Tuesday, November 11

Tuesday Farm Photo: Farm Fresh Eggs, They're What's for Breakfast



Yep, these yolks are really orange.

If you've never tasted eggs that were laid by lucky chickens allowed to
flap and scratch and eat real food, I urge you to you go out and find some as fast as you possibly can—even if they cost $6 a dozen (which is only 50 cents an egg). They're worth it, and you won't believe how wonderful they are. The shells go way past white, too—think deep dark browns, pale blue greens, creamy tans. Gorgeous!

Can't justify the extra expense? Compare it to eating out—or what you'd pay for one coffee drink at Starbucks. And think of the happy hens and hardworking farmers you'd be supporting. Want to get to meet our fine feathered flock? You'll find lots of chick pics here.

Look for farm eggs at your farmers' market or locally owned natural foods store, which is where I used to sell my excess eggs when I had 25 laying hens, and where I now buy eggs to supplement the meager output from our current little (and mostly very aged) flock. You can also search on
Local Harvest for everything from eggs to elephant garlic.

Wanna go one foodie step further? Serve your extra special eggs on toasted homemade bread, such as my popular
Farmhouse White. So how do you like your eggs?

What else do we eat for breakfast?
Blueberry Breakfast Bars
Apple Blueberry Crumb Bars
Spicy Pumpkin Pecan Raisin Muffins
100% Whole Grain No Sugar Bran Muffins
Ginger Pear Bran Muffins
Cranberry Christmas Scones
Savory Feta Cheese and Scallion Scones
White Whole Wheat Scones with Currants & Oats
Oatmeal Toasting Bread
Italian Rosemary Raisin Bread (with cheddar & apricot jam)
Sometimes
Lettuce Salad
And Sometimes
Chocolate Cake!

©
FarmgirlFare.com, the cluck happy foodie farm blog where fresh raw eggs for breakfast are the secret to our dogs' healthy bodies and shiny coats (Bear has never had a bath in his life)—and one of us eats our fried eggs on toast with strawberry jam.

33 comments:

  1. Hi Susan, I'd like mine over easy, please. My three little 10 year old hens lay for about 3 months during the early summer. I hate it when I run out of those eggs - they are so delicious...

    Your picture makes me want to go to the little diner on the corner that serves breakfast all day for lunch. LOL. T.

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  2. yum! as to the egg shell color, my mom in MI gets eggs fresh from a friend's little band of chickens, and the eggs are a lovely mint green to light blue! i showed my friends here in CA a photo of the green eggs, but they didn't believe the eggs were naturally that color! when i was a kid, i remember neighbors who would give us light blue, green, and even pale pink eggs! it was wonderful!!! :)

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  3. Check out Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. They are two British celeb chefs who are both passionate about hens and chickens being kept in good conditions not only because it gives them a better quality of life but also because the meat and eggs taste so much better. Back home at my folks in the UK they get eggs from our neighbours hens or from the free-range egg farm nearby and they really do taste so much better and yes, the yolks are orange! Looking at that mouthwatering picture just made me really look forward to getting back there in March.

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  4. Oddly enough, I really only like 'em scrambled! A little salt, a little pepper, and a little maple syrup.

    Smoosh it all together with a buttered english muffin and I am in breakfast heaven!

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  5. manomanonman that looks grand !!

    Those blueberry breakfast bars are catching my eyes too.

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  6. Ooooo - your picture made me hungry again. I'm a huge fan of eggs - omelets, scrambled, puddings, clafouti, and poached. And HB. Well, you understand - I love eggs and they're still an absolutely great deal, even if you pay 50 cents an egg.

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  7. Thank you for the reminder! I don't have chickens (yet), but there's someone in our office who does and sells the eggs for $2.50/dozen.

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  8. We are currently looking for a farm in TX to buy & one of our first things to set up will be our laying hens! I can't wait to have REAL eggs from happy chickens!! :)

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  9. Farm fresh eggs are the only way to go! My 2 remaining old hens sadly no longer lay so I buy mine from the local organic farmer.

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  10. We have hens! And let me tell you, there's no way we could go back to grocery store fare. Our girls lay white, light brown, dark brown, speckledy brown and green eggs. :D Yummy!

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  11. Tons of fresh eggs here in Amish land for me. But people should know - you can't hardboil fresh eggs very well. The shells just won't peel. You can keep fresh ones in the fridge for a week or two and then they'll be ok, and still more healthy and delicious. Also -- little known fact -- I sailed for a long time and did you know that eggs will keep almost forever, unrefrigerated? Just turn them every few days to avoid a dry spot which can spoil. And uggh, avoid high seas too...

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  12. Fried, with the yoke purposely broken (cannot eat a runny yoke--ever), preferably cooked with a sliced tomato. I will be very sad when there are no longer tomatoes for my eggs.

    The farm we get our eggs (a dozen for $1.75! yay!) is so pretty, it doesn't even look real. And man, those are some HAPPY CHICKENS. Sadly, they seem to have been discovered by the general populace, because it's become a crap shoot whether there will actually be any eggs left when we get there.

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  13. I had thought my aging "Adventure Chickens" were slowing down laying, but the three new pullets have taught them all a new hiding place and I found 16 eggs stockpiled the other day.

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  14. Bear eats his fried eggs on toast with strawberry jam. You're a very nice human!

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  15. We have been enjoying these wonderful fresh eggs from our neighbour's run-around-the-farnyard chickens until a week ago when a fox got into their henhouse. Now we have to wait for new chickens next spring. Ohhhhh...it's going to be a long winter without our delicious eggs.

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  16. I'm so right there with you, Susan. Although I can't boast yolks *quite* so deeply orange, they are much darker than the pale things from the supermarket.

    Hey, you know what beats eggs from your own hens with homemade toasted bread? Eggs from your own hens with homemade toasted bread rubbed with homegrown garlic!

    I like mine sunny side up and runny! Plenty of butter on the toast, too.

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  17. I love eggs! My first word was "egg" and my first sentence was "Get down, get my egg!"

    And you know how I feel about your Farmhouse White bread recipe! Eggs and that bread are the perfect meal!!

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  18. I LOVE free-range eggs, they are SO tasty! I remember bringing something in to one place I worked - can't remember the dish now but it had egg in it - and a coworker asked if I had put mustard in it, because of the rich orange/yellow hue from the yolks.

    Excellent cooked over-easy and put on buttered toast. YUM!

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  19. Thanks to you I have been trying new things. Recently I made tuna fish salad and chicken salad with broccoli slaw. YUM!
    I'm sure you haven't noticed, but some chicken companies have been selling Jumbo chickens that have lots of meat but no flavor. I am trying to limit my buying from these companies.
    Keep up the good work!

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  20. oh, fried eggs? straight from the farm? yes! yes! yes!

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  21. Those eggs are also far healthier, with more Omega-3s and less cholesterol!
    I like my eggs poached over bitter greens. Yum. Everything's better with an egg on top!

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  22. I love mine over easy (or the way my grandma made them sunny side up, with sausage drippings splashed on top to cook the yoke ever so slightly - in my young mind they were "Green Eggs"). I also favor them on English muffins with provolone and a bit of dijon - uuhhmm - so good! Never had orange yolks before. Might have thought something was wrong...my mother had salmonella that almost killed her so I don't monkey around with funky eggs. I would have googled the orange and probably found that all was well and chowed down!

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  23. Mmmmmm...I like eggs in a frittata di pane. It's a sure way to use up leftover homemade bread too.

    It's only been in the past year that our family has switched from 'grocery store standard eggs' to organic free range eggs...AND...we are lucky that another grocery store near us sells from a local farm. We will never go back!

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  24. I agree COMPLETELY, Farmgirl! Having Myrtle Mae around to supply me with her eggs is just wonderful, and I know she's treated well and gets to eat as many slugs, bugs, and weeds as she wants. :-) Brkbrkbrkbrk-b'GOCK!

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  25. Susan ~ Don't you just love reading all these wonderful comments about eggs? I've read them and I now have a very bad case of farm-raised "egg-envy".

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  26. Husband's coworker lives on a small farm and sells eggs. We buy them frequently. They are so delicious! I'll never forget the day we realized how fresh they were; she said she didn't have enough for a dozen, but would the next morning. Wow!

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  27. I used to buy mine from an old couple with a bit of land where you could see the chickens running free. Since they stopped selling them I've never found another local source to buy from so at the moment buy supermarket free range organic - but I don't really know fully what I'm getting. One of my friends keeps her own chickens and lets me have some eggs when she has a surplus. We have a big garden and grow a lot of our own food but have never got round to keeping chickens but it's certainly worth thinking about.

    I've just found your blog and really like it.

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  28. Hi Susan, I've had a post much like this in my drafts for a while but you've beaten me to it. If I do get around to posting it, just want you to know I'm not being a copycat. :) I've got two young white hens and plan on expanding the flock (does two hens make a flock?) after we get the hen house built this winter. Right now they sleep in the greenhouse, which I'm refusing to call a henhouse lest I jinx the building project. Fresh farm-raised eggs - there's nothing like them!

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  29. Back home, down the street from my parents' house, there is a farm that sells fresh eggs by the dozen... they have them in an old refrigerator and it's self-serve, complete with a coffee can of bills and change. Don't try to shortchange them, though... their friendly old dog stretches out next to the fridge and watches you make the transaction out of the corner of his eye =)

    In my experience, farm fresh eggs taste just SO much better, and yes, the yolks are almost bright orange, which is great.

    As for my favorite eggs-perience (oh, dear), I have to have it fried, runny yolk, salted and peppered between two slices of buttered wheat or seven grain toast.

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  30. You make a good point, Susan. Especially when you consider that an average omelet costs $8-10 and only contains 2-3 eggs.

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  31. Hoho!! We have 17 hens and they are laying eggs everyday. For now can't say if I am going to eat store bought eggs I love our farm eggs.

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  32. Hi Susan,

    I googled "Why are some egg yolks runny when you crack open the egg?", and I got your blog! It's been fun to read.

    So...do you know the answer? I gave my son some fresh eggs. He said that when he cracked some of them open, the yolk was already broken and runny. He threw them away. I know they were fresh. What do you think? Are they still good? He said they didn't smell bad. Thanks!

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  33. Hi Debbie,
    We've had eggs like that, too. Basically the yolk has cracked before the egg is opened. I'm not sure of the reason, but it probably has something to do with that thin membrane surrounding the yolk. Either something is causing it to break - maybe simply jostling the egg too much - or it could be some sort of nutrient deficiency or other health reason causing the membrane to be thinner, and therefore less strong, than usual.

    I usually go ahead and use the eggs, though of course they don't work well when you're trying to make fried eggs. Joe is much better about always cracking eggs into a small cup before using them - not so much because he's afraid the yolk will be cracked but just to make sure that the egg looks good in general.

    If you find out the scientific reason why some of the yolks are cracked, I hope you'll come back and let us know. :)

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December 2015 update: Hi! For some reason I can't figure out, Blogger hasn't been letting me leave comments on my own blog (!) for the last several months, so I've been unable to respond to your comments and questions. My apologies for any inconvenience! You're always welcome to email me: farmgirlfare AT gmail DOT com.

Hi! Thanks for visiting Farmgirl Fare and taking the time to write. While I'm not always able to reply to every comment, I receive and enjoy reading them all.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I especially love hearing about your experiences with my recipes. Comments on older posts are always welcome!

Please note that I moderate comments, so if I'm away from the computer it may be a while before yours appears.

I try my best to answer all questions, though sometimes it takes me a few days. And sometimes, I'm sorry to say, they fall through the cracks, and for that I sincerely apologize.

I look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy your e-visits to our farm!