Organic Eggs– Any Difference?

I just started purchasing eggs from a local farmer, a certified organic farm. The eggs are a little pricier than grocery-store eggs, but I am happy to directly support a local farm (and get fresh eggs, too).

I wish we could have our own chickens. I live in the suburbs, though, and chickens are verboten. Bah. Suburbanites have no imagination. Chickens are COOL.

Anyway, I get these eggs. All I care about is that they are eggs. When I found out that they are “certified organic,” it meant little to me… I don’t know if that’s because there really is no difference or because I do not know enough about chicken care. But that would be the SUBURBS fault because they won’t even give me a chance to raise my own and find out!!!! LOLOL. Oh, I know certified organic chickens are fed only certain foods (and no antibiotics) but I have heard many conflicting reports about the use of antibiotics for farm animals. I am, in general, against stuffing farm critters with potions, pills, additives, medicines and chemicals. You betcha. But I don’t know if the store-bought eggs are pumped with antibiotics and stuff. Not sure. It’s actually kinda difficult to find out where ANY of our grocery food comes from, as a matter of fact.

But I don’t notice any big difference in taste between organic and store-bought. Today I am hard-boiling them and maybe then I will notice a differemce.

Some of these eggs are a lot larger than “regular” store-bought eggs, that’s for sure. Take a look at this sucker.

And all the eggs do smell like the dairy farm from which they come. I’m hoping that boils out, lol.

A New Twist to Ziti

I can’t say I am terribly fond of baked ziti. It tends to be dry and a bit tasteless to me. I am very find of Italian dishes but baked ziti seems to be very… American. lol. American style is great for a citizen watch or architecture, but I think American food tends to be a little boring. I prefer Italian and Chinese dishes which tend to be more flavorful. But baked ziti is dull dull dull!

So I am always adding little things to ziti to try and perk it up. This latest addition was pretty good– fresh kale.

I removed the stalks from the kale and ripped the leaves into bite-sized pieces. Kale is such a wonderful vegetable. A member of the cruciferous family, kale has plenty of vitamins and antioxidants that help destroy “free-radical” cells– the cells that cause cell mutations which can lead to cancer.

The ziti pasta will readily slurp up the moisture from the kale leaves during the cooking process, so I suggest adding a bit of water or additional tomatoe sauce to the mix. Cover tightly and bake. The kale added a nice tang to the otherwise bland dish.

How about you? Do you have any ideas for sprucing up a ziti dish?

Using Coconut Oil

We got a free quart of coconut oil from Tropical Traditions (see my review at Freaky Frugalite) and the stuff is pretty good! In the review, I mentioned that we’ve used the oil predominantly for cookies. Well, my daughter recently used the oil to grease the skillet for making scrambled eggs. Talk about creative, huh? Theegs had a light coconut taste, but the results were pretty tasty! I don’t like coconut very much (except fresh coconut– I love the fresh stuff), so I think she wondered what I’d think. It wasn’t bad at all. I’ll have to send her a flurry of thank you cards for all the cooking she’s done this summer.

I recommend that you check out my review of the oil. When I first got the oil to review, I wondered what I’d do with the stuff. I never cooked with anything so exotic. But we’ve been using it on bagels and etc, and it’s really pretty good. And after I did a little research into the company, I am very impressed. They have dedicated their business to ofering natural, healthful products. They even have organic foods and grass-fed meat! Worth a look. The website is Tropical Traditions. I’m going to give them my business regularly.

Violet Syrup and Other Wacky Uses

Fellow Upstater Jenn at Frugal Upstate has a wonderfully fun post about what you can do –edible stuff — with the inconspicuous little violet. It’s really nice to know that I REALLY can go out to graze and get nourishment!

And look at my yard, just RIPE for the picking!

Seriously, I’ve heard of narcissus as an edible plant, and dandelions, and even burdock (the root). But this is a first for me on the violets. I love the ice cube idea!

Jenn has a nice recipe for Violet Syrup. If I can find some discount honey, I’m going to try this.

Before the flooding, my daughter and I were thinking of making an herbal garden for exotic teas. But I think we’ll probably put it off this year, since the yard is still a mess and I’ve been overwhelmed with work (and she, too). I’m very disappointed– I wanted to share all the neat recipes and experience with you all. But next year.

In the meantime, you can guess what we’ll be doing. Grazing on the violets! I wonder if it works like colonetix…. hmmmmmm

Farmer’s Markets For Me This Year

I’m leaning towards skipping a vegetable garden this year. I’m quite discouraged about the yard after the flooding (again). You can read all the reasons here at my old house home improvement blog, I really don’t want to go over it all.

So I think I’ll be relying on farmer’s markets this year. I’m not terribly enthusiastic about it… there are no farmer’s markets in my local area (so it requires traveling, which is not terrible), and I’ve noticed that prices there are not much lower than the supermarket prices (but the farm food is fresher). Still, I can always make our visits an adventure for the kids and a way to get out of the house away from the work. I think we’ll enjoy it. We’re DEFINITELY going blueberry picking in July. My kids have been eating tons of blueberries, which I buy frozen in the store. $10 a bag! The store should be sending me Paper Culture thank you cards for all the money they are getting from me. Sheesh. So we’re going to pick fresh berries like mad, and I’m going to freeze all our pickings.

 

More good news is that my apple tree is blossoming like mad this year. We had blossoms last year, but a nasty frost killed them and we got no apples. I pray we get a good crop this year.

I also picked up some discounted blackberry vines from WalMart. They look a tad sickly. :S Here’s hoping I can just plug them in the back garden and get them to grow. I love blackberries.

How about you? Do you have any plans for the summer gardens? I had such high hopes of a massive veggie garden, and an herb garden, and grapevines and berry bushes… but I don’t even know if I can tolerate living here anymore. We experience devastating flooding all too often. I just don’t know.

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