Yesterday I was grocery shopping and I was about to buy a carton of Egg Beaters, you know, the already premixed egg whites in the carton. And after sighing at the price of $5.64 for a quart, I decided to see about making my own. And apparently, it's really easy...and cheap!
What you need:
18 large eggs ($1.56)
3/4 Dry Nonfat Milk (I already had some, but it's only about $2.50 for a small box...which will last quite a while. I'd say this cost about $.30 cents)
4 tsp vegetable oil (which I already had, but this costs about $.02)
Yellow Food Colouring (which I had, but was the equivalent of $.05)
What you do:
Separate the eggs from the yolk. You can do this a few different ways, by shuffling the yolk back and forth between the broken halves of the shell (which I think is the hardest, myself), by breaking the egg into a mesh sieve, (which is easier but not always foolproof) or break the egg into the palm of my hand and let the white slip through your fingers while you hold on to the yolk. You can also buy things like egg separators and such, but I prefer using my hands, myself (and you get to squish egg yolks into the sink, too!) After you have your 18 egg whites, pour in your oil and dry milk, colouring and blend all the ingredients together (I use my stick blender for this). Let the foam settle for a few minutes and viola...instant Egg Beaters.
Now as for the food colouring, yes, it's purely optional. I prefer it, but that doesn't mean you have to use it. I like my eggs to be yellow in the morning, and won't enjoy them nearly as much if they're white.
Each batch makes 12 1/4 cup servings, and cost a total of $1.93. Each serving has 50 calories, 8.5 grams of protein, 2 carbs, and 1.5 grams fat. Now, I use 1/2 cup every morning, so I get 6 servings altogether, which costs $.32, as opposed to a dollar.
So now that you have this batch of runny yellow goop, what can you do with it? Well, I divide mine in small 1/2 cup batches in small plasticware. The best part is you can prepare all your morning omelets at one time for the week and make all sorts of different kinds or all the same. This week, I made 6 of the same, each had a tablespoon each of frozen chopped spinach, chopped onions, canned mushrooms and a sprinkle of salt and pepper in each (which was 99 calories!) Then I just pop on the top, shake them up, and stick them in the fridge. The entire process took took MAYBE a half hour, but now I have no excuse in the morning to skip breakfast (or even worse, go visit the yellow arches on my way to work) because all I have to do now is break out a frying pan.
A quick note on cooking...when you put them in the pan they're going to look watery...real watery. This is okay! They cook up just as well...but they DO cook up quickly, so beware...don't leave the stove for more than a minute or you'll come back with browned eggs.
So enjoy your newfound gift of variety in the morning. Go on, spice it up, veg it up, cool it down...just make sure it's healthy (and cheap)!
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I think this is a great idea. I don't eat the yolk and cringe every time I purchage a carton of whites as I am the only one in my house who eats them. Do you know how long they will stay good? I suppose as long as the store bought cartoned ones, right? I'm thinking by dying them yellow, I might just be able to convince the kids to try them! What is the purpose of the oil?
ReplyDeleteI think the oil just adds a little fat to it for consistency...blending it with oil made it a TINY bit smoother than without the oil, but that is one of those "to each their own" calls. As for how long they last, on Saturday I make little Tupperware cups full of them for an entire week, and then freeze the rest until Friday morning, and let it thaw all day. The egg cups I make are good for the week, if that helps!
ReplyDeleteIt does help, thanks!
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