Friday, March 02, 2007
It's March and the time when all gay farm girls' fancies turn to poultry, baby chicks and the oncoming spring. I can't tell you how neat it is to come downstairs in the morning to hear the first cheeps coming from the incubator. Those fuzzy little sweet biddies with their promise of eggs and all things egg related.
When I was last at the Co-op in Newport, I checked out the bulletin board as I usually do. And saw the notice of when the chicks were going to arrive. I'm currently henless at the moment. I did get a bit disheartened by the predation issue here and just let my flock go. But I know what an idiot sucker I am for baby poultry. They are even going to have guinea keets for sale. I've been very desirous of getting guineas. Their eggs supposedly make the best french toast on earth. But now that I'm down to only two geese in the poultry department, I'm starting to miss all the fresh eggs.
Of course, once they start laying real good, you end up scouring ancient cookbooks for those egg rich recipes from the days when everyone had a home flock. You will find eggs in places you never expected. And it's true. An egg in the mix of almost anything makes it taste better, fry up better, or just add an extra bit of protein to the diet. And you have all these dozens of eggs that you hate to just feed back to the hens or give to the dogs.
Have I mentioned that I have a freakishly low cholesterol level? I'm not sure if I mentioned that before I moved to an agrarian lifestyle that I had a freakishly high one. In all of my years of city living I was a devoted member of the 200 + club. And I didn't really eat many eggs then.
Today's Food Porn Friday is all about getting rid of absurd quantities of chicken ovum in the most delicious ways possible.
When the eggs really start to add up, my favorite big egg user is home-made pasta.
Basically all pasta is flour and eggs. It's super easy to make and once you get used to it, it's a fairly easy thing to make. Semolina flour is preferred as a base flour. Bread flour mixed with a bit of cornmeal is a good substitute. Home-made pasta keeps well in the fridge for about a week. I usually make a larger batch than the recipe given so to have enough for a few meals. The more whole grains you use in the pasta, the better it is for you. Fiber makes a great "diet" food and is much more filling than a straight white flour pasta.
The equipment for making pasta by hand is very affordable. A hand cranked pasta machine will run you about 30 bucks at the kitchen supply. Atlas is the preferred brand and you can get all sorts of attachments for doing different shapes. Mine has angel hair and linguine and those are my favorite two textures. It will also roll out very thin sheets of pasta dough for making your own ravioli and gnocchi. I mix my dough in a food processor, but if you want to get real "old school" about it, you can do it by hand making a well in the middle of your flour and gradually incorporating the eggs.
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup bread flour
1/2 cup corn meal
5 to 8 eggs (mix to firm consistency...it takes as many eggs as it takes) You can use even more eggs and cut the calories by only using the egg whites.
1/2 tin of tomato paste
1/2 cup of dried basil leaf
Place all ingredients in a food processor and mix until dough forms a tube shaped mass. Remove, knead more flour into dough by hand and let sit for about 20 minutes in a floured bowl.
Cut mass of flour into 1 inch thick slices. Pat out and roll through the roller of the machine several times, flouring between passes. Decrease the setting on the machine gradually to about #3. You now have a long sheet of thin pasta. Switch the crank on the machine to the desired cutter and pass the pasta through the machine to make the desired type of pasta.
Brazilian Flan
I don't have a photo for this, but you will have to take my word for it that it is a showpiece of a dessert. It emerges out of a bundt cake pan to sit in a puddle of caramel sauce with the rich caramel oozing down the sides of the custard. If you fill the cavity with whipped cream and some fresh edible flowers, it makes a very elegant statement at a dinner party.
I haven't made it in a while since I usually prefer to make creme brulee, but it does eat up the eggs just as handily.
I'm posting this for my sister's admirer, Chris, who frequents the SMB for tidbits of info about my stunning actress sister and also for Velociman who has written so eloquently about her in the past. Simone is teaching acting these days to gifted and talented students on Hilton Head Island, having retired from acting full time. I believe she got this recipe from Jose Feliciano's household. My mother returned from one of her visits to my sister when she was living in L.A. quite starstruck and thrilled that she had dinner with Jose.
Simone's Brazilian Flan
1 cup sugar
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
2 cans(from condensed milk) whole milk
4 eggs
Caramelize sugar until golden brown in a small iron skillet. Coat the bottom of a bundt pan with the caramel.
In a blender, mix the condensed milk, eggs and whole milk. Pour into Bundt pan.
Set Bundt pan in a pan of water in a 350 degree oven for 1 and a half hours or until a toothpick comes out clean. Top of custard should be nice and brown.
When done, let it cool and then refrigerate, over night if possible, as this is better the second day. Turn the custard onto a serving plate. Can be served with whipped cream and fruit, but is marvelous just as it is.
So there you have it. A few egg rich recipes to fill out your pasta and dessert courses. I have many, many more, as you may well imagine. But it's the wrong time of year to torture you with my egg nog recipe.
I'll go back to dreaming of baby chicks and the promise of eggs.
Recently I've learned (am I the last to know?) that part of the issue w/ eggs and cholesterol is back to the omega 3 thing. eat fats w/ omega 6, raise your cholesterol. eat fats w/ omega 3, don't raise cholesterol.
my understanding is that factory-raised eggs are almost all omega 6 because of the exclusively grain diet.
could that be a difference? (of course, probably lots of things changed when you moved!)
My one goat who's pregnant is due any day now--hopefully it will turn out better than the birth we had earlier this year (I wrote about it on my blog on Jan 17 and 18).
I've thought about stopping at the feed store, but I know I would come home with an armload of chicks...
anyway...blah blah....get some guineas!
Now, Anne...that whole grain pasta recipe is really super healthy...it's food porn...sort of like looking at naked cyclists with great calves.
Hey Karen...so sorry about the previous kidding. Hopefully this next one won't had such a problematic presentation. The raccoons and the foxes get us from the ground and the hawks from above. My neighbor has a coop and run that are entirely enclosed in wire. That's about the only way you are not going to have the predation problem. But I sort of like my roos wandering about the farm.
Hey Erin...I've been really wanting guineas for a while. But I didn't want adults because of the stupidity thing. It takes like two months of keeping the adults locked up before they recognize that this is the new home. They also have been known to kill themselves by flying into trees by mistake.
From what I know of guineas they are pretty cool. And I'm not sure they are very stupid. Hell, I know people that fly into poles. LOL
I don't have anything here but a few cats, some aloe vera plants and a monster apple tree.
I just don't want to be responsible for other living things. Some times it's hard enough to just take care of myself and the lady next door.
I saw an article in a poultry mag. that shows folks with 'house guineas', oh my Lord- as long as they are not flying everywhere, I suppose it is possible.
They do have a wicked since of humor when it comes to dogs- they love to see if they can mess with the dogs' head enough to get it to chase them a they fly up on a rooftop- then they forget and run into a hidey hole where they can;t get away and there you have it- they also stand under a hole in a feed bag to get what comes out, but fail to see the bag slipping towards them......
I hope my flock 'increaseth' this year better than it did last year....
goat yoda
May I steal that GORGEOUS EGG PHOTO for use on my laptop? I can;t WAIT to have a small laying flock of my own. Your images are all that are on my computer wallpaper. I went to a conference last thursday and have JUST settled back to check in with you.....OH HOW I HAVE MISSED Y'all...I can't WAIT to catch up on every little thing...