Blessed Beyond Belief

"omelets" ~ fast food style

This post is a contribution to real food wednesdays at cheeseslave.com.

A few days ago I was inspired by Shelly's baked egg cups.  I figured I would put some of our beautiful fresh eggs and farmer's market bounty to good use.

Here are the ladies breaking in their new nesting boxes that Tim built for them.  

A little chicken love doesn't hurt egg production a bit - in fact I like to think that a loving cuddle from a little boy makes for even more nutritious eggs.  Eggs have gotten a bad rap, but I think that people are starting to come around and realize that not only are real eggs not bad for you - they are VERY good for you!!

I started with sauteing some beet greens, a spring onion, and spinach in a little butter.  Then I sprayed this muffin tin with a canola oil spray - which I am planning on replacing very soon with a healthier substitute.  Not too happy about what I am learning about liquid vegetable oils.  One step at a time though.  Anyhow, I divided the veggie saute into all twelve cups.  Then I chopped up several ounces of all natural, nitrate free deli ham.  Put that on top of the veggies.  Sprinkled the ham with mozzarella cheese, then carefully cracked an egg into each cup.

Isn't it purty???

Then I sprinkled it with some oregano, sea salt and cracked pepper.

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 25 minutes.

Let it cool for a few minutes, then gently coax them out onto a cooling rack.  The first few are flipped over so you can see the veggies on the bottom.  The egg whites just filter on down through the cheese, ham and veggies and hold it all together.

They are delicious!!  Since the egg yolks aren't broken they bake up just like a hard boiled egg, so a couple of your bites are pure rich egg yolk.  I loved it, but Tim didn't care for the 'whole egg' form. I think next time I'll whip the eggs and pour it over top to see if he likes that better.  I call this 'fast food' because after I ate a couple I put the rest wrapped up in the fridge.  So now I have a fast breakfast for the week.  They reheat beautifully. 

Real eggs - it's what's for breakfast.

Keeping up with R and A

Look what my mom put together for the kids:

Russell and Autumn's Excellent Summer Adventure

Q and A with Aunt Joan

Gee, that little piggy makes me crave a BLT with avacado.

Me too! That's why we keep trying to fatten her up.

I wonder if my yard is zoned for hens because freshly gathered eggs sure would make a good omlet.

Zoned?  Who cares!  Be like Nike and JUST DO IT!

Why o why is Russell leaving beautiful Maggie for a month for smoggy,smelly CA?

Because CA is still the epitome of paradise and the idyllic childhood to him.  That may always be ... and my job is to accept the fact that ID may be for me, but not for him.  We all just want our children to live happy lives, right?  Ah, who am I kidding - he needs to stay here and be miserable with me!!

Wouldn't having his head measured for a crown wake Tim up?

Oh sure, he woke up.  But waking up doesn't mean he has to carry through with getting outta bed.

Just plain weird that men at the dog park didn't mention said crown as they spoke to Tim.

I think it's just part of that unspoken male language.  Secretly they were all wishing they had paper king crowns.

I wish I had one of those cupcakes!

You wouldn't have had a chance even if you were here.  The rate of disappearing white sugar and flour around here is astonishing.  Thus the need for pushing swiss chard quiche and raw milk down their throats any chance I get.

Is Autumn really crying in the hen coop?

Yes, because Tim just nailed the back of her pants to the coop wall so that she can live there.  There are many many ways to eliminate the eye rolling and huffing and puffing in a household.

What do they do with all the chicken poop? 

What chicken poop?  Don't you know that chickens are genetically engineered to no longer poop?

Thanks Aunt Joan!  That was fun! ;)

Today's farmer's market loot

A new find at the meridian farmers market - Choffy.  Lovely, lovely brewed chocolate.  Pure, organic, ground cacao beans.  Delish.

 

This month's meat subscription from Vogel farms.

Naturally grown lamb kabobs.  The third time I've bought these - so good on the grill.

Spinach, lettuce, raspberries, stir fry peas, sourdough bread, and cherries.  Yes, I bought more cherries because believe it or not - the ones from last week are gone.  I froze three gallon sized bags and ate the rest fresh.  Needed more.  Cherry season is short after all and these little gems won't be around much longer.

Broccoli, baby beets and spring onions.

Ahh... nothing like filling your fridge with homegrown food.

Bye Bye

So hard to say goodbye.

Makes you pout.

And cry.

Then you get to the airport and a smile appears when you know you are about to get on a plane and fly off to your vacation destination.

William is going to miss them.

This is the third (or the fourth?) extended summer CA trip - so they are old pros at it now.  The next few weeks will go quickly and soon we will all be back home and getting ready to start school again.

Father's Day

Will decided he wanted to 'crown our king' on Father's day.  So he made this crown that said, 'the king' yesterday morning while Tim was still sleeping.  Twice he went to fit it for him it bed.  Then we made breakfast and brought it to him in bed with his crown.  Will then insisted that he wear it all day.

In the afternoon we went out to lunch.

And Tim had to wear the crown.  In fact, he wore it to the dog park, had several conversations with guys there and no one said a word. Though I'm sure they were all wondering who the heck this guy thought he was.

So he made his servants bow to the king.  They were less than impressed.

 

Here's the pretty dinner I made with edible flowers.

Still wearing the crown at dinner.

It was a good day.

This morning I took Will to VBS at our local Baptist church.  I left him there with instructions and my phone number.  The theme is Dino Detectives - let's hope and pray it works out ok.

Chickens and cherries and milk - OH MY!

The past several days have been a flurry of fun and exciting food options.  We finally decided to tackle the adventure of backyard chickens.  In these times it's really quite common.  The decision was made to get fully grown, already laying hens so that we could enjoy the benefits of eggs right away.

   

 

These ladies are extremely calm, tame, and just love to be around people.  Which is unusual to us since our CA chickens were very skidish and you couldn't get close to them.

You can sit down on the ground and they'll just come right up to you and jump on your lap.  Autumn and Will have already named them.  Let's see if I can remember them all - Checkers, Ruby, Crow, Fish, Carmel, and I think the last black one is Raven.

This is where we found William yesterday morning.  Quietly communing with the hens.  When asked what he was doing he said, 'chicken love'.

Obviously they needed a place to live, not just roaming our yard.

So Tim and Autumn set to work on making them a fenced in yard and

sheltered coop. This coop was put together in a couple of hours with

completely free and collected wood. Not a bad deal for the cost of some

screws.

Yesterday we headed up to Emmett for cherry picking at Rocky Point

Orchard.

I can't even describe the excitement I had when I saw the 

hundreds of cherry trees just overloaded and dripping with

bright red cherries.  It was awesome and I felt like I had 

died and gone to heaven.  I just wanted park myself there

and live in the cherry trees.

There were millions of them just clustered up like grapes.

Don't you know that the couple who picks together stays 

together???

Until one of them gets distracted by an abnormally shaped 

fruit.

Then all bets are off and harmoniously picking fresh fruit is 

forgotten about while said person attempts to dispose of the 

poor misshapen fruit.

ANYHOW - Will and Autumn were loving the cherry picking

experience.  Autumn had tried to stay home, but we made 

her come along and she was happy she did.  The little cherry

clusters were perfect picking for Will because so many of 

them were right at his height.

I think we've found another annual event.  Apple picking in

the fall and cherry picking in the early summer.

We ended up with about 25 lbs of cherries.  One of the best

parts?  A little more than a dollar a pound!  The stores sell 

them for a minimum of 2.50 - 5.00 per lb.  I also got a 

cherry pitter so that I can freeze a bunch of them for later on.

I have been searching for a little while for a local raw milk source.

Not an easy task.  It takes quite a bit to get a license for to

sell raw cow milk.  I finally found it.  Saint John's Organic Farm.

To say that I was excited was an understatement.  Since we were

already planning on going to Emmett for cherries, we called

and asked if we could come by their farm to see what they had.

I'm so glad we did.  Take a look at their website.  It's a family

run farm.  They raise all of their cattle from birth to processing

on a purely grass fed diet.  She said that their cows have not had

grain for the past nine years.  She graciously offered us a sample

(of 2.5 gallons!) of their raw milk, some soup bones and a sirloin

steak.  They have a 'buyers club' that we could get involved in

and I think we will try and work that out.

So, last night I made ice cream with our milk and cream 

skimmed off the top, egg yolks from our backyard hens,

cherries we picked, pecans and pure maple syrup.  It tasted 

like REAL ice cream.  Imagine that.

The fun didn't stop.  This morning I took Autumn and Will

to the Kuna farmer's market AND the huge Capitol city market

in downtown Boise.  Check out my bounty.

What are we doing today?

That's the question I'm asked everyday by Will.  Since school ended a couple of weeks ago he has had a really hard time transitioning into a more unstructured day.  I've noticed this when he starts talking about how we HAVE to have lunch at 12.  What should we have for lunch?  Will you make me lunch at 12?  I've made a schedule on his calendar whiteboard.  He doesnt' really follow it, but I think it gives him a sense of timing to look at it.  Yesterday was a doozy and I haven't seen behaviors and meltdowns like this in a long time.  It finally ended when I got him into a bath to calm down.  It wasn't pretty.  So each day I've had to plan something to keep him engaged and busy and trying to fulfill his sensory needs.  

Trips to the barn to visit with the animals.

Saturday morning farmers market.  He just loves going there knowing he can get a breakfast sandwich, huge cinnamon roll and then an ice cream from the new ice cream shop. This kid can EAT lately.  I love going to get my fresh veggies.

Sunday he used his kids cookbook to make a batch of vanilla cupcakes.  He did almost all of it under my supervision and guidance.

Yesterday it was back into the cookbook for lunch.  He decided on a very healthy meal of pigs in a blanket.  He made the grocery list of hot dogs and cresent rolls and we headed to the grocery store.  

Then he came home and made the whole thing.

Summer library reading program.  Read 30 minutes a day and get a prize each week.  I want him to get into reading chapter books so I figured the best way was to read them to him.  This is how it started out - him pretending to sleep and ignore me.

Tim came in and saw us so he grabbed the camera.  We managed to get him over to look interested.  He finally did take some interest in the story.

After that, the rest of the evening went down hill.  It was NOT fun. He's in a better mood this morning and we have even done our 30 minutes of the chapter book and he was much more excited and interested in the story.  Now we are headed to the library and then I'm packing a picnic to take to the park afterwards.  See if I can't get him engaged in some large motor skills.

It's summer. The kids are out of school.

That is all.