Laptop Lunches #81

Clearly I felt fruit-deprived from yesterday. Banana slices and apple chunks, alternating slices of kiwi and prickly pear, turkey and veggie cream cheese pinwheels, spinach artichoke dip (for veggies), a tea egg, grape tomatoes, celery sticks, and baby carrots.

I wanted to fall in love with the pickly pear. After all, prickly pear jelly is wonderful. And just look at that color! From nature, a neon pink like that! And it's pretty darn cheap right now, cheaper than almost any other fruit at the store except bananas--bananas are too cheap to try to beat anyway. But...I didn't end up liking it much. I think you might like it if you like watermelon, but I'm not a big watermelon fan. They have the texture of watermelon, which is the thing I don't like about watermelon--also, that for some reason, to me, watermelon tastes like heartburn--not like stomach acid--it's hard to explain. I suppose heartburn doesn't really have a taste. Except--to me, watermelon tastes like heartburn. Does anybody understand what I am trying to say?

Oh, well. On to tea eggs. There are a lot of recipes for tea eggs and a lot of tutorials. Most will give you enough tea eggs to last for weeks if it's just you eating them. I only made a single tea egg, though the liquid I made could have done three (and I wish I had done three, because I love a good tea egg!). Here's what I did:

1-3 Tea Eggs

2 cups water
Eggs (1-3, depending on how much you want to make)
2 black tea tea bags (I used English breakfast tea)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon five spice powder

Bring eggs to boil in water in small saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer until hard cooked, about 12 minutes. Turn off heat.

Remove eggs from water with a slotted spoon and rinse to cool slightly. Allow to cool for a few minutes. Meanwhile, plunge tea bags into water to brew, and add soy sauce, vinegar, and five spice powder.

Roll eggs while tapping gently with a spoon to crack. You want to crack the egg but not convince any of the shell to come off, if that makes sense. Return eggs to water with slotted spoon and simmer over very low heat for about 20 minutes. (If not enough water to cover, add water until eggs are covered.) Turn off heat and allow to cool.

If you want, you can store the eggs, without peeling them, in the tea mixture in the fridge, and they will darken and become more flavorful, or you can just peel them and store them apart from the liquid, or serve right away.

This would probably be a great thing to do with leftover Easter eggs, if you find yourself overrun with them, as well.

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