A few days after I arrived we had our first snowfall of the
year. We run two fires, one for the
living room and one in the kitchen for heat and cooking. We let them burn all
night and then stoke them up in the morning so that the house is always warm. The dogs insist that they are house dogs,
barging into the kitchen to lounge and toast their paws by the fire. The
chickens stay in their warm pen and gossip all day (probably about the
weather). And some of us concede to
finally wear thermal underwear, it is definitely winter.
Having the fires on all day means that there is valuable
cooking energy being wasted up the chimney and into the kitchen. To make the
most of it, dog food bubbles away, stewing gelatinous feasts and prompting
three pairs of wet noses to nudge: “Is it ready yet?”. We suspect that some of our chickens lay on
the field, but the snow and the cold keeps them close to home and our daily egg
count has gone up.
I have never been much of a cook, but I practice and I am
getting better. I am learning not to cut
corners and with my new found patience am trying different things. Prompted first with the hot oven going to
waste, and second by the rows of pale and dark brown eggs advancing up the
fridge door, there was only one thing for it; I googled.
Desserts with Eggs. Desserts with 10+ eggs. Lots of eggs.
I settled on lemon meringue pie, which is suitably
impressive to trot out at a dinner party, should I ever have one. Seven eggs in Mary Berry's recipe. Our eggs
are quite small so I used ten. The
lemon curd filling by Mary Berry was beautiful; creamy, zesty and
delicious. But my meringue went a bit
soggy as I didn't add enough sugar. We
converted it into lemon curd and custard tart and three lucky pups got my
rather omelette-y meringue.
Never mind, there were still plenty of eggs and yesterday I
made my second attempt. With the egg white demanding: “More sugar! More!
MORE!” I whisked them into snow white
peaks until my arm ached. Success!
Crispy meringue. I also made banana muffins which seem to have all disappeared
for breakfast.
It is a crisp winter day and the sun is melting the very
last pockets of snow. I am going
downstairs to light the kitchen
fire. We got six eggs yesterday and I am
sick of meringue...Any ideas?
GT
