According to our all knowing spreadsheet, we had 200 eggs from our hens last month. 200 eggs!
Those two hundred eggs equal an average 6.45 eggs a day from the seven girls – not enough to bother selling them at the garden gate but more than enough to keep us going! Our friends and family rarely leave without a box in their hand but we still have a good amount to get through ourselves.
John has scrambled eggs for breakfast roughly every other day, we have egg mayo lunches quite frequently and omelettes (usually either Spanish tortilla or frittatas) feature on our meal plans at least once a week – but we like to use them up in more creative, less obviously eggy ways too.
Here are my five favourite ways to use up a lot of eggs for when you’re bored of omelettes :)
1) Fresh egg pasta – one to two eggs per serving
Despite having a pasta machine for a few years now (a re-gift from John’s mum), we only made pasta for the first time last autumn – it was a lot of fun though and we didn’t know why we’d waited so long! The egg gives the pasta a lovely richness so it only needs the lightest dressing – no heavy ragus need apply. It’s perfect for having with mushrooms sautéed with garlic & chilli, with a little grated parmasan/pecorino & pepper on top. At this time of year, tangles of tagiatelle and ribbons of very lightly cooked wild garlic would toss together beautifully — mmm, am feeling hungry at the thought of it!
2) Chocolate-mocha mousse – an egg per serving
I wrote up this recipe a few weeks ago because I *had* to share. It’s possibly the richest dessert I’ve ever eaten and, trust me, I’ve eaten plenty of rich desserts in my time. Starting with chocolate is a bit of a cheat but makes it really easy to make – about ten minutes melting, whisking and folding in, then a couple of hours to chill in the fridge. As I say in the recipe, if I was served this at a restaurant with a biscotti and a sprinkling of icing sugar, I’d expect to pay a fiver for it.
3) Flourless chocolate tart – an egg per serving
Ok, so this is pretty much the same as the last one, just baked but when things are this yummy, pedantry shouldn’t enter into it. It was apparently one of the hottest desserts around a few years ago, when everyone was obsessed about cutting back on their wheat, so there are lots of recipes around for it – from the very simple to more flavoured ones with almonds, coffee or alcohol – or all three. I like this recipe for the same reason as I like the mousse – it’s a fantastic, luxurious dessert made some simple, basic ingredients – stuff we’re likely to have in.
(And while I was looking for different recipes for it, I found this equally egg heavy recipe for a chocolate cake that uses BEANS instead of flour. Apparently that too is delicious so it’ll go on my to try list…)
4) Lemon curd – 5 eggs to 2.5lbs-3lbs of finished curd
Another one that is surprisingly easy to make. It took me longer to squeeze & zest the lemons than it did to make the rest of the curd – it’s ten minutes on the stove, max and it’s LOVELY.
5) Pickled eggs – 8-12 eggs — as many as you can fit in your jar
I’m not interested in freezing eggs at the moment because we’ve got such a steady supply of fresh that we’d never use the frozen ones – but pickled ones are a different thing entirely. It’s not that we’re pickling them to preserve them as regular eggs – we’re transforming them into a whole new thing. A lovely, sharp tasty thing. By the end of the jar, they’re almost eye-wateringly sharp but we had some with cheese and our sourdough bread for lunch yesterday and the chunks were a lovely, tangy highlight.
If you’ve got chickens, what do you do with all the eggs? Anyone got any favourite egg recipes I should try?
Related posts:
I'm Louisa and I live a Really Good Life. I grow, I craft, I cook and I make the most of what I've got instead of forever craving more.
Read more the site on 
Hi there u ok?.well i make lemon meringues,meringues and eggy bread..as we only have 2 chickens i have to wait for them to build up and then i let loose in the kitchen lol…
sara
Here’s a link to freezing egg whites, egg yolks, and the whole shebang for future use.
http://whatscookingamerica.net.....ingEgg.htm
Me, I love to have good old warm tapioca pudding, and the recipe on the box calls for beaten egg whites. If I had a dog, I’d feed it the egg yolks from that. :)
Egg white facial mask. Let it dry, rinse it off. And egg yolk facial mask-the same, but a bit messier. The egg yolk treatment is supposed to be very good for oily skin and acne. Perhaps it’s the vitamin A?
Egg drop soup, I do like that. Don’t have a recipe, I make it so rarely. Hmm, I should make that nights we stir fry veggies.
I would make lemon pie with yolks and a batch of merangines with the whites, if I didn’t have a diabetic in the family. Ah, well.
Oh, I forgot-can’t you brush egg white or egg yolk on top of loaves of bread before baking? I forget what each one is supposed to do now…
Non-eggy things. Chocolate brownie (2 eggs/batch), Fruit muffins (2 eggs/batch). Stirred into maccaroni cheese (1 egg) -you’d never know it’s there but boosts nutrition of the dish. Stirred into baked beans (1 egg) -can tell but not really a negative.
I guess there’s lots of other ‘stir in’ options that I’ve not tried due to same problem as sara.
The things I use eggs for most frequently is victoria sponges (I use about four eggs at a time in mine), lemon curd, meringues and occasionally a big pile of egg fried rice.
Sometime for a body boosting protein snack for the chickens (usually during and for a short while after the moult) I scramble a couple of eggs and add them to oats, honey, grated apple, sultanas and some poultry mineral powder all bound together with a bit of natural yoghurt.
I’m waiting for John to get up and make pancakes — you guys have made me so hungry – this is going to be a long wait! :)
sara: mmm, eggy bread. We have that for breakfast at the weekend sometimes. I’ve heard you can make it with dry/very firm cake instead of bread but never tried it, have you?
I haven’t tried making meringues yet – strange for one with such as sweet tooth as mine. I guess from that I could make maccaroons too. Ooh, I feel some cooking experimentation coming on :)
bookstorebabe: thanks for reminding me of some of the non-culinary uses. I hear eggs/egg yolks make a good conditioner for hair too. Our dog gets the occasional egg as a treat – if one is dropped/damaged or if she’s just been good/especially cute – she loves them, she’s my best friend whenever I do an egg collection run :)
Linda: I like the stir in idea – and your mention of macaroni cheese reminded me of spaghetti carbonara. We’ve not had that for a little while but I think I’ll put it on our list for this week’s dinners :)
Steel: poultry mineral powder aside, that sounds like a wonderful pick-me-up for a human, let alone a chicken :) Actually, the poultry mineral powder I’ve got smell lovely (like an old sweet shop) so I probably wouldn’t mind it even with that in it. Your girls are very lucky! :)
Years ago, when I had to face the world early-long bus ride to job-I couldn’t face breakfast until I’d been up some time, and sleep was much more important! My mother taught me a raw egg trick. One egg, milk, a scant bit of sugar and a dash of vanilla extract, all mixed up. She had a milkshake blender. I mean, an open glass jar with a metal plunger style top for blending~! I would chug this and be on my way. Nowadays I’d be worried about samonella and such, we weren’t warned about raw eggs back then.
Speaking of raw eggs, do you worry about that, with raising your own?
Hi bsb,
Someone asked me that the other day actually and no, I don’t worry about that usually. (The chocolate mousse recipe uses 4-5 raw eggs.)
I know my girls are healthy & happy at the moment and live in sanitary conditions. I also usually know exactly how old the eggs are when I use them (I tend to use that day’s eggs when we’re having anything raw/very lightly cooked) and we always stick to good egg hygiene practises in the kitchen (eg, washing our hands thoroughly whenever we’ve touched egg shells).
Having said that, I know we’re both healthy adults – I think I might exercise more caution if we were immune-suppressed or had young or elderly visitors.
My Mum always used to do me eggy-in-a-cup if I was unwell – it’s simply a (shelled) lightly boiled/poached egg/s (i.e. yolk still RUNNY), cubed slice of soft white bread (crusts removed) & seasoning to taste all mixed together in a mug & eaten with a spoon – whilst still hot/warm. Somehow more indulgent than ordinary boiled egg with bread!!
Mmm, that sounds good.
We always have “chucky eggs and soldiers” (runny yolked boiled eggs with slices of toast for dunking) when we’re ill or feeling delicate — its restorative properties are amazing!