The Egg Diaries - May 5th to May 11th

The Egg Diaries - A weekly journal documenting my egg use, to help myself and others use all the beautiful eggs, our hens lay for us.  Now, a Blog Hop, so you can join in by sharing the ways in which you use your eggs.  Link up at the bottom of the page.

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This is going to be a short and menu-less post today.  We've been so busy in the garden and tending the chickens (buffalo gnat season and we manually apply a gnat repellent to them 2 to 3 times a day) and today is no different.  Trying to find time to sit at the computer is difficult these days.

~I do have a delicious recipe for you~

Those of you who are looking for recipes that use large amounts of eggs will be happy this week because I am sharing a great recipe that I used last Wednesday for dinner.  It uses a dozen eggs!  

I love it because you can make it, using just about anything you have in the pantry and refrigerator.  It's wonderful for using up leftovers.  Served with a salad it makes a delicious supper and if there is any left over, it will taste great reheated for breakfast.  It will be different every time you make it, but will taste delicious every time.

12 Egg Casserole

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter a 8 x 11 inch or 9 x 9 inch casserole

Layer in your casserole:
any leftovers you have in the fridge (anything goes)

Suggestions:
ground beef, ham, sausage, chicken
broccoli, spinach, corn, tomatoes
onions
mushrooms
celery
potatoes

Add herbs, salsa, sour cream, spaghetti sauce, whatever you think will go with the combination in the pan, or what ever you have little bits of left in jars in the fridge.

Add 2 cups of grated cheese (any kind, any mixture of cheeses)

Beat 12 eggs and pour evenly over the top.

Garnish the top with chopped parsley, pepper and paprika.

Bake for 30 - 35 minutes until it pulls away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted into the center pulls out clean.  (baking times may differ depending on your ingredients)

Enjoy!

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If you have chickens, use eggs every day.  It's really not that difficult.  For ideas on how to use your eggs see my past Egg Diaries for menu ideas and come back next week for new menus and new recipes. 

We'd love you to join The Egg Diaries and link up below!

The Egg Diaries: April 28th to May 4th

The Egg Diaries - A weekly journal documenting my egg use, to help myself and others use all the beautiful eggs, our hens lay for us.  Now, a Blog Hop, so you can join in by sharing the ways in which you use your eggs.  Link up at the bottom of the page.

I used all these eggs and more in one week!

If you are new to raising chickens, you might be surprised to find out that eggs, like fruit and vegetables, are a seasonal food.  Hens will usually lay much lighter or not at all, as was the case with the majority of our hens, during the winter months.  To stock up for those winter months, I use many of our eggs by baking and freezing what we can't eat within a few days.  That way when winter comes and we've only collected 3 eggs in a week, we can enjoy those eggs for breakfast and raid the freezer for baked goods.    

This week I made one of my favorite muffin recipes, Carrot Raisin Nut Muffins.  You'll find the recipe at the bottom of the page.

Carrot Raisin Nut Muffins - Recipe is at bottom of the page

The recipe makes a dozen muffins, so we ate six and the other six went into the freezer to be enjoyed either in the hot summer, when I won't want to turn on the oven, or in the winter when there are few eggs.  

Oh.. and before I forget, over at The Beehive Cottage, there are Emu Eggs!   They are so beautiful.  If you've never seen emu eggs before, you should definitely have a look.

The food items I used eggs in, are in bold type.  They do not link to recipes unless stated.

The Egg Diaries

Mon April 28th

0 Eggs - Breakfast:  Toast with peanut butter and bananas

0 Eggs - Leftover Cheeseburger Casserole

2 Eggs - Dinner:  Spinach Salad with Sourdough Bread

2 Eggs - Fed to the Dogs

4 Eggs Used

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Tues April 29th

5 Eggs - Breakfast:  French Toast and Bacon

0 Eggs - Lunch:  Cheese, Apples, Crackers

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Spaghetti with Homemade Sauce, Salad

5 Eggs Used

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Wed April 30th

3 Eggs - Breakfast:  Carrot Raisin Nut Muffins (recipe below), Bananas, Orange Juice

4 Eggs - Lunch:  Egg Salad Sandwiches, Vegetable Sticks

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Cod Fillets baked with Spinach, Beets

2 Eggs - Fed to the Dogs

9 Eggs Used

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Thurs May 1st

5 Eggs - Breakfast:  Cheese and Ham Omelette, Grapefruit

0 Eggs - Carrot Raisin Nut Muffins, Cheese, Apples

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Spaghetti with Leftover Sauce, Salad

5 Eggs Used

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Fri May 2nd

3 Eggs - Breakfast:  Toasted Bagels with poached eggs, Cranberry Juice

0 Eggs - Lunch:  Tuna,Vegetable Sticks, Crackers

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Beef with Mushrooms and Spinach, Rice

3 Eggs Used

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Sat May 3rd

0 Eggs - Breakfast:  Leftover Dinner from Friday night (yup, for breakfast!  Mr. B's request)

0 Eggs - Lunch:  Popcorn!  Bananas  (Yes, this was a strange day!)

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Pork Chops, Rice, Peas, Carrots

8 Eggs - Scrambled and fed to the chickens

8 Eggs Used

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Sun May 4th

2 Eggs - Breakfast:  Bacon, Cheese and Egg Sandwich on Toasted Bagel

0 Eggs - Lunch:  Homemade Minnestrone Soup

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Homemade Pizza

2 Eggs Used

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Total:  36 Eggs Used

Carrot Raisin Nut Muffins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place cupcake/muffin liners in your pan or lightly grease pan.
Makes 12 muffins
Note:  I use melted butter in place of vegetable oil, which is usually called for in carrot muffin and cake recipes.  If you prefer not to use melted butter you could use the oil or substitute coconut oil.

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 cup melted butter (let cool so it's not hot)
3 eggs lightly beaten
2 tablespoons buttermilk (or 2 tablespoons milk with a dash of vinegar added to it)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup grated carrots (approx 1 large carrot or 2 medium, grated with large side of grater)
1 to 1 1/2 cup raisins (1 cup is fine but we like more raisins in our's)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and softened butter.  Add the molasses and blend well.
Add the melted butter, eggs, buttermilk and vanilla and mix until smooth.

Place your dry ingredients, the flour, baking soda and salt, in a small bowl and stir.

Add the dry ingredients to the large mixing bowl and stir well.  The mixture will be thick and sticky.

Add the grated carrot, raisins and nuts and stir.

Spoon into your prepared pan.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the top of the muffin springs back when lightly touched or a toothpick stuck in the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Linking to Homestead Barn Hop #158

We'd love you to join The Egg Diaries and link up below!

The Egg Diaries - April 21st to April 27th

The Egg Diaries - A weekly journal documenting my egg use, to help myself and others use all the beautiful eggs, our hens lay for us.

I truly meant to get this up yesterday, but the weather wasn't co-operating.  We had bad thunderstorms, (luckily no tornadoes) and our internet doesn't do well when there is even a hint of rain in a radius of about four counties around us.  

As promised The Egg Diaries will now be a blog hop, where you can share your favorite egg stories, egg recipes, egg in disguise recipes, egg trivia, egg crafts, egg photographs, anything to do with eggs.  This being a new blog hop, it will, I am sure, go through a phase with very few or no posts, but I'll keep inviting you to post and share all things egg with us.

You can link up with the tool at the bottom of this post.

If you are joining in please link to this blog in your post and feel free to use this button.

I always make too many mashed potatoes.  Mashed potatoes are really not wonderful reheated, but they are delicious when you make them into Potato Pancakes.  I love Potato Pancakes.  If you have never tried them, you should.  They are easy to make and yummy served with sour cream, or for a hearty breakfast, serve them topped with a poached egg, like I did this week.  You'll find my recipe for Potato Pancakes at the bottom of the page.

Potato Pancakes topped with poached eggs and served with bacon.

The food items I used eggs in, are in bold type.  They do not link to recipes unless stated.

The Egg Diaries

Monday April 21st

0 Eggs - Breakfast:  Leftover homemade pizza

0 Eggs - Lunch:  Cheese and crackers with apples

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Restaurant style hot chicken sandwiches with gravy homemade french fries and peas, made with leftover rotisserie chicken

0 Eggs Used

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Tuesday April 22nd

0 Eggs - Breakfast:  Oatmeal with raisins

0 Eggs - Lunch:  Ham and cheese sandwiches, vegetable sticks with dill dip

0 Eggs - Dinner - Pork Chops, rice, peas

0 Eggs Used

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Wed April 23rd

2 Eggs - Brunch (midweek brunch = luxury of working from home):  Homemade Buttermilk Pancakes, Sausage

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Steak Fajitas, Rice

2 Eggs Used

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Thurs April 24th

3 Eggs - Breakfast:  Spice Muffins, Fruit Salad

3 Eggs - Hard boiled eggs, vegetable sticks and dill dip

3 Eggs - Dinner:  Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, mushroom and onion gravy, green beans

9 Eggs Used

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Fri April 25th

6 Eggs - Breakfast:  Potato Pancakes topped with Poached Eggs, Bacon

0 Eggs - Lunch:  Celery and apples with peanut butter, Spice Muffins

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Leftover meatloaf and gravy, mixed vegetables

2 Eggs - Cooked and fed to the dogs

8 Eggs Used

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Sat April 26th

4 Eggs - Breakfast:  Sausage and eggs on biscuits

0 Eggs - Lunch:  Spice Muffins, cheese, cantaloupe

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Cheeseburger Casserole, Green beans

4 Eggs Used

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Sun April 27th

8 Eggs - Scrambled eggs for the chickens

4 Eggs - Breakfast:  Toasted Western Sandwiches

0 Eggs - Lunch:  Tuna Salad Sandwiches, carrot and celery sticks

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Leftover Meatloaf sandwiches with barbecue sauce, homemade french fries, salad

12 Eggs Used

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Total:  35 eggs Used

Potato Pancakes

2 to 3 cups of mashed potatoes

2 Eggs, beaten

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons minced onion, green onions, or chives

Heat your frying pan while you prepare the pancakes.  Your burner should be set to medium-high.

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl.  The mixture will be quite thick and sticky.  Form patties by scooping out the mixture with a large spoon onto a plate, then flatten and shape, using your hands and the spoon.  Repeat until all your pancake mixture is used and your plate is filled with pancakes.

Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter to your heated frying pan and combine them.

Carefully, lift and transfer the pancakes from the plate to the frying pan and saute for about 3 minutes until golden brown on the bottom, then flip and saute the other side.

Remove from pan to serving plate or individual plates.  Serve with sour cream or top with a poached egg as I did.  Bacon goes really well with them.

Enjoy!

The Egg Diaries - April 16th to April 20th

The Egg Diaries - A weekly journal documenting my egg use, to help myself and others use all the beautiful eggs, our hens lay for us.

Think back to the time before you had chickens.  How many eggs a week did you use?  How long did a dozen eggs sit in your fridge?  I can remember not using a dozen up in two weeks!

The secret to using your eggs is not to start serving your family hard boiled or fried or scrambled eggs everyday.  It's nice for a little while, but it's one way to make you and them get tired of eggs fast.  Think beyond breakfast.  Look for recipes that have eggs as an ingredient rather than a focal point.  Eggs in disguise.

My Eggs in disguise recipe for you this week is my Popover recipe, because I have had so many people requesting it.  You'll find it at the bottom of the page.

And for those of you who have hard boiled eggs, try my Egg Wrap, it's beautiful and a nice change from Egg Salad Sandwiches.  The ingredients are shown on the Wed April 16th entry.  Change the ingredients to suit yourself, your diet preferences, and what you have in your fridge.  Try spinach or sprouts instead of the lettuce and corn tortillas would be pretty and great for those who want something gluten free.

The food items I used eggs in, are in bold type.  They do not link to recipes unless stated.

The Egg Diaries

Wed April 16th

0 Eggs - Breakfast:  Leftover Popovers served with choice of peanut butter, jams, jellies, honey  Cantaloupe

3 Hard Boiled Eggs - Lunch:  Egg Wrap:   Eggs, genoa salami, cream cheese, tomato and lettuce wrapped in a large spinach herb tortilla.  Cut in half, it serves two.

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Spaghetti with home made meat sauce, Salad

3 Eggs Used   3 Hard Boiled Eggs Left

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Thurs April 17th

4 Eggs - Breakfast:  Asiago Cheese Omelette, Sausage, Toast, Grapefruit

0 Eggs - Lunch - Raw Vegetables and home made spinach dip, Apples

1 Egg - Dinner:  Home made Cheeseburgers with tomato and lettuce, oven fries

3 Hard Boiled Eggs - The Hard Boiled Eggs have disappeared... no idea where they went but I think Mr. B. and the dogs have something to do with the mystery

8 Eggs Used  0 Hard Boiled Eggs left

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Fri April 18th

3 Eggs - Home made Breakfast Sandwiches a la Fast Food - (Eggs, cheese, sausage on an English Muffin or a Biscuit)  Cantaloupe

0 Eggs - Lunch - Cheese and Crackers, Apples

2 Eggs - Dinner - Chicken Divan ( chicken and broccoli in a cheese sauce) served over rice  Home made Cherry Cluster Cake for dessert

5 Eggs Used

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Sat April 19th

0 Eggs - Breakfast: Cherry Cluster Cake and Coffee  Yea, we have days like this

0 Eggs - Lunch - Toasted Club sandwiches, with bacon, turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato

0 Eggs - Dinner - Homemade Pizza ( made with leftover Spaghetti Sauce from April 16th which I had frozen), Salad

0 Eggs Used

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Sun April 20th

8 Eggs - Scrambled and served to the chickens

5 Eggs - Brunch:  Baked Mulberry French Toast, Sausage, Coffee, Cranberry Orange Fizz

0 Eggs - Dinner:  Home made Rotisserie Chicken, Rice, Peas, Carrots and the last of the Cherry Cluster Cake for dessert

13 Eggs Used

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Total:  29 Eggs Used

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Popovers

4 eggs at room temperature

1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups flour

3 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Grease a 12 cup muffin pan, greasing around the cups also

Beat the eggs, milk and salt together until well blended.

Add the flour all at once and beat until well mixed.  Some small lumps are okay.

Stir in the melted butter.

Fill the muffin cups about 3/4 full with batter.

Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes.  DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR while they are baking.

Remove from the oven and serve.

Delicious with meat and gravy, butter, honey, jams and jellies.

Best served fresh and hot from the oven.

For those of you who keep chickens:  chickens love one or two day old leftover popovers.

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How did you use your eggs this week?  Because I'd really love to know and I'm sure others would also,  the next Egg Diaries installment will be next Monday and will be a Blog Hop!

Get ready to share your favorite ways to use your eggs, or anything else, egg related.  See you then!

I'm linking up with:  Homestead Barn Hop #156

The Egg Diaries

We have eggs!  Lots and lots of eggs!

After a winter of very few eggs,  (only our Rhode Island Red laid regularly through those cold months...she was amazing) it's wonderful to see our girls laying again.  We have eight hens, which means we are gathering six to eight eggs a day.

I know we're not alone in gathering dozens of eggs a week and I know that there are many of you looking for ways to use up all those eggs, which lead me to my idea of keeping a diary/journal of how we are using our eggs.  

This won't be a daily report, because I have some other new adventures I want to share with you, but, I'll report in once or twice a week with a record of how we used our eggs.  There'll be recipes, menus, egg facts and trivia and, of course, photos of eggs and our girls.

I'm calling the posts, The Egg Diaries.

So if you are struggling to use your eggs, looking to find some recipes and ways to use eggs every single day, I hope you'll follow along with me and The Egg Diaries.

First installment:

The Egg Diaries

Tuesday April 15th, 2014

We have just over six dozen eggs.  Time to give some to the neighbors. (I'll have to see who would like some)

12 Eggs:  The oldest dozen were Hard Boiled to be used through the week in salads, sandwiches, snacks and treats for the dogs.

2 Eggs:  Breakfast:  Home made Buttermilk Pancakes with syrup, bacon and a bowl of cut up cantaloupe

Lunch:  4 of the Hard Boiled Eggs used for egg salad sandwiches, made with whole wheat bread and romaine lettuce.  Served with apples and milk. 

4 Eggs:  Dinner Plan:  Chuck roast with potatoes, onions, carrots and green beans and Popovers

Dogs:  2 of the Hard Boiled Eggs were chopped into their dinner, 1 egg each.

12 Eggs used in total.  * 6 Hard Boiled Eggs left

Edit:  I had underlined what I had used the eggs in and the underlines were being confused with links, so I've removed them.  I will be including recipes at a later date and there will be a Popover recipe, seeing as this is the second time I've mentioned them in a post and not given you a recipe.  Stay tuned. 

Time To Market Fresh Eggs

I love our fresh eggs.  With our sweet girls laying six to seven eggs a day, the time has come when we can no longer keep up our consumption with their production.  One can only eat so many eggs per day or bake so many cakes, popovers, cookies, custards and quiches.  Our freezer is filling up with baked goods.

The eggs our hens produce are as delicious as they are beautiful and should be enjoyed fresh.  We give eggs to our closest neighbors, as they have to put up with our girls, and, more importantly, our rooster wandering over to their property to snack.  We still have more eggs than we can use.  The time has come for our hens to earn their keep.  We've decided to sell our eggs.

We are not the only people with chickens out here, or the only people selling eggs.   We are in the middle of nowhere and not on a major road, so simply putting out a sign won't work.  Word of mouth will happen, but first people have to know that our eggs are for sale.  

Flyers wouldn't work, because, let's face it, flyers often get overlooked and trashed.  I decided on a "business card".  I wanted something that would catch people's attention and make them think twice before throwing the card out.  A card that people might even hang on their fridge or bulletin board.

I worked in Paint Shop Pro (I could have used Photo Shop but happened to open PSP first) to make a standard sized business card.  A lovely vintage chicken image from Graphics Fairy and a few fonts were all that I needed.  I printed ten at a time on to white card stock.

Plain white business cards wouldn't get noticed and might easily get lost, so I glued the business cards on to green and orange tags which I had snatched up from Pick Your Plum a couple of months ago.  I think the ribbon finishes them off perfectly.  You'd notice these in your mail box wouldn't you?

I did run into a slight problem.  I don't have a paper cutter.  I need a paper cutter!  My cutting was a bit wonky and the more I tried to fix it, the wonkier it got!

My solution was to add a border.  It made it so much easier to cut the cards out.

They do look cute with the border.

Tomorrow's walk with the dogs will have lots of stops along the way as I deliver these to the mail boxes we pass.

I am linking to Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday.  This week's theme is Wise Words.  I used her Daisy and Printed textures in the photos above.

Eggs-iting News

"To get eggs there must be some cackling."  Dutch Proverb

There was cackling in our chicken coop today!

Two of our girls laid eggs... our first eggs ever!

How exciting!  Our first two eggs.

Our chickens are 5 months old and I hadn't expected them to begin laying until they were older because of the season and the shortened daylight, so it was a very happy surprise.  I don't know which of the seven did the laying, but I'm hoping they will lead the others along by example and  we'll have fresh eggs every day.  Won't that be wonderful?

More "egg-siting" news...  My post The Rooster Crows has been highlighted by Dolly of Hibiscus House' Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop.  Thank you Dolly. *mwah*  I'm so honored to be among the features.  Wander over and have a look, there's some wonderful bloggers featured and linked up and of course, you can browse through Dolly's Hibiscus House.