About Eggs and then Granola

In this last cold snap, we’ve come across a new issue with our chickens.  We heard that they don’t lay much when it is cold, but ours keep popping out those eggs.  Unfortunately, those eggs freeze.  It’s amazing, I learned, that when eggs freeze, it is the shell that cracks…not the membrane.  So when the shell cracks, we’ve been letting them thaw in a bowl to be sure they’re not leaking at all.  The ones that go right back to normal, go in the carton.  The leaky ones get thrown out.

Although, we have learned as we have started to cycle through eating these once-frozen eggs that the yolks are a bit funny when used.  Maybe they’re fine to eat, maybe not.  They look gross and we have eggs coming out our ears, so we threw the funny yolk ones out.  (Not all the frozen ones had funny yolks…just a few.)

I’ll have to research it a bit to see if we should go ahead and scramble those ones up.  I do know that eggs freeze well when you crack them into ice cube trays.  I’ve done that with eggs that we’ve blown out and haven’t used right away.  I’ve also heard it’s a handy thing when a recipe calls for 10 egg whites (like an amazing angel food cake) and you don’t want to throw away 10 egg yolks.  Just throw those yolks in an ice cube tray, and sprinkle a bit of sugar or salt on top (depending on their intended future use).  Some recipes like cheesecake call for just the yolks.

So I need to look into what to do with the frozen-in-shell eggs.  At any rate, we’ve started checking the coop 2-3 times a day instead of once a day to stop the problem there. 

Our chickens never sit on their eggs after they are laid.  We got very non-broody breeds so that they wouldn’t peck the kids (or us!) when we tried to take the eggs, but I’m afraid they would all make very bad mothers.

On another food related topic, I thought I’d share my favorite new breakfast:

I’ve been making granola from the recipe in Katie’s ebook: Healthy Snacks to Go with my own tweeks.  I really need to try some of her recipes for power bars in there.  The ones Knut gets for when he’s ski training are so stinkin’ expensive.

We’ve been using it with yogurt, or I prefer just a handful throughout the day as a quick and healthy snack as I’m passing through the kitchen.  Lately, I’ve started pouring milk over it and eating it as cold cereal.  Seriously, Kashi has nothing on me.

I’m wondering if granola is one of my favorite foods now if I’m a card carrying hippie.  I mean, I’m breastfeeding past a year, I use cloth diapers, we raise our own eggs, I just bought a bulk bag of unbleached all-purpose flour for my breads and it was organic.  I like to birth naturally and…

yeah…Knut said my shipped sailed loooooong ago.

Anyway, if you want to know what goes into a batch of granola, here’s what I do.  (As always, I at least make a double batch, but this is the recipe for the single version.)
3 cups oats
1/2 cup nuts (I use slivered almonds)
1/2 cup coconut flakes (I don’t like coconut but it really works here)
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup honey
1/6 cup water
1 tsp vanilla

Of course, like I said I’ve tweeked it, and left out the sunflower seeds.  I like them, but Knut doesn’t.  Also, I add dried cranberries to mine.  The kids like to mix their granola with yogurt and sweeten it with jam.  They don’t like the cranberries messing with their jam stuff, so we keep the “generic granola” in a jar on the counter top and we each add what we like.

Katie’s instructions are much more detailed, so I’ll just leave you with: mix it all together put the wet with the wet and the dry with the dry, and then mix the wet and dry) and spread out on a rimmed baking sheet.  Cook at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, then stir.  Then cook it some more but stir and check on it every 5 minutes until it looks done.  With my oven it takes about 20 minutes total, but really varies on how thin I spread the granola on the pan, and how big my batch is.

I need to try her soaked granola soon.  She keeps talking about soaked grains and how nutritional they are.