein

Last night, I was determined to make something quick and ready for breakfast for the upcoming work week. After much deliberation, I reconsidered the idea of having eggs for breakfast.

On a typical morning that I have work or school, I don’t bother cooking eggs, because it leaves a lot left behind for cleaning. I don’t like having other people clean up after me, so it means I’d need time to do the dishes, in addition to needing time to cook and prepare the eggs.

In the interest of time, I decided to prepare eggs the night before. How?

The point of having protein in the morning was to avoid mid-morning munchies, in which I will reach for a small pack of single-serve shortbread cookies.

Eggs also are a good source of choline. But I can’t remember why that’s good for you and I don’t really feel like looking it up. (Note: choline != chlorine )

There are people who are hesitant about eating eggs. The interesting thing about eggs is the laws of biochemistry says that change in heat has the ability to denature proteins. So, depending on how the eggs are prepared, the amount of cholesterol will be different.

Eating just the hard-boiled yolk is higher in cholesterol than eating the entire hard-boiled egg. A soft boiled egg, where the yolk is a little runny, is higher in cholesterol than a hard-boiled egg. A scrambled egg or omelette has less cholesterol than an egg made sunny-side up. An egg that was prepared sunny side up, but flipped before removing from pan will have a tighter yolk, and less cholesterol. Crazy.

To those who have no idea how to hard boil an egg, I offer some advice and general rules of thumb. Always start with cold water and a cold pan; put raw eggs into this and make sure they are covered by the water. Then, bring this to a boil. After boiling, turn off heat source and let it sit with a lid on. I believe 10 minutes of sitting gives you hard-boiled eggs, and 5-7 minutes gives you soft-boiled.

While my father has seemed to master making soft-boiled eggs, I remain an amateur.

Peeling soft-boiled eggs are a greater challenge than hard-boiled ones. Usually, in both cases, I run the pot of eggs in some cold water so I can handle them with my hands. One at a time, I remove them from the pan and tap the egg on the kitchen counter until the shell is in small pieces all around. Then, I peel. I could be wrong, but it’s supposed to be easier to peel in the water if you’re having trouble.

I’ve seen molds for hard-boiled eggs. Yep. I’ve seen people take pictures of eggs shaped like Hello Kitty’s head to adorn bento boxes. But of course, I have yet to do this.