Soft-Boiled-Eggs, Rosemaling, and Chicks

Rosemaled Egg Cup

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Where do I start this post? From chicks to eggs to rosemaling? I'll start with "I love eggs".

My 10 girls

We had chickens for almost thirty years. When Heather married we got rid of our chickens, as she was my one child who loved chicken chores. I have missed the chickens. I miss fresh eggs. We are building a new coop closer to the house. I will be the one doing chicken chores. I currently have 10 chicks in my dining room. Every morning I sing my "Good morning, good morning ..." song to them and say, "Good morning girls". I want them to get to know me, get to know my voice.

Danish boiled egg holders - egg top snipper

Years ago a Danish friend gave me egg cups for soft boiled eggs and taught me how to prepare them and eat them. I love a 'sunny-side-up' egg with great toast, but I'm cutting down on my bread consumption, so have returned to regularly eating a soft boiled egg.

I have an egg piercer. I pierce the large end, cover the eggs with tap water, sprinkle in some salt, and bring to a gentle boil. In my Hearth & Home I tell you there is a science to cooking eggs. Call it the culinary alchemy of eggs. I always like to know the whys and know my ingredients. In heating eggs in shells, a race begins between the buildup of pressure within the egg and its release of air oozing out the end. If the air pocket is heated faster than the air can escape, the shell cracks. Some eggs have larger pores, some have harder shells, so not all crack. Thus the hole poke. I could go on and on with the science, like why the salt too ...

Egg timer

I also have an egg 'timer' that works for me, in that I know when the dark purple line is at the half-way mark to 'soft' I remove my egg and crimp off the top. If it looks a little underdone, I'll set the top back on and let it sit a bit, otherwise I eat it immediately, with some fresh ground sea salt and pepper, with my little spoon.

I looked in Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions book for a time - she suggests 3 1/2 minutes, but does not say whether the egg should be room temp or from the fridge. Since I don't have my own eggs yet, but buying pastured eggs (otherwise you should use organic), mine are coming from the fridge to soft-cook.

Why look in Sally's book? My daughter-in-love was just here and little S's first food is an almost raw egg yolk. I cooked her egg like I do mine with my timer and Sarah said it was just perfect. Little S was quite colicky until Sarah started making the raw milk baby formula in Sally Fallon's book - like night to day difference!

Monte's mom used to do Rosemaling like the egg cup I started the post with. Since she no longer can do it, I treasure the pieces we have of hers. I'll end this post with pictures of her rosemaling.

Rosemal over Keeping Room couch

Rosemal over our bed

Rosemal hanging in our entry's stairway

Posted at The Homestead Barn Hop, Little Farm in the Big City, Simple Lives Thursday, Food Renegade, Frugally Sustainable, Real Food Wednesday,

Egg Dish / Casserole / Crustless Quiche

I've been a MOPS Mentor Mom for eleven years now. I occasionally bring an egg dish. So I have paper-clipped several 3x5 cards together filed under "E" for Eggs. This dish is a combination of several recipes I like. I'll give you the basic recipe that you can add anything to really.

CRUSTLESS QUICHE

Put 1/2C butter in a 9x13 dish and put in your preheating to 350 oven.
Mix together-
1C milk
6 lg eggs
2 1/2C ricotta cheese (1 pt container is fine)
1/2C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Pour over the melted butter and 1# grated cheese 

This is what I do now. I pull out one of my frozen 1/4# bag of greens (typical 10oz would work fine too) I froze from my garden - so either chard, kale, or spinach. Slightly thaw it and chop. I'll add this to the butter that's melting in the preheating oven. Grate any cheese I want to use up for adding to the dish when ready to pour the mixture over.  Mix all of the above replacing the flour with Masa (a corn flour made from corn soaked in lime water before drying and grinding - I use for corn tortillas and tamales). I sometimes use buttermilk in place of the milk. And add a 7oz can of a green salsa (salsa verde). Add the grated cheese to the dish and pour this mixture over. Bake about 45 minutes till set.

You could add chopped green chilies or layer whole green chilies for a relleno. Use broth in place of the milk. Chopped or stewed tomatoes. Use cottage cheese in place of the ricotta...

Ricotta Pancakes

Ricotta Pancakes

These are high protein pancakes. I typically make only three kinds of pancakes: my sourdough crepes, my rye sourdough pancakes, and these. We don't like the typical doughy pancakes, preferring more crepe/ swedish pancake style.

I made feta cheese and then ricotta from it's whey the other day, so these are using my homemade ricotta.

RICOTTA PANCAKES

1C ricotta
4 lg eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3C oat flour (I had a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture of oat and barley ground flour in the freezer bag)(you could blend this flour with the ricotta cheese or the added liquid overnight for a healthier soaked grain - better body assimilation)
2 Tb melted butter
pinch of salt
big pinch of nutmet (I have a nutmeg grinder - so very fresh)
2 Tb powdered egg whites (optional)
(I usually add 1/4-1/2C water, buttermilk, yogurt, or whey to thin them some)

Blend all in a blender. I have my large cast-iron griddle preheating while mixing ingredients together. When the griddle is hot enough, grease it. Pour the pancake sizes you like. Cook on both sides till done.

We always serve our pancakes with grade B maple syrup and homemade yogurt. Fruit too. Cook up some healthy bacon ...

Sourdough Crepes

Once done I flip the sourdough crepe onto a plate

I like calendar days that contain stories and meal suggestions. For many years I've made crepes on Fat Tuesday/ Mardi Gras. My blog post on Mardi Gras into Lent is here. My crepe recipe is here. This year I made sourdough crepes.

Actually, since I found this crepe recipe (I bought the A to Z Sourdough eBook) I'm making them quite often. Sometimes for breakfast with unsweetened grated coconut, homemade yogurt, fruit and maple syrup. Sometimes for lunch or supper with leftovers of meats and veggies. These crepes can even be fried crisp like chips - use for nachos!

Before I jump into the recipe I have to start from the beginning, a very good place to start. My sourdough starter is made from rye flour. I used to have a starter I made from potatoes and wheat flour (it might have used a bit of yeast at the beginning, I don't remember) from an Alaska Sourdough book. When I bought Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions book in the early 2000's I started my rye starter. I use this starter for everything including the sourdough pancake recipe I got from the Alaskan book. My starter how-to along with the Sourdough pancakes I've made for years is here.

Starter in jar and crepe ingredients

SOURDOUGH CREPES

1 C sourdough starter
3 Tb butter or oil
3 eggs
pinch of salt

I usually start with melting the butter in a 2C Pyrex mixing bowl, then mix in the eggs and starter. I use a silicone whip, keeping it in to periodically stir while making the crepes.

Pour a few Tablespoons batter and tilt pan to spread batter

Crepe ready to flip, this one looks a bit thicker than I usually make them

Have a very well seasoned smaller cast iron skillet preheated. First add a bit of oil and swish it around by tilting the pan. Then add a few tablespoons of batter depending on what size pan you're using - mine is an 8" (and sometimes I'll use a 6" pan). Wait till the crepe develops little bubbles all over, then with spatula quickly flip it over. It doesn't need to cook on this side for long, like just a few seconds and then flip out onto a plate. The crepes can stack till you're done with all the batter. This amount will make about 10 crepes.

I've put leftover crepes in a zip-close bag and frozen. It works great. No need to put waxed paper between.

Happy crepe-ing. Sharing of crepe filling ideas could be numerous, so how about you? what have you tried, and what's your favorite?

Mini Quiche Lorraines

Every potluck or brunch I go to there's mini quiches that are store bought. I wanted to make homemade ones for my Spring Tea. I make a regular sized quiche lorraine a lot - I even have the recipe in my cookbook, but I've never made mini quiches. One of the tea books I'd gotten from the library had mini quiches for their teas. I think I googled mini quiches too and was able to read about and see some differing processes for making them. Here's my process -

Quiche Dough

6 Tb unsalted butter
4 1/2 oz cream cheese
2 C flour
pinch of salt
Mix the dough together and divide into 4 dozen balls (about 1") and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

I flattened each ball with the back of a glass and with a small roller, rolled them thinner. The outer edges of the circle can be split apart for easing them into the small muffin pans. Press them down into the mini tart holes. I cut off any excess at the top. I pricked the bottom of each tart, and put several pie weight stones in each. While working on another pan, I chilled each in the freezer (or refrigerate for a longer time). Prebake the quiche shells in a 375 degree oven about 5 minutes, cool and gently remove stones. Return to the pans and fill with quiche filling and bake again.

QUICHE LORRAINE FILLING

precook about 4-6 pieces of bacon and finely crumble
finely grate some cheese - I used colby jack
Sprinkle about 1/2-1 tsp each of bacon and cheese into each mini quiche shell
Beat together
4 large eggs
1 C cream
1/2 tsp each salt & pepper

Ladle this mixture over bacon and cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30-35 minutes, or till set.