Peacock Orchard

Eggtastic Tuesday- The Best Way to Boil Farm Fresh Eggs

There are about a million articles and Pinterest pins on this. So why am I wasting my time experimenting with this? Well, none of them have ever worked for me. So I did some research and TheKitchn had a nice post about boiling eggs. So I took that and other popular pins and gave it a go. I baked eggs, boiled them starting with cold water, boiled them in hot water and boiled them with baking soda.

I should say that most posts about this subject say that fresh eggs do not peel easily. Eggs have to be aged at least two weeks to properly peel according to most. I had eggs ranging from 6 to 2 days old. I used 6 eggs in each experiment.

This is the first 6 eggs I did starting in cold water, bringing to a hard boil and then turning off the heat and letting them sit for 10 minutes.

I submerged each egg batch in ice water, cracking after a few minutes to let the water seep between the membrane and egg.

This is the baking soda control. I brought it to a boil and then added the baking soda.

Adding eggs to boiling water (hint: use a spoon to lower them gently in).

Baked eggs. I thought I was clever and put them in my cake pop tray. My cupcake pan is humongous.

The results were clearly in favor of one method for fresh eggs, baked. However, I should have sucked it up and used my huge cupcake pan. Using this pan left a burntish mark on the eggs where they touched the pan. The eggs also had an odd seepage.

I have no idea why they did this.

The yolk was just hard, not yet overcooked. You can certainly tell where they touched the pan. Clearly there is a reason cupcake pans are usually used for this.

What happened with the rest, you may ask. Well peeling was extremely difficult and so…

The pigs loved it!

Plum out of luck?

The plum trees are blooming. For Wyoming, it’s early. Too early.

The 5 acre orchard in front of the house is a learning experience for us. Everything we do here is ground breaking in our area. The plum tree currently in bloom is planted in one of our swale berms. Another plum tree close to bloom is planted on the side of a swale. The trees in the Kraters are not yet old enough to bloom, so the verdict is out on the success of that. Knowing that there are various ways you can plant trees to get desired results. I believe the plum trees, being early bloomers, should be planted in the bottom of the Kraters, to keep them dormant long enough for our late Wyoming storms to be over.

Wyoming often has storms up until, and sometimes through, the end of May. I was excited to see the plum blossoms, our first fruit, but nervous as well. When I heard the news, an expected foot of snow, I was even more nervous about the possibility of getting fruit. I kept tabs on the trees during and after the storm. It was not as bad as expected, a few inches of snow at most. Lots of wind and ice though.

The blooms seemed to be fine in spite of the ice.

There was a lot of ice as well.

After the storm the blooms that had not opened were fine, but those that had been open during the storm had shriveled and died.

Lots of blooms left, lots of time left for more snow and ice. Time will tell.

Eggtastic Tuesday- Italian Baked Eggs

This is something I thought was going to be gross. I was in need of a good breakfast and I was lacking in a lot of ingredients so, Italian Baked Eggs it was. Boy am I glad I made this. I love this recipe. I think hot sausage really adds to the dish, which would probably be un-filling and bland without it.

I had varying sized jars of spaghetti sauce, and various styles of sauce. The sauce I used for this was a roasted sauce with big chunks of veggies and basil.

Cook up some nice sausage patties. Spicy sausage really adds to the flavor!

It’s looking great already!

Mozzarella and Parmesan would probably both work great on this. We were out of Parmesan so mozzarella only was.

It is pretty once cooked. We prefer our eggs hard and the yolks were just cooked through.

Italian Baked Eggs

Ingredients:

4 eggs
2 cups of spaghetti or marinara sauce
Hot Italian sausage
1 cup mozzarella cheese
Salt and Pepper (to taste)
Basil

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cook the sausage fully. In four soufflé dishes spoon ½ a cup of spaghetti sauce. To the sauce add a piece of sausage, one egg and salt and pepper. Sprinkle mozzarella over the top. Place in oven for 15 minutes, or less if a runnier yolk is preferred. Remove from oven and sprinkle fresh basil over the top. Enjoy!

Country Kitchen Remodel Update

I’ve been remodeling the kitchen since October. It’s the project that never ends. Still, I’ve moved walls and plumbing. I’ve been helped with (and figured out) electrical. We’ve painted and hammered a ton. It’s been a seven months. Here is what’s been happening:

This is the wall of cabinets that shouldn’t exist, as I was determined to rip out that wall. Now it’s a wall of awful red cabinets that need stripped and re-painted. It’s a work in progress, as you can see.

This cabinet was at an angle on the now gone wall. I moved it, ripped out the drawer. Took off the door. Put a plank backing on it and now, it’s a perfect fit for my kitchen aid and finishes off this wall nicely!

This is the other side of the awful red cabinet wall. I had knocked a massive hole in it before realizing it couldn’t be removed. So it’s all patched up. Needs sanded, textured and painted still. Always something!

Finally stained the trash drawer. I like it much better like that.

I can finally consider the pantry completely finished after building these great wooden doors and planking the side wall of it. I love how it all turned out!

The entire house has been re-arranged. Pre- wall removal this was the kids playroom. It is now the dining room. It’s been painted and decorated and I’m in love with how it turned out!

I was extremely happy to find these peacock plates at home goods

Herbs are sprouting nicely in my chicken feeder herb garden.

The hanging scale is to die for. Functional as well. I’ve been weighing animal feed in it. I love the column I found at an antique store and the peppercorn plant is doing great in it’s greenhouse.

Other things happening are because of the big household rearrange. We moved all of the main spaces in the house around.

This space in the new playroom was begging to be a learning center. Now it is! I built that lovely table and benches and I couldn’t be more happy with how this space has turned out!

Now that our living room is near the fireplace the empty, ugly space had to have something done to it. This is two tails from our peacocks and it’s marvelous!

That’s it for now. Still to do is finishing the cabinets off, removing the current island, installing new flooring and building a new island. Worlds of changes to come!

Early planting, many hopes!

Sometimes you just can’t pick when your trees arrive. You know that in spite of your zone planting before Memorial day is plant suicide. Unfortunately your zone tells everyone else that you can plant early April. I hope for late shippings but we got a box already. Six trees have arrived. These are replacements for trees that died last year. I am fairly certain they suffered root death during transport as they were poorly wrapped and bone dry when I got to them. They nicely replaced the trees and so, after two days in a bucket debating, we planted.

Now I’m debating if it’s even worth it to go mulch them. It’s still horribly windy. Mulch sure does love to blow. I’ll debate it some more as I watch the weather and hope, oh hope!

Some of my hopes have been answered though. Every time I go out to survey the orchard I find things I thought were dead quite alive. Many bushes coming up from the root. Some trees doing so as well. I’ll re-graft them.

I have many seedlings growing away indoors waiting for Memorial day. That magic time when suddenly it’s not quite so risky to venture out of doors. I suspect we will get a few more good snows. Hopefully no freezes though.

I have a special lot of trees shipping. Trees I will plant close and baby. Trees I’m really excited to get fruit from. I sure do hope they will do their best to ship late, as I requested. Please, please ship late!

Now I know this should have been an egg cooking post but I think trees are far more exciting than chocolate souffle. Even though my souffle is amazing!

Review: Chateau Recougne Bordeaux Superieur wine

Wine:

Chateau Recougne Bordeaux Superieur

Description:

[From majestik.co.uk] Fleshy and robust, full of ripe black fruit accented with hints of mocha, smoke and toast. Plenty of fine-grained tannins providing prodigious grip and savoury texture.

Cheese:

Apple Smoked Gouda

Description: [From Cheese Maker’s Website]

Our cheeses are 100% all natural and promote a healthy way of life. Our smoked cheeses are slowly & meticulously, naturally cold-smoked for six hours using a special aged Apple pulp and hardwood to achieve our unique flavor profile.

Wine Review-

This is a full bodied, delicious wine. I admit we did not taste any of the flavors the wine maker described but I’m not sure I’d want to taste “smoke and toast” in a wine so no loss. Still, it was a lovely wine to pair with some beef sausage and cheese. The smell was pleasant. The wine wasn’t too bitter. A good Bordeaux!

Cheese Review-

I believe we’ve already given this cheese a thumbs up. It has a strong flavor that pairs excellently with sausage and crackers. We enjoy snacking on it during the winter. Mmm!