ZipLock Omelet

leaf

ZIPLOC OMELET

Good for when all your family is together. Have guests write their name on a quart-size Ziploc freezer bag with permanent marker.


Crack 2 eggs (large or extra-large) into the bag (not more than 2) shake to combine them.
Put out a variety of ingredients such as: cheeses, ham, onion, green pepper, tomato, hash browns, salsa, spinach, etc.
Each guest adds prepared ingredients of choice to their bag and shake.


******Make sure to get the air out of the bag and zip it up***** otherwise it will float and cook unevenly.

Place the bags into rolling, boiling water for exactly 13 minutes. You can usually cook 6-8 omelets in a large pot. For more, make another pot of boiling water.
Open the bags (cut off the top and then down the side with a scissors) and the omelet will roll out easily. Be prepared for everyone to be amazed.
Nice to serve with fresh fruit; everyone gets involved in the process and a great conversation piece.

I used 5 Huge leaves of chard and 1 bell pepper (both chopped well) in one omlet. Before cooking, I thought 2 eggs didn't begin to coat the veggies, and added another egg and cooked for 18 min. I forgot to remove the air and it floated. So I weighed it down.
Result: a fine omelet. It was a little irregularly shaped from the weight. Plenty of egg (I probably could have just used 2 eggs total.)

Simple cleanup, and you can get more veggies in your diet. Next time I'll try with slightly less veggies and 2 eggs. I **hate** to clean pans, especially frypans. This is going in my cookbook.

Anonymous

Wow, leaf...I love omelets but hate the clean-up! Plus this seems like it will be so much fun! Thanks!

mkl48

I would think one might be wary of poaching anything in a plastic bag. I would be concened about chemical transfer especially since you can't vent like in a microwave.Beth

DFW

I am certainly going to use this...I also hate cleanup and this is soooo simple. Will have a healthier breakfast now.
Thanks for sharing.

leaf

One woman said this was a Girl Scout technique, but I never learned it in my Girl Scouts.

nm46: I think I understand your concern.

So here's a caveat: Do not use this recipie if you think it might be hazardous for your health!!!

But I don't think that venting is a hazard - it is less likely to explode as boiling an egg, because the bag is flexible, and, unlike microwaves, the omelet is cooking from the outside in, not possibly the inside out. Obviously, the omelet is at most as hot as boiling water when you remove it from the bag so you don't want to drop it on your lap.

If you don't want to cook this way, then you may want to be thinking twice about microwaving in plastic. Note also, the omelet cannot get at a higher temperature than boiling water, and that most foods that boil (besides water) boil at a higher temperature than plain boiling water (from your Chemistry 101 Boiling point elevation). Think the caution we use when boiling fat or boiling sugar when making candy. It gets at a much hotter temperature than boiling water.

One box of Glad zipper bags in my kitchen says 'when microwaving, open zipper 1 inch to vent and place bag on a plate.' So it sounds like some zipper bags can be heated to a temperature higher than boiling water. I have no association with the Glad company or any inside information with the FDA.

I used a generic brand in my test, and the bag did NOT melt or break (until I cut it open with my scissors.) I don't know if I could have exposed myself to phthalates because this generic brand does not specify it can be heated. So Buyer Beware. This is the first omelet I've eaten in at least 2 years.

Here's what Snopes says about it.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cookplastic.asp

And one of their references:

So it’s okay for people to drink out of plastic water bottles?

RH: First, people should be more concerned about the quality of the water they are drinking rather than the container it’s coming from. Many people do not feel comfortable drinking tap water, so they buy bottled water instead. The truth is that city water is much more highly regulated and monitored for quality. Bottled water is not. It can legally contain many things we would not tolerate in municipal drinking water.

Having said this, there is another group of chemicals, called phthalates that are sometimes added to plastics to make them flexible and less brittle. Phthalates are environmental contaminants that can exhibit hormone-like behavior by acting as endocrine disruptors in humans and animals. If you heat up plastics, you could increase the leaching of phthalates from the containers into water and food.
What about cooking with plastics?

RH: In general, whenever you heat something you increase the likelihood of pulling chemicals out. Chemicals can be released from plastic packaging materials like the kinds used in some microwave meals. Some drinking straws say on the label “not for hot beverages.” Most people think the warning is because someone might be burned. If you put that straw into a boiling cup of hot coffee, you basically have a hot water extraction going on, where the chemicals in the straw are being extracted into your nice cup of coffee. We use the same process in the lab to extract chemicals from materials we want to analyze.

If you are cooking with plastics or using plastic utensils, the best thing to do is to follow the directions and only use plastics that are specifically meant for cooking. Inert containers are best, for example heat-resistant glass, ceramics and good old stainless steel.

Is there anything else you want to add?

RH: Don’t be afraid of drinking water. It is very important to drink adequate amounts of water and, by the way that’s in addition to all the coffee, beer and other diuretics we love to consume. Unless you are drinking really bad water, you are more likely to suffer from the adverse effects of dehydration than from the minuscule amounts of chemical contaminants present in your water supply. Relatively speaking, the risk from exposure to microbial contaminants is much greater than that from chemicals.

And here’s one more uncomfortable fact. Each of us already carries a certain body burden of dioxins regardless of how and what we eat. If you look hard enough, you’ll find traces of dioxins in pretty much every place on earth. Paracelsus the famous medieval alchemist, used to put it straight and simple: it’s the dose that makes the poison.

http://www.bms.jhmi.edu/JHI/English/Media/Find_an_Expert/FE_RolfHaldenJuly05.asp

rushelle

Hey leaf:

I made some omelets this morning with the kids.....lol...it was definitely alot of fun!!
my two boys put mushrooms, ham and cheese in theirs, I added a few hot peppers and onions also in mine.

WOW!!! the kids were amazed!! and best of all, they ate and there was no mess to clean up!!. They're ussually not much for breakfast but thought that was so neat they had to try it.....lol My hubby didn't know what to think until he tried some of mine. Needless to say I ended up making another one for him...ha ha.

thanks for the recipe. I've got it taped to the inside of the cupboard door where all my quick and good meals are!!

hugs rushelle

Anonymous

leaf, your link from Snopes was very interesting.

I was watching the doctor on Fox News one say (he comes on Sunday) and he suggested that we do not heat in plastic and cover our foods while heating with a paper towel. He wasn't saying that heating in plastics caused cancer, but since we didn't know we can be on the safe side by doing this.

So, it's okay if we freeze our water? YIPEE! LOL
Shirley

PS The omelets look tempting enough to try. I may just have to give in.

leaf

Thank you, Rushelle and Shirley, I think I was/am overly sensitive.

This reference from Glad says there are no plasticizers in Glad bags, and

Is it okay to microwave food that is stored in a GLAD Freezer Bag?
There are several issues to consider when discussing the feasibility of using GLAD Bags in the microwave. Because the plastic will neither be heated by nor interfere with microwave energy, they can be used to hold foods or cover dishes that are being warmed or defrosted.

The plastic used in these bags has a low melting point, however. It is possible for the plastic film to reach melting temperature from contact with the food or dish itself, especially during prolonged exposure such as would occur when cooking meat, for instance. Certain foods with high fat content (such as butter) or with high sugar content also can become very hot in a microwave oven. For these reasons, we cannot recommend GLAD Bags for general microwave cooking.

Is it okay to microwave food that is stored in a GLAD Sandwich Bag?
There are several issues to consider when discussing the feasibility of using GLAD Bags in the microwave. Because the plastic will neither be heated by nor interfere with microwave energy, they can be used to hold foods or cover dishes that are being warmed or defrosted.

The plastic used in these bags has a low melting point, however. It is possible for the plastic film to reach melting temperature from contact with the food or dish itself, especially during prolonged exposure such as would occur when cooking meat, for instance. Certain foods with high fat content (such as butter) or with high sugar content also can become very hot in a microwave oven. For these reasons, we cannot recommend GLAD Bags for general microwave cooking.
http://www.glad.com/faqs/foodbags.php

Recall your basic Physics: that we are boiling water, then placing the egg bag hopefully in the water so it does not touch the sides of the pan. If you are confident in the laws of Entropy, then it is astronomically unlikely that the omelet bag temperature will exceed the boiling point of water.

although there is no abstract attached, the title is intriguing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query...l=pubmed_docsum


I did find this on the John Hopkins Ask An Expert (Lillie Shockley) site. Facts and Myths Section.
Question:
#25

8/17/2006
Q:

A friend of mine is a 5 year breast cancer survivor, and I am very concerned about the recent news regarding the use of plastics relative to cooking in microwaves, etc. Has there been any investigation relative to non-stick surfaces/teflon on cookware and their contribution to cancer?


A:

this rumor has been running around for 5 years now. hopkins has done no such research and doesn't even know how this got started.

ArmyNavyMom

I've used this technique for many years with my Boy Scout troop. They loved it because it was a hot breakfast with minimal clean-up. I've never seen a bag burst (melt when they hung them over the edge of the pot on a Coleman stove) nor heard of that with any of my Scouting friends.

Can't speak to the question of cooking in the plastic with any authority, but I wouldn't think there would be a difference between plastic considered safe to store food and plastic considered safe to cook food. Maybe I'm just an ostrich...

Anne

omo

sounds like fun.i just read this and will try it tonight!!!

rvgirl

You are right about not cooking in a plastic bag. Read my post on this cooking forum about dioxin in plastics when heated. Big BC risk.

Jorf

We each take the risks we're comfortable with. Some of us cook in plastic or in pans that are lined with something non-stick, some of us eat tofu. ...

After having seen a plastic bowl completely disappear in a microwave once I'll NEVER microwave or cook in plastic. But that's just me. That was way way too freaky for me!

normajn

Awesome idea now I can't wait for breakfast tomorrow!
NormaJean

Anonymous

I'm bumping this up. We just had a brunch here at work and the clean-up was ridiculous. I was telling everyone about this idea....

Marin