I knew it would happen.......

Needing rather a plentiful supply of eggs for various cooking assignments, I purchased x2 dozen from my local organics shop.
And what was waiting for me when I got home?!......Yep you guessed it...

The first egg of the season from one of my Araucana hens.
No show as yet from the Brown Shavers or my Indian Game hen.

Eggs again and cake disaster

Those eggs I found the other day ended up in the compost, I cracked open 3 or 4 and they weren't at all fresh so out they all went. The girls are now being considerate and laying in the nesting boxes again and I got 3 today, so no shortage of supply.

Yesterday I made an orange and lemon poppy seed cake, but it was a slight disaster (no photo!) as I stupidly didn't realise I had the oven set on grill................. doh! Once I realised I turned it to bake and although I chopped the over browned (aka burnt) top off, the texture wasn't the greatest, quite crumbly and it also didn't come out of the pan well. Yikes what a muck up, just as well it wasn't an important little boys birthday cake!

Why we haven't been getting any eggs..

Our egg supply of late has been rather sad. Nothing for days on end, then a few days ago G discovered several on the floor of the coop. Yesterday 3 were sitting neatly in the nesting boxes. Thanks girls. But today nothing.

In the large fenced-off chook run we have 2 small broody boxes/runs that have been lying around empty for a while. I was moving these to fresh pasture when I disturbed one of the grey Araucana hens inside one of them, and guess what? There were all of 14 eggs in a cluster.... My fault really as I hadn't closed the door to the broody boxes.

Rather than waste them, I've gathered the eggs up and given them the dunk test in a jug of cold water to see if they are still fresh to eat (cooked only). All sunk to the bottom so hopefully they are still OK. They've been out of the sunlight. I won't know for sure until I crack them open of course and this I will do outside, just in case I strike an off one because gee can they stink! But even if they look slightly odd they'll be for the compost.

Homemade mayonnaise

I ran out of our usual mayonnaise and so decided to try making it at home. My first effort was OK, I didn't have a food processor so used good old fashioned elbow grease beating the oil in. The result was a very runny mayonnaise. The recipe I tried used a whole egg, lemon juice, Dijon mustard and olive oil.





This morning I made another version but in a small food processor, using 2 egg yolks, powdered mustard, vinegar and olive oil. It wasn't any thicker but it was a lot easier than beating by hand! I'm not sure how to achieve the consistency I want. I preferred the flavour of the first recipe too.



Anyway, it wasn't hard to make so I will keep trying until I can find a recipe for a thicker mayonnaise.

Egg overload

Now that Spring has sprung our hens are producing plenty of eggs. We're currently getting about 6 a day which is great. Time to make some more homemade ice cream for the freezer. I've also found a great recipe for bacon and egg pie which I'm going to try in the next few days.
I'll also be on the lookout for other recipes which use eggs, maybe egg custard or a brulee. Both would be things I've not made before, but I'm game to try.

News from the hen house

Things are looking up in the hen house. One of our 2 grey Araucana hens has started laying again!
This morning I collected 3 eggs, one from the Araucana (they lay green/blue coloured eggs), a small one from one of the Indian Game hens, and the biggest egg is from the Orpington. We have 14 chickens all up, only a few are laying because 5 of the Indian Game hens are too young (should start laying this Spring), we have one very old white Chinese Silkie hen who's nearly blind and not laying, also I think 1 or 2 of the older Indian Game hens are not laying anymore (they might be chicken pie soon).
Although the Indian Game birds are a rare breed and pretty to look at, they don't lay very large eggs, and we're finding the young hens quite flighty, they like to perch on the top of the 1.8m high fence that encloses the run! Also they perch on the roof of the hen house and make a mess with their droppings. I'm tempted to introduce some other breed(s) which lay larger eggs. Can see why people go with Brown Shavers, they do lay nice big eggs.