Peeling eggs

I wanted to pass on my tip for peeling new eggs. After boiling and cracking them just slip a spoon between the shell and egg, run it around the egg. The peel will slide off with no torn whites.

Carolyn Kraus
Cedar Grove, Indiana

Thanks for the tip, Carolyn. I’ll give it a try this afternoon! Peeling fresh eggs is always a challenge. — Jackie

Canning tomato sauce

Last year I tried to make tomato sauce following the directions in your book. The tomato sauce I have used from a can is pretty thick, so I used the roasting pan overnight for one batch and the stove for another.

Both batches the longer I let them cook down the darker they got until they were no longer bright red but a very dark red. They thickened up but I am wondering if the color darkening means I did something wrong. I went ahead and processed them up anyway. Now I am wondering if the darker colored ones are considered paste more than sauce or if they are not any good to use due to the darkened color.

When I went to use a jar from another batch of sauce today it was still fairly liquidy, but more red in color. I had to cook it down for a bit (was making your meat sauce-seasoned) for eating that night. I did 1/4 of a recipe and it turned out great. I have learned in my family to make something first and make sure everyone likes it before I can up a bunch of something to find out later that it isn’t liked!

Lisa
Maryland

Yes, the sauce that you oven cook is darker. But that doesn’t affect the taste. If you truly want a red sauce, you can use a steam juicer to remove much of the juice/water, use a jelly bag to separate your sauce from the liquid (you’ll lose some sauce this way) or freeze the puree. On thawing, the water will separate out and it’s easy to harvest pure puree w/o water. I like the ease of the oven method and figure the dark color just looks richer. — Jackie

3 COMMENTS

  1. We make tomato paste and sauce with our food drier! It is the best. Put the juice into pans, then into the dryer. No flavor lost (actually concentrates the flavor). Don’t add salt to the juice for paste. One gallon of juice usually makes about a pint or less of paste, but it is spectacular for flavor. We can the paste in 4-oz little jars.

  2. I also have steamed fresh eggs, and they peel beautifully. My difference in process is, I steam for 22 minutes.

  3. I steam my new eggs and the shells almost always come off easy. Put your eggs in a steamer and start timing when the steam starts. Steam for 15 min., peel your eggs while they are still warm. Jackie I had to laugh when you said you wanted to be a twin. I say that all the time, and sometimes I ask for more hours in a day. So happy spring has finally sprung. Take care and try not to work to hard. Betsy

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