Archive | 11:22 pm

And we have an egg!

23 Feb

Came home from work this afternoon and sent P out with some scraps for the chickens. He came back with this:

We had one very excited little girl, and one excited Mummy here too I must say!

The chooks were 20 weeks old yesterday, so it’s on the early side for laying, but we do have 2 cross-breeds that can apparently lay from 18 weeks onwards. The thing that really surprised me was just how big the egg was – 56 grams, which is extremely large for a first egg.

I have a bit of a confession here – when I was in uni I collected eggs from cage hens as a weekend job. So I had a fairly firm idea of what to expect from first eggs – 40 grams or so, sporadic. 56 grams rivals a fully-developed hen. One of my girls is quite an egg-laying machine!

Now it will be interesting to see how regularly she lays from this point onwards. It will be difficult to tell if I have one regular layer or a few laying sporadically. Might have to stalk them over the weekend to see if I can catch one in the act.

P is now below 80 kilos, so less than 2 kilos to go. Tonight for dinner we had:

Cajun Chicken with Chunky Salsa

From Low Carb, Low Fat by Pamela Clark

Chicken

  • 4 chicken breast fillet (halves)
  • 1 tsp cracked back pepper
  • 2 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped finely
  • 2 tsp sweet paprika
  • 1 tsp chilli flakes
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2 tsp olive oil

Salsa

  • 2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped
  • 1 small red onion, diced roughly
  • 1 medium green capsicum, chopped roughly
  • 2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp lime juice

Put the chicken in a bowl with the other ingredients, mix well to coat and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Make the salsa by combining the ingredients in a bowl and tossing well.

Fry the chicken in a lightly-oiled frying pan until cooked through.

Serve.

Pretty simple, huh?

At least pesticide only kills you slowly…

23 Feb

I was serving Little D his grapes earlier this week, when I found this!

A little desiccated from being in the fridge, but unmistakably a red-back spider in my bunch of (organic) crimson grapes.

EEK!

I let my supplier know, and their response was “At least you know it wasn’t sprayed!”

That I do.

But a little spray mightn’t have gone astray. How about some “only kills poisonous creatures” stuff?

Now I’m sure I’ll get over it, but if I find any blue-ringed octopi in my seafood or taipans in my tomatoes then I might need to put my foot down.

(but not near the tomatoes).