Boiled eggs & dried fruit

Last week I tried a variation on an old favourite.

In the good ole days, I used to take a couple of boiled eggs in to work and grab some vegies to steam from the nearby supermarket. Surprisingly, I find steamed vegies very easy to take first thing in the morning, much more so than later in the day. Problem was, my colleagues weren't so happy with the smell of steamed cabbage. I guess there's no accounting for taste.

This time I decided to try a boiled-eggs-and-dried-fruit combo.

The boiled eggs I made with one of my favourite gadgets - my egg-maker.

I love it. It makes eggs perfectly to the hardness or softness I desire. And when the eggs are cooked, instead of making a horrible burning smell, exploding the eggs and ruining the pot, it beeps at me in a very obnoxious manner, so that I am forced to turn it off before burning and exploding takes place.

A couple of boiled eggs, some almonds, walnuts, dried apricots and figs packed very nicely into a conveniently lunch-box-sized lunch box.

So, the question was: would this satisfy me until lunchtime? The answer was: sort of.

Unfortunately, the eggs were a bit not yummy. They wouldn't peel properly, which is very unusual for eggs cooked in the egg cooker - more often than not when you crack the shells, they slide off easily in two halves. This time most of the white came off on the shell, and they didn't taste quite as yummy as they should have. Not yucky, just not yummy. Methinks the egg company took liberties with the use-by date...

Overall, the meal was quite ok - the apricots, I think, were important in the nice tart contrast they provided. Healthwise, there is protein in the eggs, perhaps a bit much fat in the nuts - but good fat - and balancing carbs and fibre in the apricots and figs.

I tried again with fresh eggs the next day, and it wasn't bad, but there were some hunger pangs floating around before lunch (quashed by another coffee - good for not feeling hungry, bad for sleeping).

Of course, then I was stuck with four eggs in which I had little confidence. Fortunately, I have a dog who not only loves boiled eggs, but who also loves slightly dodgy stuff, given the attention she pays to indescribable things in the park (usually indescribable due to their state of extreme dodginess, which means you can't really tell what they are).

However... by the end of the week I was back to the bacon and egg foccacia, remembering, after the first, glorious, greasy bite, to pull the fat off the bacon. And that is still my benchmark for fullness and tummy-happiness. Particularly in the depths of winter.

Verdict: 7/10