Pullet Eggs

The trampoline chickens have finally begun to lay! Or maybe all this rain kept them inside during their egg laying time. Either way, we got 3-4 pullet eggs today! 

Size is normally the main indicator of a pullet vs mature hen egg, but the trampoline chickens are colored egg layers, so the color was my first indicator. One olive egger and one Easter egger for sure. 

Here they are next to an egg from Dixie (on the left), our oldest hen. 

There was another green/teal egg that was about the size of a mature hen, so that makes me wonder if we've had trampoline chickens laying eggs for a while but haven't found their nest... Maybe it's time to lock them in overnight. Just to see how many eggs we get...

Potatoes

Hot and humid this week make it not fun to be outside. G called me to say the wind made it actually pleasant to be outside and suggested Jaron and I go for a walk. So we did. 

You can see the stubborn boy was tired, but he didn't give in to a nap. 

On our way back, I paused to check on the potatoes. They are thriving! I've hilled them as much as will fit in the container, so the rest is up to them! 

I'm really curious how the yield will be this year. The potatoes in the garden (planted in straw mulch) are not nearly as tall and full. But they were planted later. 

Sage

The native sage is taking over my medicinal herb garden. G thought it would be best to pull all of it. His theory is that there are more in the ground that will pop up. I'm not so certain. But that doesn't mean I can't use what he pulled up already. Probably for the chickens and ducks. 

Right now it's drying in the garage. I intend to hang it up, but we don't have a great place for that. 

I planted some culinary sage in my garden. I wonder if that spreads as much. 🤔 No note on the plant tag, so probably not? 

Sourdough Discard Pancakes

I came across a super simple sourdough discard pancake recipe from a homestead magazine email newsletter. 

That's it. 

I had some discard to use up, so Jaron and I made pancakes Saturday morning. So easy. 

The hardest part for us was melting the butter since we don't have a microwave. I threw it in a metal bowl in the toaster oven on the toast setting while I mixed the rest of the batter. 

I saved the baking soda for last. Holy cow, did it inflate the batter! Big reaction to the sour in the sourdough. 

I normally pour off the liquid that accumulates at the top of the sourdough starter jar, but I didn't know if I would have enough discard for the recipe if I dumped it off, so this time I stirred it back in. I think that made the batter more runny than it should've been. It still cooked up well! Just made gigantic pancakes. 😂

This one got poured in the pan before I realized I hadn't stirred in the butter. Oops. Still in the toaster oven. 

Turned out okay though. I mixed the butter in for the rest of the batch. Note to self - start with room temp ingredients. The butter firmed up when I mixed it into the cold batter so there were butter clumps in the bottom of the bowl. 

Jaron loved them enough to eat two whole gigantic pancakes! 

Definitely a keeper recipe. 

Basil Cuttings

Friends of mine have a plethora of basil and generously shared a few clusters with me. I did plant basil seeds hoping to add to the few garden survivors, but they take so long to sprout! Maybe cuttings will root faster? 

The internet says to make a fresh cut right below a set of leaf nodes, and then pinch back the leaves. New roots will come from that part of the stem.

Keep it in water and roots will form in one to two weeks. I'm bummed it's not quicker, but I think it will still result in a bigger plant than my seeds. 

The race is on!

Mass Meal - Meatball Subs

Last night, our church hosted an event that's a combination of a block party /vbs we like to call Saint Mark Summer Nights. We do one each month of summer, and each night has a theme, free meal, short devotion, and activities for people of all ages. This is what our church does instead of vacation bible school. 

The family that normally makes and serves the meal for the event moved away this year, and G and I stepped in to take over cooking for the masses. Last night's theme was FIFA World Cup and our menu tried to have as many round/ball-shaped things as possible. 😂 

Soccerball subs (aka meatball subs)

Clementines

Cheese balls and chips

Soccerball cookies

The food was a huge hit, and it was surprisingly easy to put together. We three big bags of Italian meatballs from Sam's club and heated them up without sauce and a roasting pan. The instructions on the back of the bag recommended heating the up with sauce, but we wanted people to be able to control how much sauce they put on their subs. I asked Chat gpt for tips. It recommended heating them at 250° for 2 to 3 hours, stirring every 30 to 45 minutes. Also add one cup of water to the roaster to help steam things. It works perfectly! The meatballs were nice and juicy- not dry at all.

I heated marinara sauce in a crock pot for people to ladle on. Additional toppings included mozzarella cheese (most popular), mayonnaise (G's idea, I don't think anyone used it), and ranch dressing (due to the world's discovery of American ranch). 

If you don't know about the World Cup ranch thing, Google it. America is hosting some of the games, and visitors to America have discovered the wonders of ranch dressing. They've been trying to bring ranch home in their carry-on luggage (it's considered a liquid and gets confiscated). So many people are doing it that the TSA had to put out a special bulletin! 😂

Anyway, we got many compliments on the food and I was very pleased that it only took us a couple of hours to prep it, most of which was hands off time. We served around 65 people. 

The July event theme is Happy Birthday America, so we'll see what meal we come up with for that! Probably burgers and hot dogs. 😎

Circle Lids

G brought these into our marriage and I must submit, I am only now appreciating them for their usefulness. 

They are stretchy circle lids that go over basically anything that is roughly the same size. You can put them over cut fruits and vegetables, serving bowls that don't come with lids, glass containers whose lids have cracked and been thrown away...

All in all, very handy! 

Sidenote, did you know that you can order Pyrex lids just the lids off Amazon? I need to do that and replace some of our lids that have seen better days.