I love eggs, like a lot. I think the average American eats about 278 eggs per year and I think I eat way more than that. When our friends at the Ohio Poultry Association asked if I wanted to attend a 2-day meeting to learn all about Ohio eggs + farmers, I jumped at the opportunity.
The Ohio Poultry Association (OPA) is a non-profit statewide trade organization representing more than 600 Ohio egg, chicken, and turkey farmers.
We started our 2 day adventure at our hosts’ home in German Village, a little bit south of Downtown Columbus, Ohio. Our host, Jim Chakeres is the Executive Vice President of Ohio Poultry Association and his backyard is serious garden goals.
During our tour of his home, I knew I was going to get a long with them just fine because they had TONS of ribbons from the Ohio State Fair. If you don’t know, I won 3rd place in the live deviled egg competition in 2017 at the Ohio State Fair! I love entering those contest and seriously encourage everyone to do them, they are so fun.
Throughout this two day adventure, we learned an incredible amount of information about eggs, poultry farmers, and so much more. Throughout the event, I also got the chance to meet a bunch of awesome Ohio food, travel, and lifestyle bloggers! Check out our pic at the very bottom to check us all out.
First on our list was to learn some fun facts about eggs and in the vein of organization, here are some of my favorite facts for you to learn too.
– Ohio is one of the largest egg farming states in the USA, creating more than 19,619 jobs annually and generating $690 million in annual earnings to the state’s economy, with over 33 millions laying hens!
– In that second picture there, the “135” number is the day that the eggs were packaged. In Ohio, it is required for an egg to be packaged within 36 hours after being laid.
– Eggs are protein-rich, with a protein value of 94% compared to milk at 85%, fish at 76% and beef at 74%.
After our fun fact session of learning all about the incredible Ohio egg, we got to dive into my favorite part – cooking and eating! This first recipe is unreal and SO CREAMY. If you follow our Insta Stories, you know the Baby O loveees scrambled eggs.
Jim, our resident chef for the week whipped these eggs up and taught me a fun fact I didn’t really know. When cooking scrambled eggs, you should be go low (heat) and slow to let them cook gently.
Want to know the secret ingredient? CREAM CHEESE Y’ALL. Welcome to Ohio, friends. The land of adding dairy to anything and everything.
I know the point of a good cooking demonstration is to show people how easy it is to make something, but Jim really nailed it with this one! He whipped up some amazingly delicious pudding in seriously just a few minutes.
We’ve also written a great recipe for pudding (here), so now you have all the options for your egg yolkiest desires.
Hallelujah to the Ohio Poultry Association for knowing that us Ohio bloggers want pizza + ranch dressing right on top. This B-E-L-T pizza is SO GOOD. You just whip up your pizza and then top with 6 eggs and pop in the oven.
It makes a perfectly delicious fried-ish egg on top of our favorite Friday food, pizza.
Something I really loved about this foodie adventure is that it really shows the versatility of the egg. We had savory, sweet, breakfast, dinner, snacks, etc., all sorts of recipes that were simple and delicious.
This demonstration was highlighting the wonders of the one-pot dinner that us parents all know and love. I see it as a play on shakshouka and seriously want to make it at least once a week. We tried a Mexican version and a Greek version and they were both so delicious and simple to make. You could easily dress these up with different herbs, proteins, spices, etc., the world is your oyster!
Okay, so this might have been my favorite part of the entire learning experience! I’ve never been able to make a proper omelette and it turns out, I’ve been attempting to make them all wrong! As opposed to scrambled eggs, you want to have high heat and move quick to make the perfect omelette.
I do have a video of me whipping one up during our cooking session, but instead I’ll share the more official YouTube video from Ohio Poultry Association.
The lovely Nedra from Adventure Mom also gave it a whirl and did a pretty spectacular job for her first omelette!
Oh don’t mind me, just another example of dairy on top of dairy with dairy in the middle. If you’ve never topped an omelette with sour cream, you need to do it because it’s delicious.
Who has made cloud eggs before? I’ve seen them all over instagram, but never tried them myself because I assumed they were super difficult. That couldn’t be further from the truth!
Basically, you whip the egg whites until fluffy and add some fresh herbs and toss a dollop on a parchment lined baking sheet. Place the egg yolk right on top of your dollop of egg whites and toss in a 400 degree F oven for about 4-5 minutes. Then, voila cloud eggs! Bonus points if you serve them with your homemade pudding.
Last but not least, we ended with my favorite way to eat eggs – deviled eggs! I love a creative deviled egg and boy oh boy, did Jim deliver. Pictured are the bloody mary deviled eggs which could only be made better if they were served with a side of vodka.
Not pictured are the chocolate deviled eggs that were topped with sprinkles. Yes, chocolate and yes, they were delicious. I actually loved them and can’t wait to make them for our next get together!
We even had a tomato bacon ranch deviled egg that was SO GOOD. I swear I can never go back to just mayo and mustard again. I need to step up my deviled egg game for sure.
I had such an amazing time with the Ohio Poultry Association learning all about the wonders of the incredible egg. There are so many tips about eggs, poultry, and our amazing chicken farmers here in Ohio that I couldn’t fit into one blog post. To learn more, I’ve listed a few resources below including the social sites for the Ohio Poultry Association.
– Egg Nutrition Toolkit
– Ohio Poultry Association Website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter
– Egg Safety Center
– The Incredible Egg
– Egg Nutrition Center
Make sure to check out my fellow blogger pals to see what egg-y fun they are having out and about in Ohio too!
Erin Vasicek
I often add Greek yogurt to my scrambled eggs but I am a huge fan of cream cheese so I will have to try that!
pease.hannah@gmail.com
Ohhh that is genius!