The day before Easter Peggy snapped a few candid shots around the farm that I wanted to share with you. She saw a bunny, baby lambs, and of course eggs. It certainly must be spring around here! Too bad as you can see, we still have snow accompanying our "spring".
Hopefully these snowy pictures will soon be replaced by gorgeous photos of spring time lavender. Have a wonderful weekend and think spring!
We love having chickens on our farm. Sure, we love the delicious fresh eggs they bear us, but there are so many other reasons we love having these birds around.
The most economically compelling reason to keep chickens is to recycle food waste. This composts it into a wonderful organic soil builder for your garden as well. The more kitchen waste you feed your chickens, the more nitrogen rich fertilizer they will give you to compost with.
Hand in hand with that is their natural digging, pecking, and scratching abilities. This helps you to create top notch gardening beds. You can grow more produce in a smaller space, which means less water - which should be important to us all.
Chickens also love to eat all of those nasty protein packet insects in your yard. This is awesome for you because maybe it will save you from a tick bite or two, but it will also protect your precious garden as well. They also love to eat most weeds, making your work load much lighter.
And my favorite reason? Chickens are loveable pets. Increase your stress lowering hormones and form a relationship with these useful and happy birds. Some chickens are even bred as therapy birds. We find the most happiness in caring for our chickens, just getting outside with them each day and exchanging food for eggs and giving them a hello is enough to make all of us smile.
My husband loves when we have breakfast for dinner. Its probably because he is usually so rushed in the morning, a bagel and a banana is all he ever has time for. There is just something so satisfying about hash browns, bacon, eggs. It just warms the soul. Well today's recipe is a fun little twist on a traditional breakfast dish. It was a nice way to make "breakfast" even more special when served at dinner time.
First, peel and grate your potatoes in a cheese grater. Use the smallest grate side for crispier hash browns. Once grated, use a towel or paper towels and squeeze out all the excess moisture from your potatoes. You may have to squeeze out the moisture several times until they feel dry. Add some salt and pepper to your potatoes. You could add garlic salt, onion salt, tyme, parsley, whatever herbs or spices you like to use in your hash browns. Spray your waffle maker with cooking oil. Place your hash browns on your waffle iron and press down. Depending on how hot your waffle maker gets, and how crispy you like your hash browns, cooking time here can take 8-10 minutes. While this is crisping up, cook your bacon on medium heat in a frying pan until nice and crisp. Set the bacon out to dry on some paper towels, then chop into bite sized pieces. Fry an egg sunny side up until the white is set and the yoke is still runny.
Once all your components are ready, simply assemble them on top of one another.
This is a lovely crispy dish. Nice and salty from the bacon with a fun crispy crunch from the bacon. The runny egg yolk just takes everything over the top. Yum yum. Hope you enjoy this playful take on breakfast!
The trick here is very simple, you make your hash browns in your waffle maker! I loved this idea because hash browns can actually be pretty tricky. Mine always seem to stick to my pan, they burn easily, and never are crunchy enough for me. Well using the waffle iron was so simple and they turned out beautifully!
Ingredients: (Serves 2)
4 potatoes
2 eggs
6 slices of bacon
fresh parsley as garnish
salt and pepper
Once all your components are ready, simply assemble them on top of one another.
This is a lovely crispy dish. Nice and salty from the bacon with a fun crispy crunch from the bacon. The runny egg yolk just takes everything over the top. Yum yum. Hope you enjoy this playful take on breakfast!
We have so many new readers on here each week, that I thought it was high time for us to re-feature one of Peggy's most popular blog posts of all time. She is the lavender magician, so of course all of her recipes will feature the Lavender Apple's wonder lavender products. This one features our fresh lavender buds. Have you ever tried cooking with them? Not only do they add a unique flavor, but they are so beautiful as well! You can get your own here if you are interested in testing them out in your own kitchen.
Ok, now back to the recipe. This is a great biscotti recipe, not too hard and not too soft.....just right.Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons almond extract
2 teaspoons anise (or orange) extract
1 teaspoon dried lavender buds
2 + 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup sliced almonds
Start off by preheating the oven to 350 degrees.
Grind the lavender in a grinder or a mortar. Melt the butter in a medium bowl, add eggs, sugar, extracts and lavender, mix well using a large fork. Then add flour and baking powder, mix, add almonds, mix well. Place the clumpy dough on a buttered cookie sheet, in a form of a flat oblong (I use one of those cooking mats).
Bake 20 minutes or until the edges turn golden. Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the cookie sheet, slice with a serrated knife into 3/4 inch thick slices. Place the cut side down on the same cookie sheet (no need to butter the cookie sheet again) and bake for 15 minutes longer. Turn over and bake another 5 minutes. Remove from oven, cool and store in an airtight jar. Serve with your favorite beverage.
Caesar Salads are one of our easy go to meals. We aren't big on bottled dressings around here. In fact, I don't think I've bought a bottle of salad dressing in years! Why would you want to when you can whip up a homemade version that tastes better, is less expensive, and just as easy? This salad is so good. A garlicy dressing with a savory bite to it, the salty parmesan and don't get me started on these crunchy on the outside chewy on the inside herbalicious croutons. So so good.
Dressing:
1 tsp salt
1 garlic clove (minced in a garlic press)
3 tsp anchovy paste
2 egg yolks (no whites!)
1 tbs dijon mustard
Juice of 2 lemons
2 tbs water
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/2 tsp pepper
Mix all of your dressing ingredients in a mini prep food processor as you add them so that the olive oil can emulsify. If you don't have a mini prep, you can use a whisk, just beat it super hard until it all mixes together.)
Salad:
2 heads romaine lettuce, washed, spun in salad spinner, and cut up into bite sized pieces
Homemade croutons (see recipe below)
1/3 cup grated parmesan
1-2 breasts cooked chicken, cut up into bite sized pieces and cooled
Croutons:
Cut 1/2 of an Italian loaf bread into large squares.
Spray the bread with your olive oil mister. (Or just drizzle if you don't have a mister).
Sprinkle liberally with Italian seasoning.
Season with salt and pepper.
Bake in oven at 425 for 10 minutes.
These are flavorful, crunchy on the outside yet a little tender on the inside. They are much healthier and yummier than any type of crouton you can get in the store. Look at these beauties!
Once you have your dressing and croutons made, you can simply assemble your salad and serve it immediately This will make about 4 meal sized salads. This is the type of caesar salad you would expect to be served at a lovely restaurant, only now you can enjoy it at home in just minutes.
Bon Appetite!
Dressing:
1 tsp salt
1 garlic clove (minced in a garlic press)
3 tsp anchovy paste
2 egg yolks (no whites!)
1 tbs dijon mustard
Juice of 2 lemons
2 tbs water
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/2 tsp pepper
Mix all of your dressing ingredients in a mini prep food processor as you add them so that the olive oil can emulsify. If you don't have a mini prep, you can use a whisk, just beat it super hard until it all mixes together.)
Salad:
2 heads romaine lettuce, washed, spun in salad spinner, and cut up into bite sized pieces
Homemade croutons (see recipe below)
1/3 cup grated parmesan
1-2 breasts cooked chicken, cut up into bite sized pieces and cooled
Croutons:
Cut 1/2 of an Italian loaf bread into large squares.
Spray the bread with your olive oil mister. (Or just drizzle if you don't have a mister).
Sprinkle liberally with Italian seasoning.
Season with salt and pepper.
Bake in oven at 425 for 10 minutes.
These are flavorful, crunchy on the outside yet a little tender on the inside. They are much healthier and yummier than any type of crouton you can get in the store. Look at these beauties!
Once you have your dressing and croutons made, you can simply assemble your salad and serve it immediately This will make about 4 meal sized salads. This is the type of caesar salad you would expect to be served at a lovely restaurant, only now you can enjoy it at home in just minutes.
Bon Appetite!