Pasture eggs vs farm factory eggs

Wayne's chickens are finally producing daily and we are super excited!! Tonight we will have our first frittata from them, it's in the oven now. I'm going to share some of the physical differences with you in this entry, but let me say first of all the difference in flavor is phenomenal. Tony says that the main difference is that the pasture produced eggs actually have a flavor.

While I was prepping the frittata, I thought I'd take the time to photograph some of the differences in the eggs we gather and the ones from the store. First of all, not all farm raised eggs are the same. Our chickens have a nice safe "home" to be at night where no predators can get to them. But during the day they are totally free to roam through the fields...and they do! This roaming totally changes their nutritional intake, thereby changing the nutritional value of the eggs they produce. If you chose to purchase from a local farmer talk to them about the habitat and routines of their animals.

According to research done by Mother Earth News, chickens raised on pasture produce eggs that have 1⁄3 less cholesterol• 1⁄4 less saturated fat• 2⁄3 more vitamin A• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids• 3 times more vitamin E• 7 times more beta carotene. That's more of the good and less of the bad, plus all the protein.

Here's some egg photos that show the difference in our eggs and the factory farm eggs.

This picture is of the two eggs side by side before I put them into the frittata mixture. Notice the richer color of the farm egg on the right. Right now they are two different sizes because our hens are still smaller and are new layers. As time moves on the eggs will increase in size.

I boiled two eggs just so you could see the difference in the color after cooking.

All in all I'm thankful for "store" eggs when there is not an alternative, however most of us can find an alternative source if we try. In most communities there will be a farmer or two providing some locally raised eggs. They may be a little more expensive, but it's worth it.

Left over gardening!

This has been the mildest winter and we have taken full advantage of it by continuing to enjoy some "leftover" crops from our fall garden.  It's March 1st and here's what I just brought in for supper!

Here's what the spinach looks like now....you can tell we haven't cleaned out the rows in awhile, but it keeps growing anyway!!

Here's our row of turnips.

And here's the thing that amazes me the most!  Leftover broccoli from our fall crop.  A tip we learned years ago is that you can leave the broccoli growing after you've harvested the main "head" and it will continue putting out these shoots that are just as tasty.  

This one plant has been producing for seven months now.  

Juicing - The Summary

I've blogged about juicing for ten days now & I have some "summary" thoughts on this subject.

1. Juicing absolutely, without a doubt, changes the way you feel - for the better.  This must be the result of the large amount of nutrients going into your body from the juice.  Most glasses of juice contain more fruits and vegetables than I would actually sit down and eat at a time.  For example, the juice in my glass right now contains one half a pineapple, one pint of strawberries and one half of a lemon.  While it is possible for me to sit down and eat all of that right now, I probably won't.  However through juicing I can put all the nutrients from those into my body...it really is a great option.

2. We will continue juicing - we are hooked. How hooked are we?  My thirteen year old son was begging me at 9:55 last night to fix him a glass of fresh juice before he went to bed. I told him no, but had to promise him that I would have some ready for him first thing in the morning.  And since this has begun everyone else has come to me at some point asking the same thing...will you fix me some juice?  They really don't even care what it is, they just want the juice.  Well, that's not entirely true, the girls aren't ready for the mean green juice, neither am I! I'm guessing we will continue with at least one glass of fresh juice a day.

3. Juicing makes a mess.  The juicer is an efficient power tool for the kitchen, but it is messy to clean up and has to be cleaned after each use.  While most fruits and vegetables can be juiced whole, some chopping, cleaning, etc still has to be done. The bright side for us is that all of the leftover pulp and discards can be fed to our chickens and pigs.  For those of you without the extra animals, those discards can be composted.  I even think there are some recipes of other things you can do with the "pulp" from the juicer, but I haven't tried those and might never.

4. Juicing can be expensive.  Let's go back to the pitcher of juice I have just made. One pineapple - $2.99, one quart strawberries - $1.99 and one half lemon - $.59.  That's $5.57.  And that will make two full glasses of juice, which come to about $2.79 a glass.  Sometimes our glasses might be more expensive than that, sometimes less, but I'd say that's a good average.  I think it's worth the cost.

5. Now that we've experienced juicing, I want to put more effort into trying the fresh fruit and vegetable smoothies. I'll keep you posted on what we try.

Juicing - Day Ten

It has been a few days since I've made fresh juice & I have definitely felt the effect.  Low energy, sluggish, yucky...are just a few ways I would describe the last few days.  I couldn't wait to fix the juice this morning.  I needed it & I knew it.

The picture is a little blurry, but you can see the beautiful color of the apple/plum juice that I just fixed.   O & I did add just a dash of lemon juice. One of the struggles for us is getting a variety of fruits and vegetables into our juice mixes.  We live in a rural area where there's just not an abundance of choice at this time of year.  I'll have to start working harder on not letting that be an obstacle.

Date Night Meal

Omelets & biscuits are the way we are starting our "date" tonight. The greatest ingredient in our omelets will be the fresh spinach that we are still getting out of the garden!!  The winter has been mild enough to let it continue growing...so we are taking full advantage of that.

Six eggs, a heaping tablespoon of greek yogurt, shredded cheese, some chopped up onions, spinach and mushrooms and that is a perfect dinner for two.  Dessert we will be covering open biscuits with fresh local honey & molasses. Yum!!

Juicing - Day Nine

We have juiced a couple of times today.  Our family-sized juicing this morning was a whole fresh pineapple (minus the outside & the core), a quart of fresh strawberries (caps & all), a fresh mango and two apples.  It was wonderful as always.

We have had a full day & Tony still has a full night of ministry ahead of him, so the one thing he asked me to do for him was to juice two grapefruits up for him to drink when he came in this afternoon.  I always juice grapefruits the old fashioned way.  Here's my antique juicer...well actually it's my mom's antique juicer.

Two other key tools are in this picture, a great cutting board & a great knife.  This cutting board is a bamboo one that Tony gave me for Christmas one year.  It stays on top of our counter all the time.  The chef's knife is also an invaluable tool for us.  I think we have three in all and we use them constantly for chopping & slicing, especially with all this juicing!!  A big shout out to Rada knives for being my personal favorite.

So here's the juice from one red grapefruit...

Here's the juice from two. He drank it all down & headed out of the door for a full night.

Fresh juice = more power for living!!

Juicing - Day Eight

Here's everything that went into the juice.

Carrots, apples, limes, ginger and one stray kiwi.

Here's what it all looked like ready for the juicer - minus the limes which I squeezed by hand.

Here's some of the "ugly" leftovers.  I have decided that most people don't juice simply because of the mess that it makes.

Juicing is time consuming in that you have to wash your fruits, veggies & do limited prep to them.  There is also quite a bit of waste...especially from the pulp that is spit out of the juicer. I have read that you can reuse the pulp in other recipes, but haven't tried any of that for myself.  All of our leftovers go straight to the chickens and pigs.  They LOVE it that we are juicing!!