For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.

Another highly artistic bento today, via Splutch. We've got a lovely redheaded girl (if this is some famous character I don't know about, please do tell) made of turkey, egg, fish cake and nori, along with a nori man, several tamago rollups, some turkey and cucumber rollups and a strawberry jelly.

A breakfast sandwich is always a filling, satisfying way to begin the day--or, occasionally, end the night. One of the things I truly missed when I left New York City was the glory of the corner bodega breakfast sandwich. So, I'm always interested when one of the local West Coast, drive-thru, fast food franchise joints comes up with a new combo of bread, egg and cheese. The two most recent entries, Dunkin' Donuts' Egg White Turkey Sausage Flatbread Sandwich and Carl's Jr.'s Monster Breakfast Sandwich lie proudly at opposite ends of the spectrum. A clear-cut rivaly of health vs. indulgence, but what of taste?

Bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 15 minutes (leave longer for a darker shade).
Then, dip your eggs!

To get those pretty colors:

Pink/red: pomegranate juice, red onion skins, beets, rhubarb, cranberries, raspberries
Orange: yellow onion skins, paprika, saffron
Yellow: orange or lemon peels, carrot tops or skins, celery seed, ground cumin or turmeric
Green: spinach
Blue: red cabbage, canned blueberries or blueberry juice, blackberries, grape juice

Eggs are, without a doubt, one of the most versatile and useful ingredients a cook can work with. Not only are they nutritious and tasty in and of themselves, but they have the potential to transform into souffles and custards, as well as to become a part of cakes, pastas, soups and sauces. The list is almost unending and is generally limited by the preferences of the eater, not by the capabilities of the egg. The Good Egg lists over 200 different types of egg dishes, from breakfast to dessert, sweet to savory, on its pages and in addition the being a great resource for eggy ideas, it is also an excellent reference for the things that can be done with eggs and what their properties are. Tips are generously shared for perfecting every technique mentioned.

One of the things that the book beautifully illustrates is that eggs can be both simple and complex. You can't get much more basic than Fried Eggs with Fresh Tomato Salsa, while (relatively) more complex dishes include Caramelized Tomato and Corn Quiche with Cheddar and Basil, Lemon Chiffon Tart and Portuguese Bread Soup. There are many variations for each basic type of egg dish, as well.

Double-yolked eggs are reasonably common for ducks and chickens, despite the fact that we so rarely see them in stores. It is estimated that 1 in 1,000 eggs (out of 50 billion produced annually in the US) have double yolks. Eggs increase in size as the number of yolks increases, but most of them are caught by "candling," or holding the egg up to a light source to reveal a shadow of what is inside the shell, and used for other egg products instead of being mixed in with single-yolks. Stores that do offer the eggs usually have one local source for them. The chickens, ducks and other birds that lay them have a genetic tendency to produce the eggs, so if a farm is stocked with such birds, most of their eggs with have double yolks. The eggs are popular with anyone who likes yolks and are also believed to be good luck by many.

Far less common are multiple yolk eggs, including triples and quadruples, like the one pictured above. Apparently, the greatest number of yolks found in one egg was nine!

If you can't find any multiple-yolk eggs in your neck of the woods, you can always separate one egg, add the yolk to another, and save the white for later.

1. One egg supplies 10% of the protein you need in one day.
2. Eggs are a good source of vitamins A and D.
3. When a recipe calls for eggs, you should use extra large.
4. If you are trying to cut down on cholesterol, in most recipes you can substitute the whites of two eggs for one whole egg.
5. Grading, such as AA, A and B, indicates quality rather than size.
6. Eggs as old as five weeks that have been stored in the refrigerator are safe to use.
7. Free-range eggs are more nutritious than other eggs.
8. Fertilized eggs have a longer shelf life than unfertilized eggs.

In the study, children were given amounts of defatted peanut flour or an egg powder - very common, but serious, allergens - as small as 1/3,000th of a peanut or about 1/1,000th of an egg (under supervision at the Duke Hospital). Taken in pill form daily, the dosage was increased bi-weekly until the children were consuming the equivalent of 1/10th of an egg or 1 peanut, which became a maintenance dose that they took daily throughout the study, which lasted about 2 years. At that point, 4 of the 7 egg-allergic children could eat two scrambled eggs without any type of reaction (2 more could eat that much before reacting) and many of the peanut-allergic children could eat up to 15 peanuts before starting to experience a reaction.

At this time, researchers strongly recommend that you do not try this type of treatment at home, because it can be dangerous without careful monitoring. To the parents who joined in, however, the success could prove to be a lifesaver for their children and, as a result, researchers are optimistic that there could be a highly effective treatment available to parents and children within five years.

Eggs are wonderful because they are such versatile ingredients and work in preparations from simple to complex, baked to fried, sweet to savory. More often than not, the simplest egg preparations will be the ones that we use most - scrambled eggs, fried eggs, poached eggs and boiled eggs - but with only a bit more effort, some really spectacular dishes can emerge. Omelettes, Souffles & Frittatas is about those slightly more complex preparations, which may take slightly more thought than a fried egg, but are wonderfully simple compared to most dishes.

The recipes for omelettes and frittatas are classical, but simple. The details on technique are easy to follow and the book offers helpful visuals. Although souffles may be approached with trepidation by many cooks, they are just as easy as the other dishes in the book thanks to the reassuring instructions. Recipes include White Chocolate Souffle with Raspberry Sauce, Artichoke and Red Onion Frittata and German Bacon and Potato Omelette.

The season is a little off on this one, since we usually save our posts about giant Cadbury Creme Eggs for the weeks just before Easter, but the Creme de la Creme Egg that popped up on Pimp That Snack this month just can't wait that long. The giant Cadbury egg is simply the most impressive candy hack that we've seen - and the users of PTS clearly agree, since it's already the top-rated pimp on the site. Not only is it huge in size, but the level of detail that went in to its construction is hugely impressive. The milk chocolate candy shell was built up in layers to the proper thickness necessary to hold in the filling and the shell was carefully engraved with the same star design that is found on the standard eggs. Multiple batches of fondant were prepared before the gooey white center with a dyed yellow fondant "yolk" was poured into the prepared molds and sealed in. The "pimpers" even made a look-alike giant wrapper using acrylic paints on aluminum foil!

Although many consider any type of egg-centric dish to be breakfast fare, these Romaine- and Egg-Stuffed Tomatoes with Bacon, from A Mingling of Tastes, strike me as a dinner dish, as well as a brunch one. The dish consists of eggs baked until only slightly runny in hollowed out tomato cups. Underneath the egg, there is a generous spoonful of a romaine lettuce-based pesto sauce, and before serving the entire thing is sprinkled with crisp, crumbled bacon. The presentation, needless to say, is fantastic and makes a relatively simple egg dish suitable for serving to guests. If you're going to try the recipe and take the breakfast route, try serving it with fruit and toast. For dinner, a side salad or even a simple pasta dish would work out nicely.