Classic Egg Salad

I never thought of egg salad as needing an official recipe. I always just throw it together. When I posted the recipe for Homemade Thousand Island Dressing, I mentioned cutting hard boiled eggs in an egg slicer "as you would do for egg salad.." Then I received an email from a friend asking "well, how do you make egg salad?" I thought, "Seriously??" "Yes! Seriously!!" I guess I'll have to start posting some recipes for the culinary novice. Everyone has to start somewhere, right??? So here you go. This is the basic idea, but it's as versatile as your imagination.

Base recipe:
6 hard boiled eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tbs mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Remove shells from hard boiled eggs. Place each egg in the well of an egg slicer, and close it to slice. Remove the egg and turn it a quarter turn, place it back in the well and slice again. Repeat with all eggs. Stir in remaining ingredients as well as any variations you'd like to add. Serve on your favorite bread for sandwiches or on a bed of lettuce. Even better on toast!

For a variation, add any combination of these additional ingredients:
1 rib of celery, finely diced
1 scallion, finely chopped (or 1 tbs. of any kind of onion)
1 tbs chopped pimento
1 tbs chopped fresh basil leaves
1 tbs chopped fresh dill
sprinkle of curry powder
sprinkle of paprika


Tips:
To make hard boiled eggs, place a few eggs in a saucepan, cover with at least an inch of water. Cover and bring the water to a boil. As soon as the water is boiling, remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 12 minutes. Drain water, add cold water to cool the eggs, let sit a couple minutes longer.
If you want to, you can add a half teaspoon of vinegar and some salt to the water (if the shells crack while boiling, the vinegar will help keep the egg in the shell).