You already know how I feel about eggs. We go through about 60 eggs here a week. Okay, so a lot of that goes to my baking business- but we are egg lovers, and one of our favorite ways to have them are Scotched.

Take a hard-boiled egg, cover in ground sausage meat, and fry. Doesn’t sound that hard, does it? I didn’t think so either, until I actually tried making the little suckers- and it was, to quote Tim Gunn, a big hot mess. The meat slipped off the eggs, leaving me with naked hard-boiled eggs, fried with some ground sausage. Tasted good, though.

Then I found this recipe, which is from the BBC’s food section- which, scotch eggs being British, is where I should have looked in the first place. It worked like a dream.

Scotch Eggs
Source: BBC Food

4 large eggs
275g/10oz sausage meat
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 spring onion, very finely chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
125g/4oz plain flour, seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 egg, beaten
125g/4oz plain breadcrumbs (I like to use Panko- gives it that extra crunch)
vegetable oil, for deep frying

Place the eggs, still in their shells, in a pan of cold salted water. Place over a high heat and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to simmer for around 8 minutes. Drain and cool the eggs under cold running water, then peel.

Mix the sausage meat with the thyme, parsley and spring onion in a bowl and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper (Simon recommends being generous with the freshly ground black pepper). Divide the sausage meat mixture into four and flatten each out on a clean surface into ovals about 12.5cm/5in long and 7.5cm/3in at its widest point.

Place the seasoned flour onto a plate, then dredge each boiled egg in the flour. Place each onto a sausage meat oval, then wrap the sausage meat around each egg. Make sure the coating is smooth and completely covers each egg. Dip each sausage meat-coated egg in the beaten egg, rolling to coat completely, then dip and roll into the breadcrumbs to completely cover.

Heat the oil in a deep heavy-bottomed pan, until a breadcrumb sizzles and turns brown when dropped into it. (CAUTION: hot oil can be dangerous. Do not leave unattended.)

Carefully place each scotch egg into the hot oil and deep-fry for 8-10 minutes, until golden and crisp and the sausage meat is completely cooked. Carefully remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

With Superbowl Sunday coming up, it’s the perfect time to show you one of my favorite recipes. This is the one I pull out when my husband’s friends are coming over. Because they’re chicken wings, they’re tasty tasty tasty- and because they’re baked, not fried, you don’t have to feel so bad about polishing off so many of them.

You’ll want to serve these with a bowl or two of some good blue cheese or ranch dressing- preferably homemade, but the stuff from the bottle is just fine. I’ve served these with fat-free ranch dressing, and no one was the wiser. Including the husband, who is decidedly anti-anything fat-free.

For these, I use our homemade hot sauce, but feel free to use Frank’s Red Hot or something similar. Like Sriracha. These are awesome with Sriracha.

Baked Wings

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
chicken wings- around 2 dozen
1/2 cup melted salted butter
hot sauce (1/2 cup if using something like Frank’s Red Hot, or around 5 tablespoons Sriracha or Tabasco)

Line a cookie sheet with foil, and spray with some Pam or Crisco spray. In a large freezer bag, combine flour, cayenne, garlic powder and salt. Mix well. Add the chicken wings, which you’ve patted dry, seal, and shake until well coated.

Transfer wings to foil-lined sheet, and (this is important!) refrigerate at least an hour.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400F. In a small bowl, whisk together the melted butter and hot sauce.

One by one, dip the wings into the butter/hot sauce mixture, and return to the baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven 20 minutes, turn over and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes.

I’ve never understood why anyone would buy packaged caramel popcorn (yes, I’m talking about those tin cans)- or worse, the “caramel-flavored” microwave popcorn which comes with a little pack of artificially flavored caramel to mix with your popcorn while its hot. See, the thing is that caramel is sugar. And if you have popcorn and sugar in your house, you can make caramel popcorn that tastes a thousand times better than anything storebought.

My own recipe, which I think is based off one I got in Seventeen magazine when I was, um, around 17, uses brown sugar, honey, kosher salt, and plenty of butter. I love that phrase, plenty of butter. It always equals something good.

Brown Sugar Caramel Popcorn Recipe

3-4 cups plain popcorn, popped (you can make this in the microwave, hot air popper, or kettle)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons butter

In a large pot, over medium heat, melt the butter. To this, add the brown sugar, honey and salt. Stir while cooking, so that it all melts into a gorgeous, golden caramel… just below boiling. Immediately take off heat, pour onto your popcorn, and mix mix mix.

I don’t always have honey around, so sometimes I omit it altogether. And of course, you can add all sorts of goodies to this, like chopped walnuts or almonds- even some chocolate, if that’s your thing.

It may not seem like it, but it’s not all about over-indulgent desserts and cooking with lots of butter here at bFeedMe: we really do care about eating “well”- and most of the time, that means sticking to healthy choices. Which is why today I want to post about my favorite healthy snacks- and really, because they’re so quick to prepare, there’s no reason not to grab one of these in a moment of peckishness. Instead of a cookie or that bag of chips, I mean.

Chilled Carrot Sticks
It’s not easy to find fresh baby carrots at my local supermarket, but when I do, I like to wash them, portion them out in small freezer bags, and chill them- to be eaten plain when I’m looking for something crunchy and sweet. Without baby carrots, regular carrots will do as well- wash, peel, and cut into sticks. Can’t get much easier than that.

Boiled Eggs
So after years of telling us to limit our egg intake, it turns out eggs are good for us. I knew that all along, of course- and boiled eggs are probably my favorite quick snack of all time. Hard-boiled or soft-boiled, I can’t really decide which one I like best. Oh, and they must be perfectly done- learn how to make a perfect hard-boiled egg here.

Banana Peanut Butter Smears
I could be the only person on earth who calls them this- but these are basically plain bananas smeared with peanut butter. All you need is a banana, a jar of your favorite peanut butter (I like crunchy, but would never turn my nose up at creamy), and a good spoon. And a napkin. Bananas give you potassium, and peanut butter is chock full of good things like Vitamin B3, Niacin and Protein. Who knew healthy snacking could be such fun, eh?

Hot Cocoa
This is what I reach for when I have a strong chocolate craving, and don’t want to wreck my diet with a slice of chocolate cake. There are so many awesome varieties of instant hot cocoa these days (helloooo, Jacques Torres Wicked), and if you make it with skim milk, and give it a good whisk, it makes for a wonderfully satisfying, luxurious chocolate snack.

Slices of Cheese spread with Jam
A few slices of regular cheddar cheese spread with jam (or natural fruit preserves, if you want to be strict about it) really hits the spot for me. Seriously, if you’ve never tried this one- do. The salty creamy cheese is perfectly offset by the sweet tartness of the jam. I like strawberry, but went through a cheese and marmalade phase not too long ago.

What are your favorite snacks?

Chances are, the answer is in your tummy- along with other traditional Superbowl goodies. Every year, American food bloggers start posting some of the most sinfully delicious recipes in the days leading up to the Superbowl. This year was no different- from spicy Buffalo wings to pico de gallo, from jazzed up onion dips to cheese balls that make you go weak at the knees, the best thing about Superbowl recipes is that they’re actually great all year round. Here, a round-up of my favorites this year:

Chicken Wings
Can you have Superbowl without wings? Ree Drummond over at The Pioneer Woman Cooks posted a link to her classic Wings recipe, which I’ve made several times and love fiercely. For something a little different, check out Priscilla’s Tempura Chicken Wings, which use a sweet soy marinade instead of the usual hot sauce.

Chili
A bowl of Chili is, for me, one of the greatest comfort foods around. This year, Style Slacker’s Chipotle Chocolate Gourmet Chili had my mouth watering just reading the recipe. And because I’m trying to cut down on my meat consumption, I’m loving the Adventurous Vegan’s recipe for Big Paul’s Chili – because yes, Vegans can have fun in the kitchen too.

More Finger Food
Forget the forks and knives, and grab these:
Ed Levine’s Bacon-Cheddar Popcorn – truly inspired. Must. eat. this.
Simply Recipes’ Chicharrones de Pollo - yes, chicken again, but little fried bits of heaven? Yes, please.
And again from the Pioneer Woman, Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Thingies – made with just three ingredients, and seriously addictive.

Sweet Stuff
Slashfood linked to Nigella’s (yes, there’s only one Nigella) Peanut Butter Squares as a Superbowl treat, but really- couldn’t you eat these every day? The same could be said of The Bumbling Baker’s Guinness Cupcakes, which she initially made for St. Patrick’s Day, but are perfect for Superbowl (hello, they’ve got beer in them!) or, like I said, any day.

So there you have it: my favorite Superbowl recipes, to be enjoyed after the Superbowl- because they’re that awesome.