Pay It Forward Book Winner & IDC Update

And the winner is ..........

Mama Pea of Home Grown Journal!

And my Independence Days Challenge update for August 15 - 21 is below. Rain put a damper on a few things, mostly fall planting. I'm not complaining, because July was so dry. Since our 2½ inches of rain a week ago, we've been getting about a tenth of an inch a day. Just enough to keep things soggy. Other than that ....

1.  Plant Something - the ground's too wet :(

2.  Harvest Something

• green beans (bush)
• green beans (pole)
• strawberries
• tomatoes
• okra
• black turtle beans
• sweet basil
• rosemary
• oregano
• thyme
• cucumbers
• eggs
• amaranth
• chamomile flowers
• dill
• figs

3.  Preserve Something

• froze okra
• dehydrated figs
• canned dill pickles
• froze eggs
• dehydrated bananas
• canned soup from garden veggies & my defrosted "waste not" turkey stock from holiday turkeys

4.  Waste Not

• The usual composting of whatever scraps aren't fed to the chickens and goats.
• We've been getting a goodly amount of rain lately, so instead of using cooled canning water on plants, I've been putting the clean stuff in the washing machine. 

5.  Want Not

• seed saving
• preserving the harvest

6.  Build Community Food Systems

• blogging about it
• Pay It Forward homestead book giveaway
• Benita has suggested several times that I ought to consider writing a book about our life here. I find that wonderfully encouraging, but can't imagine anyone being that interested in what we do.  I finally told her I'd think about it, talked to DH who was all for it, and so have said I'll work on it  Hopefully "working on it" doesn't commit me to a tremendous amount of progress.  I mean, who has time?  ;)

7.  Eat the Food

• the usual (and loving it)

Pay It Forward Book Winner & IDC Update © August 2010 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Colors of August

Rose of Sharon
AKA Hardy Hibiscus

Elderberries

Giant amaranth

Butterfly weed

Cosmos

Okra blossom

Dill weed seed heads

Do check out Sue's blog, Life Looms Large, for more Colors of August.

Have you shown your August colors?

Colors of August photographs © August 2010 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

How To Freeze Eggs

In my chicken and egg update post, I mentioned wanting to try freezing some of our extra eggs.  They would be great for use this winter, when we will likely get none.  Freezing eggs is something I've never done before, but I wanted to give you the steps in pictures (hee hee, this is actually so I have a reference for myself in the future).  I followed the directions from the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

I probably don't have to tell you that farm eggs should be individually cracked open into a separate container before adding to anything.  I'm pretty confident that mine are all fresh, but it isn't unheard of for folks to find developing chicks in them.

The eggs are then beaten, to mix the whites and yolks.

According to the directions, the yolks can get grainy when frozen.  To prevent this, a small amount of salt, sugar, or corn syrup can be added to the eggs before freezing.  I opted for the salt, as everything usually has a little salt in it, even cakes or cookies.  The ratio is 1/2 teaspoon salt per cup of eggs.  I had two cups.

[UPDATE: 1/23/11: I found even this much made scrambled eggs too salty. Comments for my taste test post indicate salt probably isn't even necessary. The directions addressed adding salt when freezing yolks, but didn't mention whole eggs. Next summer I'll try freezing whole eggs without the salt.]

Hmm. It's a good thing I'm writing this post for myself, because I just realized that I added 2 teaspoons. :o

The next step was to pour the mixture into an ice cube tray. Supposedly, one can get one egg per cube, but obviously this depends on the size of the cubes, since not all trays are the same size. Now, according to this egg chart, a large whole egg equals 3 and 1/4 tablespoons.  Well, my largest ice cube tray only holds a tad under 3 tablespoons per cube.  I reckon the question is, how exact do I want to be with this?.

And the answer is, not that exact.  What the heck, my own eggs are a variety of sizes anyway.  Only my two Ameraucanas lay those large eggs every consumer loves. At least I'll have my own eggs for winter baking.  For the record, it took eleven eggs of a variety of sizes to fill that ice cube tray.

The only thing the directions didn't mention, was that the frozen eggs bonded to the tray like glue.

A few seconds in warm water solved that problem and I was able to turn them out easily.

A quart freezer bag holds the dozen nicely.  I did notate that this batch has extra salt.

I'm not sure how many I'll freeze, but I'm getting over 3 dozen a week. We do use a lot of eggs and give some away, but I'll make it a point to preserve as many as I can. I know I'll be glad I did come winter.

Now, curious as to how they turned out for cooking and eating? Get the lowdown here.

How To Freeze Eggs © August 2010 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/