Poaching Eggs: An Ordeal?

We eat a lot of eggs. I make them all sorts of ways: boiled, fried, scrambled, omelet-ed. But one way I didn't know how to make them was poached. I know, how could I have this glaring lack of knowledge concerning egg-cookery?

So my education began. I googled it AND read the egg section of my cookbook. My first attempt yielded eggs with a white consistency closer to egg drop soup than to a poached egg. Fail. Second attemp was a little better, but my eggs still had tentacles.Unfortunate. After that I had better luck but my eggs still weren't turning out as attractive as I would have liked them.

Then: my fave cookware company came out with a new stone. Holy tomatoes! It's a microwave egg cooker. When I first heard of it I was like, "What? Why?" Then I learned I could poach eggs with it. I was interested.

So I got my new stone (for free because I'm awesome and I get free samples of new stuff as a consultant). Instructions: Crack an egg into each well of the stone then add 1/3 cup water, microwave, covered, for about 2 minutes. Easy enough.

So I followed the directions... and my eggs were BEAUTIFUL! Photographic evidence.

And as good as they were, I couldn't help wondering if they'd be better cooked in broth. So, of course, I tried that next. I was right, they were better.