Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Putting up

The last few days have been spent preserving, as Rachel over at Hounds in the Kitchen puts it, "working in quarts and pints." Seven pints of tomato sauce are done, and tomatillo salsa is next on the list. The next good-sized batch of tomatoes we get will either be diced or quartered, depending on how big a pain it is to chop them once the skins are removed.

My dear friends Michael and Ann have recently purchased laying hens, and another family we know have been considering getting goats. While I know we are nowhere near ready for that (I would need to convince both Joe and the Gambier zoning board), part of me is a bit jealous. Mostly, though, I'm thrilled to have a slowly-growing group of friends who, in their own ways, are exploring paths that, if they aren't necessarily the same as mine, run close enough by that we can chat while we walk.

2 people have weighed in:

lemming held forth

What are the stats on fresh eggs? I mean, I know we subject supermarket eggs to all sorts of processes to make them "safe" but people have eaten eggs for millenia.

Alison held forth

Well, I know that the eggs we get from Fox Hollow Farm are fresh enough that they will last for well over a month in the fridge. It also helps that they aren't washed. There's a protective coat over an egg, which keeps it from spoiling a lot longer, but of course the first thing mass-producers do is to wash that off.

My understanding is that unwashed eggs can be stored at room temp for a pretty long time, too, although I've only ever done that when I wanted to "quick-age" them for making deviled eggs. On a really fresh egg, the shell won't release from the hard-cooked egg white as well, and deviled eggs turn into a real mess.