Many Eggs – photo by woodleywonderworks

It started off as a match made in heaven.  You got some backyard chickens and they started laying you delicious eggs.  It seemed perfect at first.  That handful of hens though, turn out to be fruitful birds… I mean, REALLY productive.  Now you find yourself awash in eggs.  Sure, giving some away is a neighborly, friendly thing to do.  However, raising chickens in order to keep your neighbors in eggs is not what you had originally envisioned.  Your unimaginative egg cooking skills though have burned you out and landed you squarely in an egg-eating rut.  Don’t despair!  There is a way to find that egg cooking spark again so you once more luxuriate in the bounty from your backyard flock.

To help you rekindle your love for eggs we are joined this week on the Urban Chicken Podcast, by Marie Simmons – a distinguished cooking instructor, food columnist, and award-winning cookbook author. Marie shares how ideas and tips on how to spice up your egg-eating love life. 

Marie Simmons

Marie Simmons has authored over a dozen cookbooks and countless cooking articles for magazines and newspapers.  Her book, “The Good Egg: More than 200 Fresh Approaches from Soup to Dessert,” is a manual of egg-cooking genius.  In this book dedicated solely to the topic of egg cookery, Marie shares delicious and reasonably easy to prepare egg recipes.  In addition to the recipes found in “The Good Egg,” Marie also shares helpful hints on working with eggs which one finds scattered throughout the book.

Though “The Good Egg” is not the newest egg-centric cookbook on the market (it was first published about a decade ago), it is the one on my bookshelf that I like best.  I am not alone in my admiration of “The Good Egg” as it won the prestigious James Beard Award for single subject cookbook when it was first published.

One of the most interesting egg preparation methods that Marie shares in “The Good Egg” is her recipes for Strata.  The name Strata means layers, which is exactly what this recipe is – layers of bread, seasoned with various combinations of savory meats, herbs and vegetables, covered with an egg batter and baked.  Essentially, a Strata is a savory twist on bread pudding.  Strata recipes are a terrific way to put a half dozen eggs and some stale bread to good use!   Here is a link to Marie’s recipe for Ricotta Basil and Roasted Red Peppers Strata with Parmesan (Recipe HERE).

The Good Egg: More than 200 Fresh Approaches from Breakfast to Dessert" target="_blank">The Good Egg – by Marie Simmons

Marie’s passion for food and cooking is rooted in her childhood having grown up in an Italian household where culturally – food is love.  She studied Foods and Nutrition at the Pratt Institute in New York and began her career as the Test Kitchen Editor for Woman’s Day magazine.  Marie has worked as a pastry chef at the historic Brooklyn restaurant, Gage & Tollner and eventually became the food editor for Cuisine magazine.  Additionally, Marie has penned countless food and cooking articles for many different periodicals, such as Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, Eating Well, Fitness, Redbook and the Los Angeles Times.   Over the years, Marie has shared her knowledge and passion for cuisine as a cooking instructor at several prestigious culinary schools.

Here is a sample of her published cookbooks:

I also appreciated and enjoyed the egg quotes and poems that she placed at the beginning of each chapter in “The Good Egg.”  The poem that introduces Chapter 12 of her cookbook particularly struck me.

The Hen – by Oliver Herford