The Devil's Eggs

Cooking this evening is not going well. This is not surprising, as my cooking anything that isn't made of pasta or chicken (and, really, the chicken is also frequently fraught with the possibility of disaster) tends to wander into the realm of cuisine that I like to think of as "Blair Witch Dinner". I coined this term in the dining hall at my old job, where every once in a while the evening selection on the dinner line wouldn't be turkey or chicken or beef, but would instead be something that caused teenagers to stare in mindless wide-eyed horror shrieking "What the fuck is that?" while sobbing, like the kids in the second half of the "Blair Witch Project" screaming into the forest.

At any rate, tonight I was going to make a recipe I saw in a food magazine called Ham and Cheese Croquettes. The idea of croquettes, tiny crunchy fried fingerfood with yummyness inside, seems kind of quaint and old fashioned, like an appetizer they might have served on the Titanic. Beyond that, how could anything fried with cheese inside be bad? At some point during the day, though, I decided that leaving the house was just too much to contemplate, and that I would just make something else since the only ingredients for the croquettes that I had here were cheese and flour. Not only that, but the recipe called for the croquettes to be fried in three inches of boiling oil, and I might not be up for that ever.

Already defeated before I turned the stove on, I opened the refrigerator to peruse the goods.

"Oooh, we have eggs. How about scrambled eggs? We could use up that bacon, too."

"I'm confused by the 'we'. Have we become plural? Or British royalty?"

"Shut up. We can't make scrambled eggs. We're out of milk."

"Egg salad maybe? Egg salad sandwiches with bacon. On toast."

"Then we'll have all this egg salad left, and by the middle of the week you won't want it anymore."

"Deviled eggs! It'll use up all the eggs, and... oh! Let's cook the bacon and crush it and put it in the deviled eggs!"

"I love you."

"I love you, too. You really should have gone to the grocery store, though."

"Shut up. I hate you."

Empowered to cook but now completely lacking in self-esteem, I loaded up my Clucky the Chicken chicken-shaped egg cooker with seven eggs. I noticed almost immediately that Clucky was leaking a little of the water the eggs were supposed to be boiling in, but I've had that egg cooker since 1998 when I got my first apartment and I love boiled eggs and I refuse to accept any suggestion that Clucky might be wearing out. Instead I put a dishtowel under Clucky and went to get the bacon out of the bacon keeper in the bottom of the fridge.

"Hey, is bacon supposed to be gray?"

"Shut up."

"Are there any other groceries rotting in secret in the bottom of the fridge that you'd like to try to eat?"

"Shut up."

I was all hung up on the idea of bacon and deviled eggs, though, so I decided to use bacon bits. I'll be on "Semi-Homemade" with Sandra Lee frosting a Kwaanza cake any day now, I'm sure. While I was grinding the bacon bits in the mortar and pestle because I decided they were too big and I like my deviled eggs smooth and creamy ("You're insane. You know that, right? Fully, completely insane." "Shut up.") Clucky started beeping. I pulled the eggs out, dropped them into a bowl of ice water, and started loading up the food processor with the filling ingredients. Ready to roll, I peeled the first egg, and noticed immediately that it seemed a little soft. Worried, I cut it in half and sure enough, the middle was soft and gross.

At this point I was ready to give up and start drinking, but I decided to load up Clucky again and try double boiling the eggs. And, thank God, it worked. I don't know that I could have taken more mental verbal abuse.

Oh, and just in case you're curious:

Bacon Horseradish Deviled Eggs

6 hard boiled eggs, peeled and sliced in half
2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon horseradish mustard
6 teaspoons light Miracle Whip
1 handfull of bacon bits

Pop the yolks out of the eggs, put the whites on a plate, and throw everything else in the food processor. Process until smooth. Spoon into ziploc bag, seal bag, cut off the corner, and pipe filling into eggs. Pipe extra filling directly into open mouth from bag. Chill and eat, or just eat.

They're delicious.