Friday, July 22, 2011

On My Mind...

EGGSas fresh as they come and lots of them . . .
Have we not been eating enough eggs lately? 
Or do we just have too many chooks?  
I probably have about 10 good layers at the moment which are producing about 50 - 60 eggs per week.  
Not too many ever get wasted, some may accidentley slip from the hands of my little gatherers occasionally, and when there are just too many for us to eat, we pass them on to family and friends.  
As a high protein food for the family I regularly serve eggs for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. 
We have them boiled, fried, poached, scrambled, french toast, sometimes I bake them into a meat pie, other times I may make an omelette.  We enjoy bacon and egg burgers for dinner and everyone enjoys a curried egg and lettuce sandwich for lunch. 
Where would we be without the egg?
I coat my fish and chicken in egg and breadcrumbs before frying. The egg coagulates when it comes in contact with the heat and forms a protective barrier keeping the flavour sealed in and the fat sealed out.  An egg or two is also added to my rissoles and fishcake mixture to bind the ingredients together, again, when the egg is cooked it coagulates through the mixture and binds it together so it will not fall apart during the cooking process.

For sweets we often have baked custard, bread and butter pudding or boiled custard, all made with lots of farm fresh eggs, and for a special treat we make Pavlova, from the egg whites only.  
The yolks then used to make mayonnaise, or hollandaise sauce.
Then there is lemon butter, an extra yolk  gives it just a little more richness. . . and have you ever tried a fresh Egg Nog?
Eggs would have to be the most valuable ingredients in the kitchen, they can be quickly prepared into a well balanced and nourishing meal on any busy day, and any home cook knows you can't make a successful cake without a good egg!
I could go on forever about eggs....
Joining up with Down to Earth today
Whats ON MY MIND is how will I cook my eggs for dinner tonight? 
 How do your eat your eggs? 
THIS POST WAS INSPIRED BY 
The Australian Book of Egg Cookery 
MARSHALL, Anne (editor)
Paul Hamlyn 
(1971)
ISBN 10: 0600070077




24 comments:

  1. Visiting you from the 'Down to Earth' link up. What a lovely blog you have! :)

    Wow... that's a LOT of eggs. My brother has a bunch of chickens (four) and they give him plenty of eggs too. I love chickens and also had a bunch growing up. Gathering their eggs is such a sweet and satisfying chore.

    I've read that you can pickle eggs too! Maybe that would be a useful thing to do with so many eggs :)

    Blessings,
    This Good Life
    http://this-good-life.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-my-mind-sprouting-consciousness.html

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  2. Oh my gosh, your place sounds so much like ours!!

    At the moment I have six dozen in my fridge and we've just finished boiled eggs for brekkie. The best part was it was all from here - homegrown eggs, home made grain bread & home made butter - never thought it would give me so much satisfaction! I think you've covered all the ways I use my eggs too, can't think of anything else at the moment.

    Hope you have a lovely day :)

    PS Thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving comments, as a 'newbie' its very exciting

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  3. Oops, forgot, I posted about a lovely 'Cheesy Spinach Quiche' here that uses up eggs!

    http://haybalesandsunflowers.blogspot.com/2011/07/fruits-of-labour.html

    Julie :)

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  4. Thanks Julie, I did not mention Quiche, I LOVE quiche, I will certainly check out your recipe. :)

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  5. Good old bacon & egg pie mmmmm.
    One day i hope to walk out my back door to get my eggs...then i'll be like you sooo meny eggs, sooo little time! have a good day.

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  6. Thanks for this. We needed a little motivation to keep eating eggs around here. We are all about ready to gag if we see another hard boiled egg.

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  7. thelittleblackcowblogJuly 22, 2011 at 12:25 PM

    Wow, you are in the egg business!! I am off to have a word to my 9 chickens who are obviously not pulling their weight.
    kim

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  8. Oh for more eggs. We have 5 chooks but only 8-10 eggs a week at the moment.. Moulting, winter, for some reason they just don't want to lay as much

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  9. When I have a glut of eggs I make a big batch of pasta and freeze it.

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  10. Thats a GREAT idea Hazel! Thanks, sounds a little more tempting than pickled eggs!

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  11. Gee I wish I was your neighbour!...(just to take any surplus off your hands)

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  12. Wow that's a lot of eggs. Our chooks haven't come back on since moulting . We are only getting 6 or so a day. And mainly they go to our CSA customers. I remember back to summer when we had enough for eggs for breakfast every day and cakes and our customers. Look forward to that again soon.

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  13. I just love all the discarded cooking and gardening books you can pick up for next to nothing - it amazes me what people throw away and how useful to me those things are. Egg and bacon pies get my vote! I have a glut of duck eggs owing to succesful (and unanticipated breeding) ideas????

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  14. Oh, I miss our eggs since the fox came and took all of our chooks away!! Enjoying them vicariously through your images, thankyou. *sob*

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  15. We had scrambled eggs for dinner! You are so lucky your girls are good layers. Thanks for all the great egg ideas.

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  16. We also have lots of eggs right now. How about homemade ice cream that uses an egg custard base. I use recipes from David Lebowitz for my ice-creams that use 5-6 yolks at a time. Then there are meringues for the whites, or whites-only pancakes.

    Other great ideas are lemon meringue pie, and a South African favourite, milk tart.

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  17. If you have an abundant supply...you could also dehydrate some eggs too, then powder them....especially handy for if your chooks go off the lay for a period of time through the year.
    Wish I had chooks, Mum had them when I was a kid.

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  18. Yum! Eggs are fantastic and whilst do not have chooks I feel very lucky every time my folks give me a dozen. Impossible pie ( a version of quiche) is my fave.

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  19. Your eggs are wonderful. I just gave away our old layers to a farm. We have a new spotty chook who is gorgeous. Not laying yet.

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  20. Wow, your girls are producing well.

    Ours are starting to lay again after their little moulting holiday. I did some cooking to use some up today. Wont be long and I wont be able to keep up with them either.

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  21. Hooray for the humble egg. I know we could not live without them as like you they feature in most things I make :)
    I would love to have chooks of my own one day.
    x

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  22. We had no eggs here for months, and had to resort to buying eggs! The first time in years, and because I only buy freerange eggs, it was quite expensive buying them and keeping the feed up to all of the chickens. They have come back on the lay in the last few weeks, and I think I have nearly 30 eggs waiting to be used up. Will definitely use some of the ideas from here and from your comments to use some of them...might do a yummy quiche for dinner tonight.

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  23. Dehydrated Eggs..??Nelly Mary do tell me more!

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  24. I always start to feel insecure when there's less than 20 eggs in our fridge! I love mixing a yolk in with cream for pasta sauce. The yolk makes the sauce stick to the pasta and add a delicious velvety texture. gxo

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Thank you for taking the time.
Karen

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