Introducing --- Easy Peel Eggs!

If your like most people.. peeling hard boiled eggs is a real challenge.  Its a tedious meticulous process  where, in the end, you loose half the eggs  due to tearing of the whites or stuck shells.  Yet, hard boiled eggs are SO useful! Quick snacks,  deviled eggs, salad toppings, on and on... so many uses.  So we struggle through with this procedure or that procedure.. adding this or that to the water, cooking a certain way...  There is even a gadget on the market  that allows you to crack the egg before cooking into a plastic container and cook it in there like a hard boiled egg.

We have seen, and tried it all! in our effort to make pickled eggs at home in decent quantity without spending all day peeling ... we tried everything. Finally... we found it. A cooking process by which.. the hard boiled egg literally falls out of the shell!

We now offer pre-cooked hard boiled eggs in our online store for your convenience! Cooked once a week, on order, the day before delivery, these eggs are easy enough to peel to use any time. they keep for about a week in a cold fridge, ready for your use in a pinch!

Watch this video of yours truly peeling one of these eggs... first the chicken egg:

Duck Eggs, they are notoriously hard to peel! The whites are thinner, and the membrane tighter, so peeling a hard boiled duck egg is nearly impossible.  Virtually every one ends up with scars, holes, tears, etc.  But not with our newly discovered cooking method! Watch this video to see how easy a hard boiled duck egg can peel!

THE TECHNIQUE 

 to peeling an Easy Peel Hard Boiled Egg:

Step 1: crack the egg lightly all around, try for an even fracturing of the eggshell on all sides. dont hit it hard enough to brake the membrane, just to crack the shell.

Step 2:  Gently push with your fingers on all 4 sides as in the video to work the membrane loose and further fracture the shell

Step 3: When the membrane feels loose, simply slip it off. Sometimes it helps to open one or both ends first.

Do NOT try to peel the egg the traditional way, a little at a time.  Try to remove the membrane instead.  That makes it literally fall off these eggs due to cooking method.

NewsFlash! Now the ONLY certified organic AND non-gmo feed in North America

NEWSFLASH!

Scratch and Peck Feeds is, as of today, the ONLY livestock feed in all of North America that is both certified organic and verified non-gmo!

Today Scratch and Peck received their organic certification. All feeds milled June 13th and after are now certified 100% organic. This is in addition to the earlier addition of being the first feed company in north america to gain verified non-gmo status through the non-gmo project.

These certification are in addition to the more important fact that Scratch and Peck is the absolute best quality feed we have ever seen.  This feed has always been a nutrient dense feed with whole grains, high in omega 3 content, not pelleted, never heated, and a proprietary mix of healthy beneficial ingredients. It is also local, grown and milled on the west coast. You can not find a better quality feed through any other source, we know.. we looked for a very long time !

We are very excited at Little Sprouts Farm to be the Southern Oregon representatives for Scratch and Peck, stocking all their popular feeds locally for pickup or delivery through our local delivery service.

Watch for the CERTIFIED ORGANIC LABEL on  chicken, turkey, goat, hog feeds !

For information on how to switch to this awesomely healthy feed,  contact Little Sprouts Farm at :
541-826-4345
 or
email feeds@littlesproutsfarm.com

or go straight into our online farm store to order yours today: http://www.farmigo.com/store/littlesproutsfarm

If your buying chicken, pork, eggs, duck, turkey, from a local farmer, have them contact us to talk about offering this nutrient dense feed to their animals at bulk discount prices.

Donate to support this blog

Little Sprouts Farm is now accepting donations to support the information presented in this blog. Look to the right and you will see a new "donate" button that allows any size donation through paypal. If you  find the information here useful, or entertaining, we ask that you take a moment to donate whatever amount represents the value you receive by reading.  no amount is too small nor too large :)

All monies donated will be used to support our operations, including this blog. you will be supporting small farms, sustainable agriculture, humane treatment of animals, nutrient dense food production, beyond organic principles, informational sharing, traditional food preparation, and our efforts to educate the world on healing through foods.

We would like to thank each and every one of you in advance for your support!

Todays bacon experiment

Today we have homemade salt cured bacon wrapped around slivers of onion, sprinkled with paprika, chili powder, and a little dry mustard.

Oven roasted at about 400 degrees.

Yum!

Late Season Lamb Born!

We do not artificially  control the breeding cycles of our animals, who all live in communities of male and females, just as they would in the wold. This results in the occasional our of season birth.  This year we were blessed with a late season lamb born just this week!

I am happy to report that mom and baby are doing fine! As the only small lamb in the pasture, he is very adorable!

I hope to add a pick to this post soon so you can meet him!

Raw Milk Officially deemed a LOW risk food

Raw milk, the food of humans for thousands of years, vilified by the US government in the 1930's, is finally emerging as the safe, healthy food  that it has always been.  The Canadian government (CDC of British Columbia) has issues studies showing scientific proof that raw milk is in fact a LOW Risk food.

Here is the article published in the Wall Street Journal

The reviewer, Nadine Ijaz, MSc, demonstrated how inappropriate evidence has long been mistakenly used to affirm the "myth" that raw milk is a high-risk food, as it was in the 1930s. Today, green leafy vegetables are the most frequent cause of food-borne illness in the United States. British Columbia CDC's Medical Director of Environmental Health Services, Dr. Tom Kosatsky, who is also Scientific Director of Canada's National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health,welcomed Ms. Ijaz's invited presentation as "up-to-date" and "a very good example of knowledge synthesis and risk communication."

That says a lot! so today, instead of banning rw milk, the government should be banning leafy green vegetables! they are inherently dangerous due to modern farming practices.

Will the US government follow suite? probably not. Our own government is pushing GMO everything to the world and exporting chemical based farming methods, already proven to fail in the long run even today. America is leading the world in destruction of the most basic commodity, food.  So, I would not expect to see anything positive from our government about raw milk for decades to come.

Now, that said.. in defense of our government.... raw milk WAS extremely dangerous in the 20's and 30's.  This was due to sadly faulty farming practices, geared to raise profits at all costs. During those days, brought on by unscrupulous dairy farmers, the government was right in trying to protect the public.  However, the mistake they made was blaming the milk for the farmer's mistakes. Milk was never inherently dangerous, any more than leafy green vegetables are dangerous. It is the farmers, agriculture focused on profits and conventional methods, that sicken people.  Any food can be dangerous if produced improperly.

So, we applaud the Canadian CDC for their bold admission of the truth.

Heartbreak is part of farming

Today we say goodby to a friend,  one of the first two milking goats of our herd. Rachael was overwhelmed by a severe case of mastitis that got out of hand too quickly to catch. Hunter was at her side when she took her last breath.

Life and death is such a constant on a farm. It is something you learn to deal with as best you can.  Times like this are especially hard because milking animals are very different from other farm animals. Most others are destined for meat production, and so you tend to keep an emotional distance. Milkers, are different. it is more of a partnership between man and beast. every day, twice a day you bond with them. milking on a small scale is a relationship. each goat is special, has a personality, a "way".

There are so many good aspects to the life of farming, but there are also periods of heartbreak.  This is one of those. Hunter, our oldest, worked with her diligently during treatment. Last night he spent time building her a special bed in  her private stall, caring to all of her needs. At bedtime, both him and kaelyn included her in their prayers. This morning he was up checking on her, and refused to leave her side when we saw she had gotten even worse. He was with her at the end. As a parent it is both heartwarming and heartbreaking to walk the children through this side of life. We know in our thoughts that this is a part of life we all must face, but still it is difficult to introduce a child to death of one so close.

Life is fragile. It is a blessing, but it can end at any moment for any one of us.  Each day we wake could be our last, or our loved one's last. It is a indisputable fact we all face daily.  Recognizing this inevitable fact can either bring dread of the future, fear, darkness.... OR it can bring a special enjoyment for the moment, the appreciation for life itself and the joys we are experiencing now.  It was said by someone that how we face death determines how we face life.  This seems especially true when so close to both.

My prayer for you, as you read this and think of our 10 year old with red puffy eyes, tears flowing,  is that you find a deeper appreciation for what you have in your life that is good, enjoy it, embrace it, and thrive. Our moments are limited, lets not waste any of them.