It's way easier if you get a third involved

So, it's only 3 weeks into the semester and I'm putting up a tip for my weekly post. Taneasha only thinks she wants to kill me. Next week, she'll see the wicked amazing dish I made that's taking a long time for me to get all together into one post.

For now, I thought I'd show you a little trick you might like to turn when you're separating eggs.

So, there's the yolk and the white and usually a bowl for each. But, what happens if you add a third to this happy little pair?

Part of the issue with separating eggs is that sometimes the yolk breaks. Especially when you're just starting out with baking and learning new techniques. I mean, juggling a delicate sac filled with gooey fluid between two tiny fragile cups with sharp edges? Does not sound easy. That's why sometimes it's handy to get a third party involved.

So, get yourself an egg. Gently tap it on the edge of a bowl to crack it, and then carefully pry the halves apart.

You're going to want to do this over a bowl because the white will immediately start to ooze out.

Now, gently ease the halves to the right and tip the yolk into the half shell in your right hand. More white will fall into the bowl.

Tip the other way and transfer the yolk to the left half of the shell. After doing this a couple times, you'll have all the white in the bowl and nothing left in the shells but the yolk.

Dump the yolk into the second bowl.

You just separated an egg!

But, you've got three more to go! I don't know, maybe you're making ice cream or merengues or something...

Before you grab another egg, grab another bowl.

Set your bowl of white aside and start the process again over the newly introduced third bowl.

When you've got your second egg separated, you'll have one bowl with 2 yolks, and two bowls with 1 white. Combine all the white into one bowl, whichever one you want.

Now you're back to a white bowl, a yolk bowl, and an empty bowl.

Why? Well, because if, as you were passing that delicate yolk back and forth over sharp edges, you happned to break the yolk as you were working over a bowl of egg white, you'd end up with a bowl of egg white and some yolk. That's kinda the opposite of separating eggs.

Sharp edges, see:

And it can be disastrous if you're trying to collect whites to whip into some kind of delicate and frothy delightful dessert.

By having a special third bowl to hover over while you're doing the separating, you're much less likely to end up contaminating your whites with yolk. I mean, if you're separating 5 or 6 eggs and on the last one you end up with yolk in the whites bowl... you're going to have to make a lot of bread pudding (sweet or savoury) to use all that egg.

So, 3 bowls: one for whites, one for yolks, and one to separate over. Best threesome ever.

Whew! We Made It!

It’s been one heck of a year here at Authors Kitchen!  Along with all the food triumphs and failures, there’s been all kinds of other drama.  I made a cross country move, dodged tornadoes, survived a massive heat wave, and learned how to cook in a hotel.  Seeley had to survive her own heat wave up north… with no air conditioning and she was driven to the brink of insanity by calculus.  In spite of it all, it’s been great food and great fun.  So, with the year coming to an end, we decided to take a trip down 2011 memory lane.

As I mentioned before, there have been successes,

And there have been failures.

I’ll be sure to cover them both.  The first thing I asked Seeley was, “What’s your favorite close up shot?”  For me, the answer was easy.  Macaroni and Cheese.

I mean, that picture still makes me salivate, just looking at it.  Apparently Seeley had a hard time narrowing it down to just one.

Pistachios in the yazdi cakes post? Cheese melting on my chili? The taco filling post. The drop of orange glaze dripping down below the rack on the creamsicle cookies. The cheese rolled up in the biscuit dough on the biscuits and gravy post. Um, I like the extreme close up food porn pics

Since the pistachios were a close second to the mac n’ cheese, I took the liberty of choosing that one for her. 

Seeley had a much easier time choosing when I asked, “What was the best action shot?” 

Has to be my tiny perfectly round droplet of oil in the roasted garlic post.

Or your egg on its way into the cheesecake; perfect fucking balance.

Well, at least she got it down to two.  As it happens, the egg yolk was my choice, as well.  I have to give honorable mention to this one, though, since I even mentioned the little happy dance I did in the Snack Mix post. 

“What’s your choice for worst picture?” 

I think it’s definitely this one.  It’s a sad, sad day when you have to resort to salt and pepper from packets to put in your breakfast.  Boy am I glad to be done with hotel living. 

Seeley, on the other hand… My epic pile o dishes in the stupid mug cake post. I bitch about dishes a lot. I work my recipes around how many dirty dishes I feel like making. Nearly all of my posts include the "dirty dishes will be the death of me" tag. Fucking dishes.     

“What are your 2 favorite Taneasha recipes?”

Mint Limeade; two of my favourite flavours and I love seeing that fucking juicer. omg the juicer.

And the baked beans. They're really baked!

My first favorite Seeley recipe is her green chili.  Hubby and I both loved that stuff. 

And the second one has to be the crepes.  OMG!  I have made those at least three times and they are freaking amazing! 

There were two categories where the winner was chosen unanimously.  The first was for most creative recipe.  I hate to toot my own horn, but I have to agree with Seeley that the award has to go to my Colorful Cookies, made with no artificial colors.  The best part is… they were amazingly tasty, as well. 

The other decision we agreed on was for biggest failure.  I mean, there was really no competition.  That award definitely goes to Seeley’s mug cake.  Sadly, it wasn’t even really a failure.  It turned out just the way it’s supposed to, but… well in this case, a picture really is worth a thousand words. 

Next up, most pornographic picture.

So perhaps I went the obvious route by choosing one with a pickle in it, but really…

Seeley was a bit more creative (and crass) with her choice.  

Pic that looks most like a c*** (lady part): last pic in my raspberry crepe post (tilt your head to the right). 

When I asked Seeley which post she had the most fun making, she chose a post that I think deserves multiple awards. Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. 

Recipe Guy and I had just figured out that in all the time we'd known each other, we never talked about our favourite ice cream flavour. And so of course as soon as we figured out it was mint chip for both of us, we had to make it. That screaming ancient ice cream maker on the porch at 11 pm on a Monday night in Texas; we were risking getting shot, we knew it, but as Southern Momma said "fuck 'em, I want ice cream." Writing the post was hell though because of the Mayhem missing auto save. But. There were toads. And toads are cute.

I think it wins for most surprising outcome, considering everything.  I mean, the post has pictures like this,

And this,

And yet, in the end, she ended up with amazing looking ice cream.  Now, I haven’t counted, but I’m pretty sure this post also wins for most use of the word fuck. 

For me, I couldn’t decided which was the most fun to make.  It was a tie between the Strawberry Lemonade Bars, which were amazingly beautiful,

And the Peanut Butter Twigs.  It was basically making my favorite candy bars in my own kitchen.  How fun is that?

“Which recipe was the biggest surprise?”

I have to go with Ice Tea Granita.  It’s the one I have made more than anything else on here.  When I had told Hubby about my idea to make it, he thought it would be lame, and now it’s his favoritest treat in the world. 

And for Seeley, Hooker noodles. I actually made a pasta dinner in 20 minutes. I'm as amazing as a prostitute!

Now, last but not least, I wanted to share what our favorite sweet and favorite savory recipes were.  I’ll start with the savory because you have to save sweet for last, right?

Seeley's choice for savory?  The epicness of the epic sammich of epicness. (aka muffaletta).

She might be right.  That is a pretty amazing sandwich.  I had to go with something hot and baked, though.  Bubbly cheese is pretty much a prerequisite, so I chose Tacos in Pasta Shells.

On the sweet side, Seeley and I both decided on a cookie.  She picked one of hers, though, and I one of mine.  Perhaps we still have a bit of a bias when it comes to our own cooking. 

Black Forest Cookies. Those were a fuck tonne (a metric one even) of work though. Most people consider cookies to be simple things. They can go screw themselves because these ones take effort and you can totally taste it. If you want to impress someone with dessert, this is it.

I, on the other hand, had to go with my cookies with ganache for dipping.  Seriously, I don’t see how I’ll ever top that. 

I hope you enjoyed our stories of sugar and spice for 2011, and that it’s been as much fun to follow our crazy adventures as it has been to create them. 

Be sure to let us know what you’d like to see us make in the coming year.  Don’t hesitate to ask, we’re up to just about any challenge.  And feel free to join in the year end fun and vote for your favorites in any of our many categories. 

Happy New Year!!