Tomato Rice Salad

Menu: Deviled Eggs; Tomato Rice Salad; Peas with Butter and Cheese

Lessons learned:

1. Egg filling is Ben's new favorite food.
2. Tomato rice salad is my new favorite food.

Thank goodness that despite using no recipes tonight, I was able to make up for last night's bust.  I figured I'd change up our egg night a little tonight by making deviled eggs.  These are usually an hors d'oevre, but I have absolutely no problem eating appetizers and small plates as a meal -- as long as there are enough of them!

I boiled my eggs and cooked my rice this afternoon so they'd both be cool by dinnertime.  My mom says she has the perfect method for hard-boiling eggs: you cover them with about an inch of water in a pan, bring it to a boil, and as soon as it's boiling you take the pan off the heat and cover it for EXACTLY 18 MINUTES, then run them under cold water to stop the cooking.  I've never taken this too seriously because I couldn't really picture an overdone boiled egg.  Well, I think I can now.  They still tasted totally fine, but the yolks, whites, and shells all stuck together a little more than I'm used to.  Also, the ones I made tonight were noticeably denser-tasting than the ones I grew up on.  So I guess next time I'll be more careful.

Here's how I make deviled eggs: I boil the eggs as described above and peel them.  Then I cut them in half length-wise, gently remove the yolks so as not to tear the whites, and put the yolks in a bowl with a generous amount of Miracle Whip, a stingy amount of dijon mustard, some salt, and some pepper.  (Sorry, I'm not good with amounts; I just put things in until it tastes right.)  Then I fill the egg whites back up with a dollop of yolk mixture and sprinkle with sweet paprika.  Yum!

The tomato rice salad is an idea from HTCEV that I've been wanting to try for a while, but haven't because it seemed risky.  The experiment was about the dressing: I threw about 1/8 of an onion, a medium tomato, a handful of orange mint, salt, pepper, and about 1/3 cup olive oil into my blender and pressed go.  It was actually really delicious!

 Tonight I made it with white rice to be safe, but next time I think I'll do brown.  Also, I think it would be fine to substitute some water for oil to cut down on fat, since the dressing is for rice and not vegetables.  That would also thin it out a little bit: it was fine once it was on the rice, but right out of the blender it was very viscous -- a little disconcerting.

The last change I would make is that the peas could really have just been mixed into the tomato rice salad instead of being served on their own.  Some grated carrots would be nice, too.

John really liked the eggs.  He ate his rice before I put the dressing on it, partly because he just loves plain white rice and partly because he was very skeptical about liking a dressing that was made of onion, tomatoes, and herbs, none of which he particularly likes.  Ben liked the dressed rice ok, but he mostly ignored it because he was absolutely obsessed with the eggs -- the filling, specifically.  I finally had to cut him off.

The only problem was Sophie.  There was literally nothing involved in this dinner that she was even willing to taste.  I would love to make this again, but that is a real problem.  I guess next time I will put the veggies in the rice and just have a fruit salad... we needed some sweetness to balance the flavors anyway.