Happy birthday to one of my favorite people on earth: BETTY WHITE! 98 years young! I've been a fan long before The Golden Girls... mostly thanks to appearances on The Tonight Show and reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Anyway...

Today I finally finished a project I've been working on all year long (ha!), so I decided to leave a couple hours early so I could bake bread and do some cooking.

Namely, trying to figure out the perfect egg bite recipe.

There are dozens of recipes on the internet, possibly even hundreds. I've gone through a lot of them and have cooked many of them. Eventually I started experimenting on my own, combining recipes and adding my own ingredients.

Some things I've learned...

• Green onions, purple onions, sweet onions, any kind of onions make the entire egg bite taste like onions. If that's your thing, go right ahead. I avoid avoid avoid.
• Cottage cheese makes them more fall-apart, so I avoid it.
• Most cheeses are too mild to have much impact. I eventually solved this by using SHARP Cheddar Cheese and spicy Queso Blanco (Totino's brand, which sucks for chips, works really well).
• Bland egg bites are yuck, and most of my experimenting was trying to find a way to spice them up while still getting a good balance of flavor. Again, Queso Blanco was my solution.
• Many of the recipes I found call for Greek yogurt (anywhere from two tablespoons to a quarter-cup). I didn't find it made a lot of difference, especially after I started going down the Queso Blanco route.

Which brings us to...

Dave's Spicy Egg Bites.
Start by dumping all this in a blender...

• 3 Large Eggs (or 4 Egg Whites)
• 1/4 cup Queso Blanco (plus 1-2 Tbs. extra, if you like added spice)
• 1/2 cup Sharp Cheddar Cheese
• 1 Tbs. Sour Cream
• 1/4 tsp. Ground Black Pepper
• 1 Tbs. Crumbled Feta Cheese (optional)
• 1/8 tsp. Tabasco (optional)

Blend on medium speed until well-mixed. Then add...

• 1/4 cup Red Peppers, diced into small pieces then heated in a microwave-safe bowl until they just start to brown. I cook for 1-1/2 minutes, stir, then cook for another 1-1/2 minutes. Your microwave may vary. Don't let them burn!
• If you want ham or bacon in them, dump in a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of whatever. Be forewarned that a lot of extra stuff will cause the egg bites to fall apart easier.

Pulse-blend on slow just until mixed, don't pulverize the peppers!

Spray silicone egg cups with cooking spray (I know they say you don't have to, but they always stick if I don't). Evenly divide egg mixture amongst cups. Place a cup of water into the bottom of your instant pot then lower the silicone bite tray into the pot with the wire steam rack. Most recipes say to put a circle of foil on top of the egg tray so condensation doesn't drop onto the eggs. I don't bother.

I have an 8-quart Instant Pot. I have no idea if this makes a difference if you have the 6-quart, but I often have to increase cooking times from recipes I find. There are two ways I've tried to cook these things. There doesn't seem to be a big difference. I prefer to steam because they seem softer, but I am including the pressure-cook version which also works...

• STEAM: Cook on STEAM-HIGH for 15 minutes. Quick-release. Cool/deflate for 5 minutes, then gently pop or scoop out of the cups.
• PRESSURE COOK: Cook on PRESSURE-LOW for 10 minutes. Natural-release for 5 minutes, then quick-release. Cool/deflate for 5 minutes, then gently pop or scoop out of the cups.

If you don't eat all of them, you can put them back in the silicone egg cups and use the provided plastic lid to store them in the refrigerator for a few days. I just pop them on a microwave-safe plate, cut in half, then cook for 30 seconds to warm them.

If you're not going keto you can chop them up and eat them on toast, which is my most favorite way to eat them. Also delicious? Chop up, mix with crispy hash brown potatoes and more cheese, put in a steamed flour tortilla with salsa.

These are pretty good stuff, if I do say so myself, and it's the Queso Blanco which ended up being the key. I didn't find it on any recipe I dug up, which is strange. Adding it seems obvious, it was the other factors that took a lot of time to figure out (I wasted many a batch with different onions and cottage cheese until I got rid of them completely).

I'll keep experimenting and post any changes if I find out they work better.