Say goodbye to overcooked yolks or disintegrating egg whites -- perfectly poached eggs are easy with these useful tips.

Crustless quiche. Photo: Pink of Perfection.

Professional chefs can spend hours using expensive ingredients to make beautiful dishes, that, on rare occasions, are so perfect we're afraid to eat them. But many home cooks manage to spend very little time and money on dishes that are equally appetizing.

Case in point: this quick crustless quiche from Pink of Perfection's Sarah McColl. While the lack of crust might make it more of a frittata than a quiche, we're more concerned with what's in it than what's not. Packed with portobello mushrooms, frozen spinach and an onion, this eggy meal is easy as pie (no, it's easier) and, better yet, it costs only $5 to make!

[Via Pink of Perfection]

Cracking egg. Photo: Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Flickr

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We can change the way we make eggs -- scrambled, poached, fried -- but what about changing the eggs themselves? Mix up your scrambling routine with quail eggs.

A curious thing happened Tuesday in New York City. A Michelin-starred chef fiddled with a microwave.

It might not be considered so odd as the chef in question was culinary experimenter Wylie Dufresne, who took to the dining room of his restaurant, WD-50, to make an egg dish with a microwave.

"I think microwaves are pretty neat," Dufresne said before his demonstration. The chef uses three standard microwaves in his kitchen and has been testing out this new model for the last three weeks.

"We realized we could poach in the microwave," he said. But it takes time ... 29 minutes to be precise.

Hear how he uses metal in the microwave after the jump.

Have no idea how old your eggs are? It's not too hard to figure it out!

Not Martha set the foodie world on fire -- uh, 378 commenters and a bunch of blogs, at least -- with her BLT-themed, freestanding bacon cups. But they required three hours of effort and resulted in a house full of smoke.

Then Merriment Design came along and introduced a microwave to the process. Voila! Cups large and small whipped up in as little as five fire-free minutes. All they required were a few pieces of kitchen paraphernalia, some paper towels and a whole lot of bacon. Click through for the particulars of how it's done, and be in bacon cups all summer long.

They're cheesy, cheap and classic. What are talking about? Casseroles, of course! In this brand-new series food writer and blogger Emily Farris, author of "Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven" crafts tasty new casseroles exclusively for Slashfood readers. Green Eggs and Ham is her premier dish -- just in time for Easter.

As a kid, I never understood why Easter dinner was called "dinner" if it happened at noon. Luckily, one of the great things about being an adult is that we can make our own rules and name our own meals. And because I still can't bring myself to call a meal that happens that early "dinner," this year I'm hosting Easter brunch.

Am I making a 10-pound ham and scrambling three-dozen eggs while my guests drink free-flowing mimosas? Nope, this thing is happening potluck style. Like most people I know, I can't afford to host lavish brunches (not to mention dinners!), but wanted my meal to incorporate the different elements of Easter and, well, be a little brunch-y. So green eggs and ham it was, with eggs, ham, spinach, biscuits and my favorite thing in the world: cheese.

After a bit of experimentation, I wound up with a sort-of upside-down quiche with a biscuit crust, and who wouldn't go crazy for that? Although it'd be a wonderful meal for Easter brunch or supper, it's also a great way to use up that leftover Easter ham. Regardless, it's the sort of thing that would make Dr. Seuss -- or the Easter Bunny -- proud.

Did a little yolk slip into your pristine whites while separating your eggs? Don't fret; here's how to fix it.

Just as April showers bring May flowers, so do the hard-boiled eggs that arrive via Passover seder or an Easter egg hunt bring us, well, a lot of hard-boiled eggs. What to do with them all?

Many of those who celebrate Easter open a lunch box the first Monday thereafter to be confronted with a big scoop of egg salad. And while that's always an option -- as is the Cobb Salad that centers many an April luncheon -- there are recipes out there beyond the standards. So hide your eggs and eat them too.

First, though, safety is critical. According to the USDA, Easter eggs are safe to eat after the hunt provided you follow a few basic guidelines: Use food-safe coloring to dye the eggs and refrigerate them within two hours of boiling them. Boiling an egg removes a protective coating that occurs naturally on the shell, which leaves the shell vulnerable to bacteria. After the hunt, discard any eggs whose shells have cracked or that nestled in a bacteria-friendly environment such as dirt, hay or anywhere accessible to pets. Don't keep hard-boiled eggs away from the fridge for longer than two hours and use them within seven days of boiling them.

Beyond the jump is a delicious recipe for using those safely-handled eggs. (Hint: It's a salad, but it's not egg salad).

Everyone has his or her own way of poaching an egg. Some twirl the egg into a ghostly tornado in a pot of water , some buy special poachers and some even cheat and bake them. (One of our favorites is cracking an egg into a greased ladle and holding it in boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes.) This video, however, explains an even an easier way -- gently pouring eggs into vinegar-laced water.

Bay Area food editor Jenny Slafkosky here describes the particulars of poaching and how a little vinegar will help the albumin in the egg white coagulate (or firm up) more quickly. This is quite a discovery for those of us who love poaching eggs, all of whom have probably experienced watching them shred mercilessly in a pot of boiling water.

Slafkosky's simple method gets wonderful results, and -- a bonus! -- she also tells us how to make poached eggs for a whole crowd. Give it a click for flawless poached eggs down the road, and let us know how it goes!

Josh Elliott is obsessed with chicks.

Three in particular -- Pot Pie, Salad Sandwich and Noodle Soup -- have turned his head. A pro freelance shutterbug turned urban chicken farmer, he has devoted a blog to their adventures (and misadventures) called Three Chicks a Day that will break your heart with cuteness.

It all started when a friend introduced Elliott to home-raised eggs -- "definitely better than store-bought" -- four years ago. When he and roommate Chrissy Morgan finally adopted three dewy little critters last week, he decided to snap their portraits daily until they are old enough to move outside in about four weeks. The blog features photos with brief notes about the chicks' modeling preferences: Noodle Soup, for example, is a "strutter."

Elliott is among a growing number of city dwellers from coast to coast building coops in their yards. They are holding social events and even chat groups where forums range from incubating and hatching eggs to lively discussions about predators and pests.

In Portland, Ore., where he lives, three chickens are the legal limit without having to obtain a permit. With the blessing of his landlord, a teacher who found the idea adorable, he began building a coop and enrolled in a weekend-long seminar called Chicken Fest at a local nursery. Classes included Chicken 101, coop-building and chicken health and boy, was it popular: "I went to one class and there must have been 30 people [there]."

Why is Elliott going through all this?

At first I was going to show you Julia Child's jiggling omelette technique, but then something else caught my eye -- two greats in the kitchen. Julia and Jacques Pepin team up to make a Pan Bagnat.

It's a delicious sandwich to watch come together, but the real charm of this clip is the interplay between Julia and Jacques. With even the most good-natured cooks there will be inevitable clashes, and these two are no exception -- although it's more jovial surprise and disagreement than clashing. Julia loves throwing the oil into the mix, and adding things here and there, while Pepin tries to go with the flow. But as much as he tries to run the sandwich making show, Julia's the Queen of the Kitchen. Watch to see her lay the smackdown for the appropriate Pan Bagnat beverage. Pepin's good, but he's no match for Julia!

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