Eggs, fresh off the lawn

Continuing with the eat local theme, thought I'd share how the first eggs from our spring chickens were enjoyed.

This is the contents of only 6 eggs from our young hens.  Count the yolks.  I actually cracked 6 eggs and three of them were twins!  And none of these was a normal sized egg - young hens lay small eggs when they first start out.  Only fitting, they're not yet full size hens.  But to see so many twins?!

These eggs were scrambled, seasoned with cracked black pepper, salt, garlic, tarragon, and smoked spanish paprika.  I believe there may also have been some cheese involved, but I don't remember what cheese.  Likely something aged and slightly ripe.  They were then fried up in a generous amount of butter on an iron skillet, and served with carrots and kale from the garden, as well as a generous slab of heirloom tomato from the local market, all piled on a gluten free rice tortilla.

mmmm....  After taking the picture I decided it needed a little dijon mustard too.  I like the Annie's dijon - a little saucy, but not overly horseradish-y flavored.

Eat Local Challenge

No posts for months and two in one day?  Yeah, I know, sorry about that.
This one has a community type motive.  My friend JoannaSpring over at Knit Spin Farm is having her second-annual eat local "Eat-Along".  In this, viewers are challenged to eat something they grew or which was sourced from local farms.  Eating local is supporting your local farmer, a chance to know the source of your food and support small business, a chance to safeguard the foodshed and local knowledge about producing it.  It is many good things.

I'd suggest try to make at least some of every meal local foods.  You might find it is great fun to seek them out.  Find the local farmer's markets, farms which sell direct, pick-your-owns, co-ops and boutiques that sell local products.  Its not just fruits and veggies, either.  There are farms local to me which sell also fantastic honey, eggs from pasture-kept hens (and ducks!  OMG, duck eggs...), cow & goat & sheep dairy, meats of all sorts, herbs and flowers.

For my part, my half-assed garden will provide the bulk of the goods (by volume).  Fortunately for me, kale is easy to grow, and I always sow carrots even if I don't tend them.  I love root crops, harvesting them is like a treasure hunt.

This is a very easy eat-local / eat-from-the-garden.  We have here purple carrots in fresh kale from the garden, with some cheese and leftover sausage (from the grocery).  The dressing contains also fresh thyme and basil from the garden, with balsamic and coconut vinegar, aleppo pepper, black pepper, salt, garlic, ginger, olive oil.  Ta-da!

PS:  I highly recommend using raw kale in place of lettuce for all kinds of purposes.  It never gets gross and soggy, and is very filling.

Gluten and Camelid Fiber

Observe the tastiness...
Last night I made a gluten-free pumpkin spice cake using a recipe I found through a newly discovered blog, called the Gluten Free Blog of course! It might be my new favorite blog for a while!

Modifications I made to the recipe:
(1) Used Rob's Red Mill gluten free flour blend instead of the individual flour types listed
(2) Omitted the nuts, didn't want
(3) Substituted 1/2 cup of the plain sugar for brown sugar

It is most tasty served with ice cream or cream cheese. It would also be wonderful with a cream cheese buttercream frosting. mmmm...

The texture of the cake is wonderful. You'd never know it wasn't a "normal" cake. Mike Eberhart over at the Gluten Free Blog really knows his medium. Its much better than the gluten free zucchini bread that I made last week using the recipe on the back of the xanthan gum I purchased. Either I did something wrong or the recipe is poor, but the stuff did not rise. It sayed as flat as when I put it in the pan. It tastes ok, especially with liberal application of creme cheese, but the texture is flat and a little gummy. The cake on the other hand - fabulous! I think I'll have to buy a copy of Mike's book.

In other news, I've had a small milestone with my spinning activities, thanks to some nice mostly camelid fiber. This is "little bunny", the finest 2-ply yarn I've ever spun and I'm quite pleased with it. The fiber was prepared just right and so was quite willing to be spun fine. The result is 50g of ~16wpi yarn, making it fine or sport weight. It is a blend of llama, baby camel, silk, and flash. The name is simply based on the way the pile of yarn in the photo looks like a perky little bunny sitting on his haunches.

And so that we are not without flower photos in this post, here is Lc. Green Veil 'Dressy', currently in bloom with 2 flowers on each of 2 growths. Its a wonderful shade of green with a delightful contrast in the lip, don't you agree? I'm going to pollinate it with my Sc. June Bug 'Venice Sunshine'. Not that I really have any business making cattleyas, but you know, they really are easy to grow. I think they're about the easiest thing to grow from seed next to phals.

Blueberries!!!!

I was looking through my images today and found this one, taken July 4th, when the blueberries stared to ripen. I had intended to post it to the blog but never did. I have a 'Sunshine Blue', which is a self-fertile dwarf blueberry, who I keep in a large pot. It is an easy to grow variety. Its not a very big bush (and is not very mature at that!) but it had a good crop of berries this year that were most tasty.

Now and then I fantasize that I'd like to plant my whole yard in blueberries and make dry blueberry wine. Two years ago while vacationing in Bar Harbor, ME, we picked up a bottle of locally made, oak aged, dry blueberry wine from the Bartlett estate. mmmm...good stuff. Unfortunately you can only get it in Maine. Wish I could get it here in Maryland. Unlike many non-grape wines, it wasn't cloyingly sweet. Instead it was more like the best Merlot ever. If you're ever in Maine, do yourself a favor and get a case of the stuff!! (and drop one off at my house! thx!)

Goodies from the Garden

For the first time this year I'm growing corn, and I couldn't grow "normal corn". Its just not my style. So I'm growing "Black Aztec" sweet corn. As you can see from the examples at left I'm still learning how to pick it at the right stage for sweet corn. The one on the top is a wee bit too young, the two in the middle are a bit too old, and the one on the bottom is just about right. We ate them all anyway and they were fine. The too old ones, which are starting to develop their mature dark purple-blue coloration, were not surprisingly more starchy.

The ears on this variety are a bit on the skinny side. I don't know if this is a matter of my sub-par soil (= 100% red clay) with the afterthought, thin top dressing of composted manure, or just the nature of the variety.

It is an heirloom variety, first sold in 1864 according to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. They also suggest that it makes nice cornbread. I plan to let some go to seed for use as cornmeal for polenta, etc., and for next year's seed too. We'll also find out if a coffee grinder can make cornmeal.

Check it out, I also grew some fish.

Ok, yeah, I bought some fish. Wild salmon, to be exact. One of my very favorite things.

In my typical cooking style, I dropped it in the pan and gathered whatever I could find around the house - garden, refrigerator, cabinet - toss, chop, random. This pan includes scallop squash, blueberries, and herbs from the garden. There's also lemon's worth of juice and pulp that I managed to forage out of the 'fridge, and some random spices. (photo shows appearance prior to cooking) Bake. Eat. Enjoy! mmmm...