Winter here in northern Minnesota can get pretty cold. When the temps drop down well below freezing, I often get some frozen, cracked eggs when I gather them up. When we hit those -35F temps in the dead of winter, the fresh egg will be frozen and cracked in no time at all.
Since the eggshell is cracked, you are on a limited time to cook up that egg before bacteria sets in a turns the egg bad. On top of that, in my experience, a frozen egg has a different texture once thawed out than an egg that was never frozen. In other words, the yolk, in particular, changes into some kind of semi-solid substance much like a hard boiled egg.
So, here is my frugal suggestion to "save" those eggs if you can't eat them all at once.
My goal was to hard boil the frozen eggs so that they would keep in the refrigerator for about a week. But you can't put a cracked egg into boiling water because the egg white will leak out and get all over inside the water.
Yesterday, I was in our local church Thrift shop and came upon a set of Egglettes...
The set I got retails for $18.00 online, but I got it for 75 cents at the Thrift Store. I guess that is a frugal purchase if they work.
What I like about them is that you can take the cracked egg and put the egg into one of these Egglettes and then boil them in water. I did that this morning and it came out pretty good. They do have a different shape, oval on one side but flat on the other.
Frankly, if the eggshell was not cracked, I'm not all that convinced that using the Egglettes is worth the extra effort in terms of cleaning the egg units. But I am dealing with already cracked eggshells so it worked out good for me.
Another bonus worth mentioning is that often times, with fresh eggs from the chickens, a hard boiled egg is hard to peel without making a mess of the egg. This is because a fresh egg hard boiled is more likely to stick to the shell when you peel it. You would have more luck hard boiling and peeling an egg that was not as fresh, as the air pocket inside the egg has more time to expand, which results in an easier egg to peel. Using these Egglettes, you don't have that problem at all and they come out "perfect" every time.
Well, just felt I had to mention this system because last week we had more than half a dozen, fresh, frozen, crack eggs in the refrigerator and we ended up making scrambled eggs for supper. I like the idea of using these Egglettes to make hard boiled eggs instead. For only 75 cents, it was worth a try. I'll put the Egglette set away and use it the next time we have too many frozen, cracked eggs in the fridge and need to cook them up before they go bad.
If I get an egg that is cracked and soiled in any way, then I just cook it up, cut it up, and feed it back to the chickens next time I go out to the coop. We keep a "chicken bucket" by our kitchen sink and put in our peeling, leftovers, etc... in that pail for the chickens. The chickens love our kitchen scraps and leftovers. You paid for all that food, so no need to waste any part of it. What the chickens don't eat will just end up getting composted.
Since the eggshell is cracked, you are on a limited time to cook up that egg before bacteria sets in a turns the egg bad. On top of that, in my experience, a frozen egg has a different texture once thawed out than an egg that was never frozen. In other words, the yolk, in particular, changes into some kind of semi-solid substance much like a hard boiled egg.
So, here is my frugal suggestion to "save" those eggs if you can't eat them all at once.
My goal was to hard boil the frozen eggs so that they would keep in the refrigerator for about a week. But you can't put a cracked egg into boiling water because the egg white will leak out and get all over inside the water.
Yesterday, I was in our local church Thrift shop and came upon a set of Egglettes...
The set I got retails for $18.00 online, but I got it for 75 cents at the Thrift Store. I guess that is a frugal purchase if they work.
What I like about them is that you can take the cracked egg and put the egg into one of these Egglettes and then boil them in water. I did that this morning and it came out pretty good. They do have a different shape, oval on one side but flat on the other.
Frankly, if the eggshell was not cracked, I'm not all that convinced that using the Egglettes is worth the extra effort in terms of cleaning the egg units. But I am dealing with already cracked eggshells so it worked out good for me.
Another bonus worth mentioning is that often times, with fresh eggs from the chickens, a hard boiled egg is hard to peel without making a mess of the egg. This is because a fresh egg hard boiled is more likely to stick to the shell when you peel it. You would have more luck hard boiling and peeling an egg that was not as fresh, as the air pocket inside the egg has more time to expand, which results in an easier egg to peel. Using these Egglettes, you don't have that problem at all and they come out "perfect" every time.
Well, just felt I had to mention this system because last week we had more than half a dozen, fresh, frozen, crack eggs in the refrigerator and we ended up making scrambled eggs for supper. I like the idea of using these Egglettes to make hard boiled eggs instead. For only 75 cents, it was worth a try. I'll put the Egglette set away and use it the next time we have too many frozen, cracked eggs in the fridge and need to cook them up before they go bad.
If I get an egg that is cracked and soiled in any way, then I just cook it up, cut it up, and feed it back to the chickens next time I go out to the coop. We keep a "chicken bucket" by our kitchen sink and put in our peeling, leftovers, etc... in that pail for the chickens. The chickens love our kitchen scraps and leftovers. You paid for all that food, so no need to waste any part of it. What the chickens don't eat will just end up getting composted.
, me neighbor took a bunch to store her flower bulbs.
