It’s not really a recipe. More like a technique everyone should know, and me talking to my food.
Eggs
Egg Rice: Good, Fast, Cheap Food
Last fall, while I was deep in the trenches of recipe testing for my book, I found myself frequently confounded by dinner. Now you might think that, after 12 hours of recipe testing, dinner would be totally easy because I’d just serve the recipe tested food to my family, right? It rarely worked out so conveniently. Oh, sure,…
The Curious Case of The Missing Duck
My neighbor leaned over the fence at me. “Where’s your brown duck? I haven’t seen her in the last few days.” “Uh…she’s around,” I said. “Are you sure? I haven’t seen her lately and I’ve really looked.” “Well, I locked her up last night and let her out this morning, so, she’s somewhere.” But then…
Three Steps To Clean, Poop-Free Eggs
If you are a chicken-keeping gardener like me, you know that the second-best thing hens give you is eggs. The first best thing they give you is their awesome nutrient rich poop! As grateful as I am for both the poop and the eggs, I prefer them to be gifted separately. Typically if the eggs…
What To Make When You Have Too Many Eggs
It happens to almost every chicken keeper eventually, I think. Your girls are putting out the eggy goods faster than your family can eat them. Our flock as it currently stands has gifted us up to a dozen eggs in a day, and 8-9 per day is pretty typical. When I find myself staring at…
Backyard Eggs vs. Store Bought Eggs: A Side-by-Side Comparison
I did some entertaining last weekend which necessitated purchasing two dozen eggs. I had a few eggs left over, which allowed me to perform a side-by-side comparison of good quality store bought eggs with my backyard hen’s eggs. Left: store bought eggs. Right: backyard eggs. The backyard eggs come in various other shades as well. The store…
What’s In A Name? The Beyond Organic Backyard Egg Question
My mom was over and asked, “Are your eggs organic?” “Oh yeah, of course!” I said, “We use organic feed.” But I’ve been thinking about it, and here’s the thing: I’m not sure our eggs are organic. Not really, not technically. I mean, our chickens have a good life. Compared to battery-caged birds they are…
Duck Egg Fettuccine with Oyster Mushrooms and Herbs (Plus the Mushroom Kit Winner!)
As promised, today is the day to announce the winner of the Back to the Roots Oyster Mushroom Giveaway. In a few weeks, our lucky winner is going to be sporting some serious Fungus Among Us action, just like this: But first, an idea for what you can do once you harvest your can’t-get-fresher-than-this mushrooms….
A Half-Dozen Of My Favorite Things About Chickens
Best things about adding chickens to our backyard, in no particular order: 1. Their eggs are just better. Homegrown egg on left, organic store-bought on right. Note the larger, darker, richer yolk and the firmer, tighter white on the homegrown egg. They fry up beautifully too. 2. Chickens make very willing weeders and soil cultivators. (I wish…