Biggest Kitchen Table ~ Keeping Chooks

I came across this blog carnival at The Berry Patch. I think this is one of the last egg recipes we have used. It was new. I found it to use some pastry, that I got for another recipe that I chickened (sorry about the pun) out of at the last minute. In the past I have made egg and bacon pies and this was a nice modern version. Sausages are a cheap meal if you can have less sausages per person than you would usually serve them on a plate with potatoes and other vegetables for example. I don't buy leeks so I'd say we used onions. Leeks tend to stay in the fridge for weeks at our house.

Sausage and Egg Pie
Ingredients (serves 4)

5 thin pork sausages
olive oil cooking spray
1 leek, halved, washed, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
2 sheets shortcrust pastry
7 eggs

Method

Preheat oven to 200°C. Spray sausages with oil. Cook in a frying pan over medium heat for 5 to 6 minutes or until cooked through. Remove. Cut into 1.5cm slices.

Add leek to frying pan. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until soft. Stir in mustard and sausages. Cool.

Lightly grease a 20cm (base) pie plate. Line with 1 sheet pastry. Arrange sausage mixture over base. Using a spoon, make 6 indentations in mixture. Break an egg into each indentation.

Place remaining pastry over pie. Press edges to secure. Trim excess pastry. Whisk remaining egg. Brush pie with egg. Season with salt and pepper. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden.

I got the recipe here.
Super Food Ideas - October 2003, Page 54

I actually have a chook house now (empty), though it is set up for birds with feeders in the front wall. I am concerned at the positioning of the shed so near the pond, where you can be trapped perhaps with snakes.



Anyway, the whole area is a work in progress as you can see. There are fish in the pond. This is a photo from last May, and we do have a pool pump.

There is nearly a whole block of grass they can walk on, and I imagined growing comfrey near the wire.

I have had the experience of my parents and Grandparents owning chooks. I still have the habit of throwing out scraps. Our dog goes through it, our old dog used to climb into the compost bin when we had that.

I have thought about Little Jenny Wren's idea of having a minature duck that lays eggs the same size as chook eggs for baking, and even found a site that sells them. I also read A Slice of Organic Life by Sheherazade Goldsmith and found it good for things like chooks and ducks and pigs. What impressed me about the book the most though was the homemade baby food.