April – end of month review

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 3 May 2011 in chickens, growing, less than 12 clothes challenge, making, personal finance | 5 comments

April feels like it’s lasted forever – it’s not dragged in a bad way, just seems about four years since the end of March and the drama production (which finished on 9th April).

April has been a glorious month – gorgeous weather just about every day. *Too* glorious – there haven’t been any April showers around here and it’s mighty dry. I don’t want May or the summer to be a complete wash out but I wouldn’t mind the odd wet day.

Goals in 2011 progress

Since we’re a third of the way through the year, I’ve written a full update on my personal goals over on my blog. Out of the 11 goals and five sub-goals listed over there, I’ve completed one goal (and one sub-goal), six (and two) are in progress, and four (and two) are still to do.

I haven’t really made any separate progress on my additional Really Good Life goals – am reviewing them now to see what I can do over the next month.

Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

Amazingly, I’ve still not bought anything – I’m genuinely shocked! I’ve online window shopped a couple of times – adding things to my basket but then forcing myself to wait until the next day to actually buy it. Each time I’ve been less enthused to finish the order the next day and just closed the tab instead. Saved a lot of money!

After March’s drawers sort through, I went shopping in my wardrobe for shirts in April – reminded myself what I had and found out what fit and what didn’t. I actually ended up getting rid of half the shirts in my wardrobe but have worn the remaining ones more since then so I actually feel like I’ve added to my options by doing that.

Growing stuff and the chickens

No omelettes allowed: my five favourite recipes to use up lots of eggs

Posted by louisa on Friday 1 April 2011 in chickens, cooking, preserving | 16 comments

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?

Chocolate Coffee Mousse recipe

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 23 February 2011 in cooking, Featured, recipes | 5 comments

I stumbled upon this recipe a little while ago and it’s become a favourite in the Peach household – not only is it one of the nicest, richest desserts I’ve ever eaten, it both uses up eggs (a good thing!) and is really pretty easy & quick to make as well.

It’s easy because it cheats by starting with ready-made chocolate. I’ve tried making it with both fancy 70% chocolate and cheaper plain stuff (I mean really cheap plain stuff – Netto, two 200g bars for £1.50) – there is a difference, the former was obviously a lot stronger and richer, but you know what? the cheaper stuff did pretty well too. The intense strong chocolate is nice but can be a bit overwhelming – I’d certainly make it again with the cheaper stuff, especially if the people eating it weren’t major dark chocolate fans.

Regarding the coffee, John is a coffee snob so we have very good beans in the house pretty much all the time and he makes it using an Aeropress which apparently removes a lot of the bitterness (I don’t like to drink coffee but I like it as a flavour in cakes & desserts). Since it was being mixed with other things, he didn’t use his super expensive stuff but used a blend of “old” beans (admittedly no more than a few weeks old) to make the espresso. I dare say the fact it was good coffee to start with added to the flavour of the finished dessert.

Aside from that though, eggs is eggs, a little sugar is a little sugar. If the eggs are homegrown (as ours are), the only real cost is the chocolate, with an extra 20p or so for the fancy-smancy coffee. For a super rich dessert for four, I think it’s pretty reasonable.

Things from yesterday and today

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 8 February 2011 in growing, meta | 3 comments

I started my potatoes chitting yesterday. Well, they’d already started chitting all by themselves but I took them out of their nets and put them in egg boxes. Now to remember which is which…

Today is the first time in about a week when it’s not been blowing a gale so I’m tempted to spend the afternoon away from my computer and sow some seeds. Weee!

I collected six eggs this morning – we usually get five max. Being realistic, I think it was probably just a late one from yesterday and today’s five – but one was a little small, so maybe Lime’s coming out of moult.

(Buff has yet to provide us with a single egg (she’ll lay white ones, the rest lay light to mid brown ones so it’ll be clear when she does get around to it) and is getting noisier. From what I’ve read, it’s not uncommon for Leghorns to be late starters, and I guess winter will exacerbate that, but I’m worried she thinks she is a boy – or actually is a boy. Nothing obvious yet but *paranoia*.)

Our meal planning made it to Day Two before failing completely. Yay us. There is a reason though – we had both completely forgotten that John’s attending a talk in Manchester tonight so not only will be out for dinner but will need more substance at lunchtime than soup will provide (he’s unlikely to be eating dinner until after 9pm). And also half his company came for lunch today either en route to the talk or just because there was mention of fish and chips and everyone loves fish and chips. I will probably still end up making the sausage & lentil casserole because the sausages will go off otherwise, but I’ll freeze tonight’s portion instead.

I made the spicy butternut squash soup before we realised the change of plans so I’ll have that for dinner tonight. I made approximately 3litres of it. I might freeze some of that too ;)

A book on vegetable-oil soap making that I’d been umming and aahing about buying for ages arrived this morning – can’t wait to give that a go.

Some embroidery fabric (bought on eBay) also arrived so I can start on my next big stitchery project. Going to wait until I’ve finished the blanket (which is now wide enough to keep me warm while I’m crocheting it :) ) rather than get distracted but I’m working on my pattern. It’s going to be an evolving piece actually – it’ll never be finished-finished – which makes planning interesting!

We shaved & bathed the dog last night. (Not a euphemism.) She feels like silky velvet at the moment and while it’s not a perfect job, it’s certainly passable. It would have cost us at least £45 if we’d paid someone else to do it. She slept through all the clipping and got an egg afterwards for being a good girl.

There has been a few clumps of small brown mushrooms growing on the garden steps (covered with wood chippings) recently and I picked one to identify yesterday. It looks very much like a Deceiver (Laccaria Laccata) but it seems far too late in the year/early in the next one to be those. I will keep looking through my books to see what else it might be but any other suggestions would be gratefully received :)

What have you guys been up to?

Lovely Buttery Lemon Curd recipe

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 26 January 2011 in cooking, preserving, recipes | 6 comments

I mentioned on Monday that I made a batch of lemon curd while my frustrating, sticky marmalade was boiling away.

Lemon curd is far easier and more fun to make than marmalade, and oh my wow, it’s delicious.

It doesn’t have a long shelf life though – what with the butter and the eggs – but I don’t mind having to make it regularly because it’s so quick and easy that it’s not a problem.

Compared to jams from foraged or grown fruit (where the only expenses are sugar, a tiny bit of spice & energy), this is expensive – lots of bought-in items. Using eggs from our own chickens, it worked out at about 70p a jar; if we’d had to buy in good eggs, it would have been about £1 a jar – not break-the-bank expensive and it is very very nice, but not the cheapest either (the blackberry jam I made last autumn worked out at about 25p a jar since the only thing I had to buy was sugar). It’s a good way to use up egg gluts – something we’ll have to get more proactive with now the girls are laying more.

Buttery Lemon Curd recipe

Ingredients
5 large lemons
5 medium-to-large eggs
250g of butter (!), room temperature
400g of golden caster sugar
2tsp of cornflour

Makes just under 3lbs of lovely lemon curd