Sunny Poached Eggs

Poached eggs on home made lightly toasted bread with a cup of green tea, that was my breakfast today on this grey morning with the eggs being the only sunny thing. It feels like winter today for the first time, usually my back room is bathed in sunshine but not today. Its a waiting for rain day and that's good because we have not had a good soaking rain in quite a while, so if the 60% chance of rain that they forecast is correct then we should have a good show, well fingers crossed.

Poached Eggs [eggs in a bag]

eggs
salt
vinegar

In a small pot half fill with water and simmer on low heat add a good pinch of salt and about 2 Tbl vinegar.
When its a low simmer [do not boil] crack 1 egg into a small bowl or ramekin, swirl the water in a circle and slide the egg in, keep the swirl going and do the same for the second egg.
Keep them spinning in the pot for about 3 mins.
I never measure or time the cooking of the eggs, after you have made them a few times you will know when they are done.

Why i call them eggs in a bag, well because the sunny yellow yolk is in a bag of white.
If you have not made these before or not for a long time then give them a whirl, you wont be disappointed.
Try to use as fresh an egg as possible as the older they are the more the white separates in the pot. Those two eggs came from my girls this morning.

Linked up at Homestead Barn Hop #167

Pie & Custard

a handful of this

plus a few of these

makes this

Rhubarb from the garden & few green apples from the tree makes a wonderful Apple & Rhubarb Pie with some home made Custard.
i stewed the Apples & Rhubarb separate, then mixed them together & poured it into the pie crust.

Home-made Custard

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup thickened cream
• 1 vanilla bean or 1tsp Vanilla 
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon cornflour
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 
  
• Combine milk and cream in a small pot & add vanilla [if using vanilla bean split bean lengthways & scrape seeds into milk & drop in the bean] 
• 
  
• Cook slowly on medium heat until hot but not boiling.
• 
  
• Whisk egg yolks, cornflour and sugar in a glass bowl.
• 
  
• Remove vanilla beans from milk mixture. 
• 
  
• Pour hot milk mixture over egg yolk mixture & whisk 
• 
  
• Pour into a medium pot & cook on low, stirring constantly for about 10 mins or until thick & will coat the back of a spoon. 
• Do not allow custard to boil, as it might curdle.

i hate it when you have a recipe that calls for either just the whites or just the yolks. when this happens i always have a companion recipe to use the left over egg. in this case it is Meringue/ Pavlova. i will post that recipe tomorrow. 

Back at last

my computer got a nasty worm virus about a month ago, took a week to get me up & running again but unfortunately all the programs i know & love could not come with me to my new & improved computer as they were so old & you cant get updates for them. so now i am trying to work all these new programs that are really not easy. needless to say there have been a few tense days & a few choice words mumbled at the screen. not liking windows 7 at all grrrrr, google chrome doesn't do much for me either.

well enough about that, how about an update on the solar

our new bill came in & went went from $520 on our last bill to $124 this bill, how cool is that.

over summer will be even lower as this bill was over the winter, shorter days with rain & cloudy over cast days. we dont generate power unless the sun is on the panels. so over all i think we did brilliantly.

on the garden front, we are swamped with yellow grapefruit & mandarins, the grapefruits i have been leaving out the front for people to take. on a side note just before i came in i went out the front to bring in the crate & what ever was left of the fruit & some crappy person took the crate as well as the fruit. next week i will have to put a sign not to take the crate, that is after i bring home another one from work.

there are happenings in the chook yard, potatoes have sprung up in the first two rows i planted & last weekend the other two rows were planted out.

i let the chooks into the second part of the run to clean it up ready to plant out some corn.

as for those girls of mine, Miss Brown, Miss White & Miss Grey are taking it in turns to sit on 8 eggs. so who knows maybe this year we will get a couple of chicks. last year their shed got flooded while they were sitting, it was a very bad 2 weeks.

as for the rooster that i was assured was a hen has decided to jump at me when my back is turned, his spurs are an inch long so a little scary. if hes not careful he will be destined for the oven.

this is what my rhubarb looks like after a month, i can already taste the apple & rhubarb crumble mmmm

today we put in two posts for the new veggie yard, curtsy of the lovely old lady next door, the area will be fully fenced with the wire concreted into the ground as we did with the chook run. the reason for this is the area is not just for garden beds it will also have a couple of residents, the quacking waddling type.

last month found us at the Gardening Australia Show, it moved from Homebush down to Rosehill. it wasnt all that great & it was a lot smaller than it was before. however i did pick up 18 packets of organic seeds from the Greenpatch stall, so it was worth the trip.

that same weekend we went to the Organic Expo down at Darling Harbour. one of the reasons for going down was to find a new meat supplier as our old one only sells to butchers in the city now. no luck with the meat but did get few good ideas, oh & lots of samples esp as we had trade passes.

Something New

THAI Deodorant Stone

i ordered them from New Zealand & they arrived on friday. for those who dont know what these are here is a bit of info

300%" more effective than commercial deodorants, it is 100% pure and natural. No chemicals, perfumes, oils, emulsified alcohol or propellants. It is made from potassium sulfate and other mineral salts which are crystallized over a period of months, then shaped and smoothed. It contains no aluminum chlorohydrate. It is not sticky or greasy. It won't stain clothing, leave white marks, irritate your skin, or leak in your suitcase.

HOW IT WORKS - The Deodorant Stone is not a cover-up nor does it clog pores. The Deodorant Stone actually inhibits bacterial growth on your body - attacking the problem rather than covering up the results of the problem. Pure & Natural Deodorant Stones do not have perfume that only covers one odour with another artificial odour. Instead it leaves an invisible layer of protection that prevents odour-causing bacteria from forming and leaves you feeling fresh and clean all through the day.

HOW TO USE - Wet either your armpits or the stone, & rub the Deodorant Stone on in the same manner you would use a roll on or stick deodorant.

Both A & i are sold on these, there really is no smell, which means no arm pit smell on your clothes that you sometimes get after hard work in the yard etc.
i will no longer be purchasing deodorants to cover up smells. & at around the $10 mark + being guaranteed to last a year the savings are quite large.

on todays list of things to do was this Egg Basket
& as of today we are getting 3 eggs a day
i followed the tutorial over at Pink Penguin
http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html

















also finished up this monster that i started yesterday

|Eggs

we have EGGS
one of my girls layed me an egg on Sunday the 8th :o)
this week i have had a total of 6 eggs, they may be small like bantam eggs but they taste Devinne i had forgotten how good fresh free range eggs taste.
the first two i had as soft boiled with soldier toast
& the other 4 as scrambled eggs
it is only 2 of the hens that have started laying, one of the Rhode Island Reds & one of the Austrolopes, they are both sporting bright red combs.





























how sweet is our Miss Sally, this was after her nice warm bath on wednesday morning before we went to the vet for her last needles.