Eggs Hard Boiled? No! Coddle Cooked? YES!

Fresh from the "Girls" (Beyonce', Sharpay, Coco, Lolo, Ginger, & Gygi) in the Backyard. Our chickens lay the prettiest eggs!

I'm a little picky about how my eggs are hard-cooked. I don't like gray-green tinted yolks or rubbery whites. Several years ago I started using my tried and true method for hard-cooked eggs. Recently I found out it is called "Coddling"......you know, like what you have to do with your husband when he's sick, or injured, or after he has just run his first marathon :) Tee, he.....couldn't resist.

Just in time for Easter I thought I would share my easy method for perfectly  hard-cooked eggs.

Get a large pot with a lid. Gently place eggs in the bottom of the pot. Cover the eggs with enough cold water to come about two inches above the eggs. Place the pot on the stove over high heat. Once the water begins to boil, remove the pot from the heat and cover with the lid. Set your trusty kitchen timer for 18-20 minutes (I usually do 19 min.) and walk away.....do some online shopping, eat a bowl of ice cream, sing a song, tap dance..... Once the timer ring-a-ding-dings at ya move the pot to your kitchen sink. Gently poor some of the hot water out of the pot then begin running cold tap water over the cooked eggs. When the water in the pot is nice and cold let the eggs chill for a while until cool....sometimes I add ice cubes to speed up this process.

Once cool you can now consider your eggs lovingly "coddled".

Peeling your Eggs -
For all you home chicken farmers out there or those of you that buy direct from the farmer.....the fresher the eggs the more difficult they are to peel once they're hard-cooked. I've tried all the handy dandy tricks from pinterest with no avail. The only thing that works is to use less fresh eggs. So, I try to use my "older" eggs (2 weeks old is ideal) to hard-cook in the hope of avoiding an epic adult tantrum when it comes time to peel them.