Not those eggs ... I mean chicken eggs.
It's finally Spring so that means there's going to be a few changes in life. Your thighs are going to come out of hibernation, your neighbours will slowly emerge from their houses, blinking at the sun, and your dog will bound into the house full of joy, excitement and excrement after rolling around in all 472 piles of it in your backyard.
Spring. The season of surprises.
The other thing that comes with spring are eggs. A lot of eggs. Chickens need around 15 hours of daylight to lay eggs (the same way plants need a lot of light to produce flowers or fruit). In the winter, chickens don't have those hours of daylight so they pretty much stop laying and spend the winter eating food and looking at you sideways.
You can put a light on a timer in your coop to fake daylight in the winter which will sometimes prompt them to keep laying, but ... sometimes not. And it's nice to give them a bit of a rest anyway.
But when Winter ends and Spring rolls around, chickens get all hopped up on sunlight and bugs and start blasting out eggs like an out of control ferris wheel spits out wallets and sunglasses.
Then in a few months the chickens will all start to moult at exactly the same time and you're left with no eggs again. I either have eggs piling up all over the kitchen or I have one egg, held under glass for a special occasion. That special occasion usually turns out to be a trip to the grocery store after cracking open said egg and finding it rotten from saving it for so long.
So when the chickens started back on their crazy egg laying schedule I enacted ...
Because my family, as a whole, are terrified of 3 things in this world, cancer, rising cable rates and my chicken's eggs, I'm forced to use all my eggs myself. But sometimes no matter how big my souffle dish is, I just can't get through the 32 eggs on my counter.
So I started freezing my eggs.
I just crack them one at a time into a bowl, whisk them, then pour them into an ice cube tray.
Yes, backyard chicken eggs really are that deep orange colour.
And yes, colour really is spelled with a U.
One of my chicken eggs will fill up two ice cube tray compartments. So I know that two frozen rectangles equals one egg. Once the eggs are frozen just rest your ice cube tray in a shallow dish of warm water until you can easily twist them out. Then just pop them into a freezer bag and pop that into the freezer.
When your chickens have gone on strike you'll always have eggs at the ready. For a scrambled egg, just pull a couple out, put them into a non stick pan and heat them over very low heat until they're thawed and cook like normal. They're not as good as a fresh cracked egg, but they're fine.
What these frozen eggs are great for are things like adding to hamburgers, or quiche, or baking. You can also apparently freeze your whites and yolks separately but the yolks turn like a hard jelly unless you add some salt or sugar to them. I couldn't be bothered.
Kind of like you couldn't be bothered to go rooting around the backyard all winter cleaning up dog poop.
Erin
Perfect timing - I've been inundated with eggs lately (1 dozen a day) but I was skeptical about what I'd read on different sites about freezing eggs. If they are up to your standards Karen, they are good enough for me! Today's the day.
Hilariously well written as usual. Thanks
Monique
Great tip!
My son-in-laws have hens.....sooo..
I've always been baffled by color and colour..both seem to be correct depending on where you live..I mix it up for fun;)
The typo comment above cracked me up..happens so often!
Monique
Like spelt and spelled..unless you write irregardless..then I have a reaction.
Jac
Irregardless of that, (running away fast now :o) just don't write "preventative". Because you don't preventate. You prevent. So it's "preventive" So there. Regardless :)
Penny
Jac, you and Monique would probably get a kick out of The Oatmeal. If you say 'irregardless' he breaks out in hives and has a panic attack! His irreverent newsletters on grammar, spelling and punctuation are very amusing, but just don't get side-tracked into the quiz on 'How many velociraptors you could take in a fight whilst chained to a bunk bed'.
Jac
Thanks, Penny! Haven't had time to explore it yet but neat-looking site - I'm sure I'll have fun there :)
Thera
Yay to ORANGE COLOURED eggs!
(sorry but I had to do that)
Leslie Metzler
First of all, I love your posts Karen. They really make me laugh out loud some days. Here is my tip for the day. I feed my chickens hot oatmeal every morning during the winter and they continued to lay all winter long. Not the Americaunas, but the Buff Orpingtons, the Barred Rocks and the Rhode Island Reds did. Also, after one of the Barred Rocks was totally bald in some spots for over a year because of first being pecked but then just being bald, I started adding dry cat food to the hot oatmeal to give them extra protein and all the bald spots filled in and she grew her feathers back completely.
Karen
Ha! I actually feed mine hot oatmeal too. People think I'm nuts. But I'll confess I don't do it every morning. I'm actually O.K. with them resting over the winter but I wouldn't mind the odd egg! ~ karen!
Jill Carpenter
What would you say is the freezer life span of your frozen eggs?
BTW, had actually just researched this topic about 2 weeks ago and also had come across the add some sugar or salt - which made sense but I thought might be annoying when pulling the eggs back out as I was going to have to label what had what in it and there was not a sharpie marker in sight so pfttt.
Jill Carpenter
Oh, wanted to mention too - came across your site looking because I was looking for ways to get old people smell out of a house. While your cat liter in the suitcase is helpful, I don't think I can haul enough cat liter into the house I need to decontaminate. All I can picture is the neighborhood cats breaking in through the windows just to leave their special gifts.
Karen
Yes but then you could start your own cat circus sooo .... bright side! You have to add the sugar or salt (I'm only saying that because I've also read it on the Internet) to stop the yolks from becoming rubbery. I also thought I'd never be bothered to do that so I tried scrambling then and freezing them like that, which works fine. Perfect in fact. ~ k!
brenda
I think if you put containers of ground coffee around it will get rid of the smell of old people ... someone told me about this trick when I had to get rid of the smell of cattle poop in a studio/storage area ... I build a raised floor but before I laid down the plywood over the 2x4's I put a big whack of ground coffee down and let it absorb the smell and it worked ... there's no smell of anything (if anyone ever takes up the floor they might wonder what the heck ... maybe I should have left a note in a bottle for them - haha)
brenda
built
typo YAY typo
Noelle
Bowls of vinegar might desmell the house. Lots of bowls of vinegar.
Jill Carpenter
Won't the house smell perpetually of vinegar then?
Coffee would smell nice, but coffee is not cheap! And I'm thinking the caffeine would fill the air and I'd be bouncing on the walls all day.
Going to let the neighbor try burning some sage first. But thinking this might only be a first step of many.
Penny
You can use used, damp coffee grounds, spread out on paper plates. There isn't enough caffeine to affect anyone in the room, it doesn't appeal to pets so they leave it alone, and it's marvellous at absorbing pongs of all sorts. Strangely, it doesn't leave a smell of coffee, even if you use it in the fridge instead of baking soda.
Diane R.
So happy this morning Karen! I always go to the 1st email of the day which is at midnight, and there it was. Right where it's supposed to be.
Happy Dance!
Kirsten
As a matter of fact due to the mild winter, my husband has kept up the pooper scooping. No piles of shit for us.
A guy
Did I miss something? What happened to Friday's post?
Jenny W
"Good" Friday was a Christian Holiday, observed, pretty much, around the world. Perhaps she took the day off, as millions do.
Karen
I did indeed take the day off. :) ~ karen!
Meg
not only is this awesome, but in reading your 1/2 egg per ice cube slot, I just realized by scrambling an egg first you could halve it. (to halve recipes with 1 egg.) WOW I can't believe this. I mean how old am I? (old enough to have come up with a solution for 1/2 an egg!!!!!)
Also I'm going to try freezing eggs. And halving recipes.
Heather
So right about the spelling of colour! Do you have a car bonnet instead of a hood? Do you eat crisps instead of chips? And do you eat chips instead of fries with your defrosted egg?
Questions, questions. But we need to know.
Alice
In Canada, our cars have hoods, and we eat french fries -- unless we're having fish and chips. But the "U" stays in colour, favour, flavour, neighbour, etc. Not, however, colorful, iirc.
Bobbles
Oh! I didn't realize that. Colour but coloring! Fascinating!
Rita
Thank for so much for this. And OF COURSE "colour" is spelt with a U. Much the same way as "sidewalk" is spelt "pavement". I officially love you. With a U.
Kae
And you even used the past particple 'spelt'. I love you too <3
Incidentally, I thought I was the only one guilty of the 'dog poop-winter' sin. Good to know.
Irene
Hmmm. I was having "spelt" vs "spelled" angst, so I looked it up. (I lean towards spelt.)
Canada and South Africa are both ex-British colonies, so we do tend to follow good ol' Queenie. So yes, "spelt", "coloUr" and "aluminIUm, dammit. :-D
In fact, I'm really sad that the "Hullo" that I learnt (not learned) reading Enid Blyton and all other glorious English books has been completly annihilated by "Hello".
:-/
Spelled vs spelt:
In American English, spelt primarily refers to the hardy wheat grown mostly in Europe, and the verb spell makes spelled in the past tense and as a past participle.
In all other main varieties of English, spelt and spelled both work as the past tense and past participle of spell, at least where spell means to form words letter by letter or (with out) to make clear. Outside the U.S., the two forms are interchangeable in these uses, and both are common.
But when spell carries the sense to temporarily relieve (someone) from work, spelled is the preferred form throughout the English-speaking world. This is a minor point, though, as this sense of spell is rarely used outside the U.S., where it is most common.
Spelled is not a recent Americanism as many people assume . Both spelled and spelt are old, and examples of each are easily found in historical Google Books searches covering the 17th and 18th centuries. It is true, however, that spelt was ascendant everywhere through most of the 19th century. This ended when Americans permanently settled on spelled around 1900.
Hazel
Quite as lot of what are now considered Americanisms are actually old English, for example 'gotten'. It was in use in England at the time the Pilgrim Fathers set sail; we moved on, they didn't.
If the settlers had left the UK 25 years earlier, Americans would be using eth instead of s as a verb ending, e.g. runneth instead of runs. (Anyone interested in language should read 'Mother Tongue' by Bill Bryson.)
And I freeze my eggs. And the colour is orange- the hens eat lots of greens. I scrambled shop-bought eggs recently at someone else's house- it was grey :( (Not gray).
Gillian
Brilliant!
Thanks for using Canadian spelling.
<3 Happy Easter.
JaneWT
Think you may find that colour - is the English spelling - as in Britain as in UK as in correct - only Americans have an allergy to the letter U - unless it's in text messages and that is even more annoying - sorry ranting and gnashing teeth - stopping now........
Gillian
We're in Canada. I was born here. It's Canadian. No matter who started it. ;-)
Dee
This makes so much sense! There are times I forget I have a dozen+ eggs at home and pick up another dozen, fearing an eggless refrigerator. This would keep us from having to eat hard boiled, soft boiled, scrambled, fried, poached, souffled, shirred, deviled, frittatad, omeleted, quiched, stratad, etc., etc. Thank you.
Paula
Colour with a "u" - haha, I agree.
My four chickens didn't stop laying, I have had them over one year and they haven't moulted yet either.
Madeleine Whitfield
It's also good to know that it's possible to freeze eggs...
Madeleine Whitfield
I'm so glad you said colour is spelt with a u. My students used to think I was some batty old reactionary, but you and I know differently!
ronda
can you freeze whole eggs? my fridge goes a little wonky every once in a while, and stuff freezes near the back, and a carton with a couple of eggs in it looked like it had frozen. wasn't sure if they'd be OK once they thawed out. have you ever had any experience with that?
as for the million surprises in the back yard ... yup, got'em. so very, VERY glad the dog has never be inclined to roll in anything ever!
Rita
I tried freezing hard boiled eggs once. The result was like one of those crazy putty bouncy balls and it tasted like poop. I suspect freezing a whole raw egg would result in exploded egg on the freezer because eggs are already as full as an egg and have pants all room for expansion. I might be wrong.
Rita
*In* the freezer. Not on the freezer. Blinking predictive text. Always pokes its nose in where it's not wanted.
Karen
I've never done it myself Ronda, but apparently the yolks go rubbery (as Rita attested to). That's why if you see instructions on the Internet about freezing egg yolks they say to add a bit of sugar or salt to the yolk and mix it up. That does something to the egg to help prevent the rubbery texture. For whatever reason that doesn't seem to happen when you mix the yolk with the white like I've done. ~ karen!
ronda
thanks for the info. i've not ever deliberatley frozen an egg, and now, won't ever try! but should i ever need to freeze an egg, i know the best way to do it.
TucsonPatty
I've been using a co-worker's eggs (well, from her chickens) and they aren't that colo(u)r at all!! They sure do taste better than the "store-bought" ones, though.
This is pretty easy sounding and would have helped me a couple months ago when I over-bought. I have seen charts to tell you how old the eggs are, but do you have additional hints or tips (I'm hysterically laughing because I just typed tits) (I don't want your extra tits - I have enough of my own) (2) Sorry I'm acting like fifth grader, but I can't quit laughing...
Karen
LOL! I do that all the time with typos. In text messages I usually leave them in and then explain how hilarious it is to the recipient, lol. The best way to tell if an egg is fresh when they're uncracked is to drop them in water. The lower they sink in the water the fresher they are because the older an egg is the more air it develops between the shell and the egg. The air makes the older eggs float. When they're cracked, a fresh egg has a high yolk, an older egg has a flat yolk that's easily broken. Also the yolk and 2 egg whites (yes two) are very distinct in a fresh egg, and not as distinct in an older one. ~ k!
Pamela Pruitt
Another tip is to write the date you get the egg on it, in pencil. I had 40 hens once upon a time. Talk about eggs everywhere. I begged people to take eggs. I cooked every dish in the world that used eggs. And after about 6 months all my children swore off eggs for the rest of their lives. I didn't know then that they could be frozen.
Jani
Why does your family not like fresh eggs? They are the best! Thanks for the freezing instructions.
Jamieson
Ferris wheel har!