From Patch Splendid Kitchen: What To Do With Your Leftover Easter Eggs, Candies

AUSTIN, TX -- Now that Easter is past, you might be sitting there wracked with anxiety over what to do with all those hard-boiled egg leftovers and the impressive cache of candies your kids secured on the Easter egg hunt.

You’re contemplating just throwing it all in the trash, aren’t you? How wasteful.

Instead, try repurposing the leftovers in a number of culinarily creative ways!

The New York Times offers a just-short-of-a-dozen list of recipes that call for hard-boiled eggs as key ingredient. Some of these sound quite tasty, and others also make for impressive presentations (one might even mistake the finished product for haute cuisine rather than repurposed Easter egg hunt find).

It is a good list. Suggested recipes go far beyond making deviled eggs.

Take the French potato and green bean salad recipe, for instance.

“If this sounds like a pared-down salade niçoise, it is,” the Times writes in that somehow endearingly high-brow manner we’ve all grown to love. “Make a bold vinaigrette that is unapologetically fragrant with garlic and anchovy,” they helpfully add.

Despite the high-falutin’ terminology (confession: not sure what a niçoise is), the recipe is moderately simple. You boil medium-sized potatoes in their skins before slicing and dressing them while still slightly warm.

It’s a seven-step recipe that calls for garlic anchovy, capers, mustard and vinegar. But you can “...even do the work in advance and then assemble it all just before serving,” the Times adds helpfully.

In summarizing the recipe, the Times writer seems to regret having used the word niçoise that raised our eyebrow, even while still highly touting the recipe: “Authentic, traditional or somewhere in between, maybe we’ll just call this a potato salad with a southern French accent and let it go at that.”

If you find that one too complicated and/or time consuming, we direct you to the hard-cooked eggs in tomato-onion sauce offering: Four easy steps, a mere 40 minutes to prepare.

“This is the eggs-as-meat-style main course of hard-cooked eggs simmered in tomato sauce,” the Times explains. “Though the main recipe here is Mediterranean, and you often see this preparation in southern Italy (it’s good over pasta), it is equally well known in India, where it is served with chapatti or other bread, and where the spicing is more assertive and the results even more surprising.”

But if you’re really pressed for time (and who isn’t, am I right?) or just lazy, there’s the practicality of the egg salad sandwich or the elegant simplicity of the classic deviled egg.

“There are no newfangled ingredients here,” the Times writes of the latter. “No lemongrass or curry or pesto - just eggs, mustard, mayonnaise, a dash of Tabasco and a festive sprinkle of paprika (if you're feeling fancy, garnish with chives),” they add, as if cheering us on to just do it.

There are more interesting recipes varying in degree of difficulty, fanciness and adventure: Asparagus with prosciutto and egg; crunchy Scotch eggs with horseradish and pickles; spicy quinoa salad with broccoli, cilantro and lime; curried egg salad; and more.

As for leftover candy, AllRecipes.com offers a wide variety of ways to re-format your Easter haul -- with helpful how-to videos to boot.

The “jelly bean nests” sound “interesting” -- the candy and marshmallows surrounded by chow mein noodles fashioned to look like bird nests. The instant chocolate-covered bunnies on a stick offers the kiddos a chance to participate in the kitchen in mixing their marshmallow bunnies in chocolate.

Interestingly and ironically, an ad for a diabetes II treatment appears on the candy recipe page. So remember: Moderation.

A lady on the Kitchen Magpie blog site offers ideas for Easter candy cookies and a chocolate mousse pie made with Easter leftovers. It's worth checking out. USA Today weighs in with its own suggestions, including Easter egg fudge, leftover candy stuffed brownies, spring pudding cups, Peeps s'mores, and more (we meant to do that).

Also: A warning on the egg recipes. If you do decide on one, don't wait too long because the eggs have a limited shelf life before emergence of salmonella.

Generally speaking, hard-boiled eggs usually last last for up to a week in the shell if they've been refrigerated. Once peeled, use them the same day for the best quality.

But as far as Easter eggs are concerned, things get a little dicier. If they’ve been at room temperature for more than two hours, just throw them out; forget everything we've said here about egg recipes (including the niçoise) and just throw them out.

>>> Image via Wikimedia Commons

*If you do embark on the recipes, let us know how it came out in the comments section below!