Tuesday, February 1, 2011

got eggs?

Our sweet, pesky hens continue to lay through winter. Yeah!

_MG_39531245

_MG_39431248

Sorry I've been an absent blogger lately. I’m sure it doesn’t interest you to hear about all my day to day drudgery and drivel. I’ve been hunkered down on these dark days of winter, trying not to let life bring me down. It’s not all bad. I’ve had a chance to make some headway on the extra long hat I’ve been knitting for my mother-in-law for the last year.

2111MS-23

Iz and I baked cookies.

Have you ever thought about the fact that you bake cookies, and you cook bacon?

These were a bit of an accident. I was out of regular flour, so we used bread flour in the traditional tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe. It made for a more cakey, thicker cookie I can really sink my teeth into. Yum!

2111MS-31

Cakey Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 3/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs

Sift flour, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.
Soften butter. Add sugars and mix until smooth and fluffy.
Add vanilla and eggs. Mix well. Add flour mixture and blend.
Add chocolate chips. Stir.
If you have any dough left after you’ve taste tested it, roll into balls.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 11-12 minutes.

I hope you have a great week!

6 comments:

Susan said...

Oh, gosh, your hens' eggs are beautiful! They're so prolific that first year. We're getting about 3 eggs from the 13 hens. They're getting old, fat and lazy just like their owner. LOL!

I love the color of the hat and the counterpoint with the needles is perfect.

I never really thought about the baking/cooking thing before. The idiosyncracies of the English language! It boggles the mind sometimes.

The cookies look delish and those home-grown eggs make them even richer. Yum!

Sharon said...

Now you've got me wondering how bacon bits would taste in chocolate chip cookies. They say everything goes better with bacon. Hmmm.

Those eggs look super. (Do you sell any of them? Why are they different colors?)

I agree with Susan, that hat will be a pretty blue.

I'm glad you're back to your blog. Missed you.

Cindy said...

Hi Susan, I hope you were able to get out for chocolate! Sounds like you're having quite the winter storms. Sometimes I think it would be fun to live where the weather is more drastic than it is here, but then having chickens and other outside animals becomes that much more difficult. Stay warm!

Cindy said...

Hi Sharon, bacon bits in cookies? yikes! I'm kind of a purist, not sure I'd like mixing those flavors.

Each breed of hen lays a different colored egg, and even within the breeds, eggs can vary in color. One of our barred rocks lays brown speckled eggs, the other lays plain brown. Our EE (easter egger) lays the small green eggs, and our sebright lays cream colored eggs. So you can see mixing breeds makes for a nice array.

Fannie said...

We have a visiting priest who brings fresh eggs to sell - wonderful! I’m in hunker down mode myself. I hate these dark days!

jazgal said...

Can't get a prettier, purer shape and color than those lovely eggs, always so full of promise!

On the baking/cooking front, my son sent me this link to a remarkable poem that seems apropos:
http://www.englishspellingsociety.org/journals/j17/caos.php

Apparently written by a Dutchman, a sort of ode to his frustration with the pronunciation of English.

Don't you just love those year-long knitting projects? Finally finished one hat for my daughter on that basis. :)

Always looking forward to your posts - well worth the wait.