Best Egg Salad of Life (or My Life Anyways)

So what do you do when you come back from a weekend away, to a near empty fridge? Usually I'd say, I don't know what that means, my fridge is never empty! On a normal weekday open my fridge and it looks like I could feed a family of 4. I'm pretty sure I get this from my mom, back home go in our dry storage in the basement and I swear it's like a mini Safeway down there. She'd say "go downstairs and grab me the penne" I'd run down, shout "wheeree I don't see it!" she'd say " it's next to the soup section and swansons chicken broth which is next to the hoisin sauce, jello and Italian olive oil packed tuna!"

In my place I always have something I can throw together, in this case I had ONE egg (usually I panic if I don't have enough eggs to throw together a couple batches of cookie dough) one stalk of celery, 1/2 an avocado and basil that were surprisingly still green,a few tomatoes, a bell pepper and an insane variety of condiments and jarred goods (which takes up the whole middle shelf of my fridge). Good tip is to keep your favorite bread, already pre-sliced in the freezer so it's easy for a quick de-frost or to pop in the toaster (preferably a hello kitty toaster). I love when you have next to nothing and turn it into something good! Oh and if you have bacon, slice it, fry it, add it. EVEN BETTER.

Best Egg Salad of Life
1 boiled egg*, chopped
grated aged cheddar
artichokes, rough chopped
olives, rough chopped
dill (only had dried but use fresh if possible)
s+p, grains paradise
fresh basil, torn
celery, small diced
red bell pepper, small diced
mayo 2tbsp
Dijon 2 tsp
Yogurt 1 tbsp

Avocado
Tomato, Sliced
Crispy Bacon if you are lucky
Bread of your choice( I used a brown rice artisan bread), toasted

**To boil an egg**
In a small pot place one large egg, cover with water and with lid on, bring to a boil. Let boil for 2 minutes, take off the burner and set aside for 6 minutes. Drain water and shock egg in cold water.

1.No instructions really necessary, throw everything together and try not to eat it off the spoon before you place on your toasted bread smeared with avocado and tomato slices.

I wasn't joking, I really do own one...am I the only one who gets excited when the toast pops up
and her face is imprinted on it!? I swear this is as far as the Hello Kitty obsession goes.

So I was thinking about those Brown Butter Scallops...

I made awhile back and it made me laugh remembering this one time in Culinary School...My class was working the Highwood dining room, which was the school's restaurant and one of the last things you do before you graduate. That day I was assigned the appetizer/garde manger (cold food) section and had come up with an apps special of seared scallops with baby greens in the middle. While waiting for orders to come in I got a little bored since my prep was all done and started playing with some leftover bread dough I had from something else. I thought it would be fun to do a “mock version” of what the finished plate looked like, with raw dough formed to look like the scallops, complete with the salad in the middle! I showed it to my friend who laughed and said wow that looks so real!

So the lunch rush came around and I was putting out plates as fast as I could, I remember turning around to flip my scallops and when I turned back my table was empty, all plates had been taken out to the dining room…I thought oh good, they came and got them and turned back to my scallops. A realization occurred to me and my eyes got all wide as I slowly turned around, looked at the table and realized there were noo plates left on my station…including my “mock plate”. I remember at the time thinking O.M.G somebody right now is eating RAW doughhh! My second thought was O.M.G I have to tell my CHEFF! I told a couple friends who thought this was hilarious and then I went and talked to Chef and explained what happened…I could see the corners of her mouth turning up but trying hard not to smile and just be serious about the situation. Not a minute later one of the servers (a culinary student from another class) came back into the kitchen holding a half eaten appetizer plate. “Chef, this lady said her scallops taste funny”. By then my whole class knew what was going on, as they all laughed and peered over my mock plate of ½ eaten scallops and I’m looking at the plate thinking hmm yess how does it take eating TWO whole chunks of dough to realize something doesn't taste right! By then I too was trying not to laugh and be serious as Chef tells me I had to make a new plate ASAP and bring it out to the table, apologize and explain what happened. I did what I was told but thought to myself, heyy how is it my fault that I made a mock dish that looked so much like the real thing that the server mistakenly took it!

I remember walking into the dining room in my whites, more curious than embarrassed to see what this lady looked like that could eat 2 whole chunks of dough before realizing they weren't really scallops. Needless to say the group of ladies were extremely nice and laughed at the story and I definitely learned my lesson, never to make a fake replicate of a dish again!