The Greening of Gavin

Yummy Key Lime Pie

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Well Kim did it again!  She made one of the most amazing desserts using ingredients fresh from our garden.  This time it was Key Lime Pie!  I think I want to marry her all over again.

Fun fact:  Key Lime Pie is the official pie of the state of Florida!

Key Lime Pie

Made with limes fresh from the Tahitian lime tree, and eggs from our feathered girls, this pie was about as fresh as you could make it.

But what about the taste?  Well, I kid you not.  It was just melt in the mouth amazing.

Yes it is sweet, but not sickly sweet because the acid from the limes balance the flavour of the condensed milk.  I have seen this type of pie with a meringue but I think that would be over the top.

Key Lime Pie

Key Lime Pie

For those interested, here is her recipe.

Key Lime Pie (Serves 6)

Ingredients

  • 200g Granita or digestive biscuits
  • ¼ cup ground almonds
  • 1 tablespoon caster sugar
  • 100g salted butter, melted
  • 4 fresh eggs, lightly beaten
  • 400g can condensed milk
  • 2/3 cup (160ml) cream
  • Finely grated rind and juice of 4 Tahitian limes with extra slices for decoration.

Method

  1. Preheat your oven to 170°C. Line the base of a 20cm springform tin with greaseproof paper.
  2. Process biscuits until fine crumbs either with a food processor or alternatively place the biscuits between two clean tea towels and roll over with a rolling-pin until you have fine crumbs.
  3. Add almonds, sugar and butter, mix thoroughly until combined.  Press mixture firmly into the base of the tin. Refrigerate until firm (about 15 minutes).
  4. Whisk the eggs, condensed milk, cream, lime rind and juice until smooth. Pour into biscuit crust.
  5. Place on a baking tray and bake for 40-45 mins or until set. Cool. Serve with extra lime slices.

Our Key Lime Pie certainly didn’t last long.  With the first mouthful, I thought I had died and gone to heaven!

The great thing about the slices of lime on top is that you can get that sour hit just before you plunge into the sweet filling and crust.  It’s an amazing combination of flavours for a dessert.

We love desserts made with that little bit of extra love from our garden!  What do you think?  Is it a winner?

TGoG Podcast 073 – Way of the Chicken

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Ever thought of getting backyard chickens to augment your sustainable lifestyle?  Ever wondered if they smell, or attract vermin?  Not sure if they are right for you.

Well, let me help you out.  Let me introduce you to the way of the chicken!

Listen to the Episode Below (00:34:10)
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I have over 6 years of experience with backyard chooks, and during this episode I step you through our decision process when we first decided to get chickens, way back in 2008.

I also talk about how I build our first chook house from second-hand materials, our first flock, and a fair bit about chicken hygiene.

During the episode I mentioned the following links;

Way of the Chicken

As always, if you enjoyed the podcast, please pop over to iTunes and rate it and leave a review. You can also do the same within Stitcher Radio if you use that service.

It would help me out so much, and it would elevate the ratings so that others can find out about the podcast and learn about sustainable living in the ‘burbs.

You can subscribe to the show via RSS or iTunes or Stitcher for your portable device.  Just use the subscription buttons below.

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Until next time, stay green and keep keen!

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Crazy Backyard Chicken Eggs

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One of the fun things about keeping backyard chickens is the crazy egg sizes that they lay each and every day.

Before I had my own chooks, I had long forgotten that eggs are not the same size, shape, and colour as they are presented to you in the store bought egg carton.  It is amazing how easily one can be fooled into thinking this way brought on by familiarity and the stringent grading of eggs by commercial egg producers.  It they are too large, they get turned into other egg products like powdered eggs.

Such a waste.

After we established our flock, each day was a mystery as to what size and shape egg we would get from the chooks.  To this day we still get some weird ones.

The classic backyard chicken trick is the double yolker.  These eggs first appear as if they were laid by Emus, do to their massive size.  They are usually laid by young hens that are a few months after point of lay, but I have seen well fed older hens lay the same in the first year of laying.

Large 93 gm double yolk egg

93 gm Double Yolker

When I found this egg in the nesting box, from one of my new girls, I wondered if it was going to be a Double-yolker, the holy grail of backyard eggs!

Double-yolker cracked

93 gm Double-yolk egg cracked open

So we made sure that we could capture it for prosperity, and cracked it open on a plate.  Try getting one of these beauties in a store bought egg carton.  Not on your nelly!

Then there is the size between breeds, and what the changes in laying behaviour when chooks get old.

Backyard Chicken Eggs

L to R. ISA Brown, Pekin Bantam, Very old ISA Brown (Bunty)

Take these three for eggsample.  Our matriarch hen, Bunty, laid an egg the other day.  She is still top of the pecking order, and keeps all the other girls in line and she rarely lays these days.  Bunty is about 6 years old, which is well past the laying age for a commercial bread.  

I could tell it was her because she made such a fuss and noise after the monuments event that I thought that feral cats had gotten into Cluckingham Palace.  Thankfully not, it was just the old chook having a good day.  

So what weird and wacky variations have you experience with your backyard chicken eggs?