First Egg!

Well, it finally happened…we got our first egg from the chickens!

Laurie went out to feed the chickens yesterday morning, and to her surprise, a nice brown egg was sitting in the roost box.  Amazing!

The likely culprit is Cinnamon, our Cinnamon Queen.  At 5 months, she’s the oldest.

The egg on the left is Cinnamon’s.  The egg on the right is an Organic Valley large organic egg from the store.  As you can see, they are very similar in size and color.

I weighed the eggs using Laurie’s food scale.  They are both 58 grams.  Cinnamon’s eggs are almost identical to the ones in the store that cost $5 a carton!

Once the others start laying, we’ll probably have about 20-25 eggs a week.  No word on whether the other girls are jealous.

New Orleans Cuisine

This past weekend my brother and I took a road trip to New Orleans.  It was the first time in the Big Easy for both of us.  We wanted to see as much music as possible and eat as much good food as we could.  Here are the highlights:

My first beer (of many):  Abita Amber, which interestingly is a lager, from Molly's at the Market in the French Quarter.

Seafood Gumbo from Coop's Place in the French Quarter.  We were told this was some of the best gumbo in town.  It was certainly one of the spicier dishes we had.

Ahhhh, the Hurricanes.  Can’t say I remember too much of them.  I’m pretty sure my brother puked his back up!

Coffee and beignets from Cafe Du Monde.  And yes, they are every bit as good as advertised.  Perfect Bourbon Street hangover cure.

After a long day of walking and biking around in the 1000000% humidity, I was dying for lunch.  I happened to stumble upon 13 Monaghan where I demolished this veggie po’ boy.  The cream cheese sauce made it one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had.

Rebirth Brass Band playing a free show on Frenchmen Street at the Satchmo Festival.  Unbelievable!

Chicken Update

It’s been about 3 1/2 months since we got our original four chicks.  Sadly we lost two, but happily we gained three more.  Here’s a quick pictorial update.

Spanky (white) and Honey were two of our original chicks.  They’ve gotten so much bigger!  It took them awhile to get used to the new chickens, but now they are all friends.  Spanky is still my favorite.

Of the three new ones, Cinnamon (reddish-brown) is the biggest and oldest.  She’s probably about 4-5 months old.  The other two, the Wyandotte (front right) and the Ameraucana hybrid (front left), are starting to fill out and look like real chickens.  They are around two months old.

We’ve recently allowed them to explore the backyard for short periods of time while we are home.  For some reason they LOVE a small portion of the yard by the fence in the back.

They aren’t laying eggs yet, but they are starting to roost a little bit both in their coop and in the backyard.  Hopefully we’ll get some eggs in a couple of months.

Indian Food

Last night Laurie and I had a craving for Indian food.  Rather than spend $40 for dinner for two though, we decided to create our own feast.  We found a great non-meat recipe at Gluten-Free Bay.  The main ingredients were potato, cauliflower, peas and spices.

Getting the spices exactly right is the key to making great Indian food.  Once you have all the ingredients, you just simmer all the ingredients together until they combine flavors and aromas.

The hardest part about Indian food is making the perfect rice and naan.  We could have made our own, but there’s no way we could replicate the taste and texture that you find in restauants.  So I cheated and picked both up from our favorite Indian restaurant Sarovar :)

Indian food is great because there are so many meat-free options.  We chose this one simply because we had almost all of the ingredients in our fridge.  This recipe is definitely a keeper.

For a total of $10, we had an awesome meal that was as good, if not better, than any Indian food we’ve ever had.  We also have plenty of leftovers for dinner tonight!

Like Riding a Bike

Austin is one of the more bike-friendly towns in the country.  People bike to concerts, festivals, restaurants and bars.  They even have organized “social” rides around Austin on Thursday nights.  This is great…if you own a bike.  Fortunately I do.  Unfortunately Laurie didn’t. 

All summer long we scoured the internet for a great bike deal.  We looked at Jamis, Trek, Giant, and a couple of others.  None of them, however, seemed to be the right bike.

Then, while walking back to our car from 4th of July fireworks, Laurie saw a lady riding a Kona.  “I want that bike!” she exclaimed.  Amazingly on July 5, she found the very same bike for sale on Craigslist.  It was meant to be.

She got a lightly-used, 2009 Kona Dew.  It’s 45 cm, and it’s awesome!  The person who owned it before either took very good care of it or never really used it.

Last night we went for a 45-minute ride around the neighborhood.  The weather was perfect.  Tonight we’re supposed to ride down to the restaurant Shady Grove for their “Unplugged at the Grove” concert series.  It’s raining now, so fingers crossed.

Eggs

When we got our new chickens a few weeks ago, we bought them from a chicken lady who has over 300 chickens of her own.  With so many chickens, she had a ton of eggs.  Luckily for us we got 3 dozen for free.

I just wanted to post a few pictures to show everyone how many different variety of eggs there are.  As you can see there are white, brown, beige, and even blue eggs.

The blue eggs are my favorite.  Our old Ameraucana, Peanut (RIP), would have laid blue eggs if she were still around.  Our new hybrid Ameraucana/Black French Copper Maran should give us an olive-colored egg.

It’s amazing how many different shapes, colors, and sizes the eggs are.  It’ll also be interesting to see if there is any difference in taste or texture.  I’ll be sure to post pictures when our chickens start laying.

Brewing Beer with Mini Mash

I’ve already posted on how to brew beer the easy way using malt extract brewing.  Now it’s time to take it one step further and discuss brewing with mini mash.

Rather than relying solely on malt extract for flavor and color, mini mash uses both extract AND grains in the production of the wort.  This process gives the beer a more natural and earthy taste and color.  Extract brewing and mini-mash brewing are very similar except for the addition of the grains.  Here are initial steps for mini mash using the Pale Face Pale Ale I brewed yesterday:

Sanitize Everything!

Step 1:  Add about 2 1/2 gallons of water to your stockpot and heat to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

Step 2:  Put your grains into the grain bag.

Step 3:  Place the grain bag in the hot water.  Be careful not to let any of the grains spill out of the bag.

Step 4:  Monitor the temperature and maintain around 155 degrees Fahrenheit.  Let the grains soak for about 45 minutes.  You will notice the water turning a darker color.  This is good!

  

Step 5:  After 45 minutes, pull the grain bag out of the pot.  Place a strainer over the pot and put the grain bag in the strainer.  Slowly pour a few cups of hot water over the grain bag.  Allow all water to drip into the pot.

Step 6:  Remove the grain bag and strainer.  Turn stove top on medium high.  Add in malt extract.  Be sure to stir the pot immediately after you add the extract.  It contains a lot of sugar and can burn easily.

You now have the beginnings of a mini-mash wort.  Simply follow the rest of the steps for extract brewing (adding hops, chilling the wort, adding the yeast), and put it in the primary fermenter for a week.

Summer Garden

It’s almost July, and summer is in full swing.  That means BBQs, Saturdays at the lake, late-night dog walks, and summer gardens.

Unfortunately we got going on ours a few weeks late.  We planted everything in early June when we should have planted it in early May.  But when it comes to a garden, it’s better late than never!  Here’s what we have:

Tomatoes

By the time we got around to starting our garden, all the tomato starter plants in Austin were gone!  We clearly missed the ideal time to plant.  Fortunately we found a couple of Cherub tomato plants for sale at a local restaurant.  They’ve been struggling a bit, but they have gotten bigger in the last few weeks.  I’m not holding my breath, but hopefully they’ll take off soon.

Squash

We planted both Crookneck squash and Zucchini squash.  So far they have grown a ton.  They plants are healthy looking and should provide us with as much squash as we can eat all summer long.

Beans

Last summer we had tremendous success with our beans, so this summer we decided to use the leftover Mixed bean seeds from last year.  They should give us both purple and green beans.  They began “climbing” the bean pole about 2 weeks ago.  These guys should be quite fruitful in a few weeks.

Gardening is a useful and rewarding hobby.  Just make sure you do your research and start your garden on time!

Our New Chicks

Sadly we lost two of our original chicks last week – the Ameraucana and the New Hampshire Red are gone.  We were letting them free range during the day, and they either escaped and/or got eaten by something while we were not home.  We had definitely grown attached to them, so it was quite a loss.  RIP Red Baron and Peanut :(

The chicken coop was quite a sad sight with only 2 birds left in it.  Spanky and Honey were clearly missing their buddies, so we decided that we needed to get more chickens.  We found a “mobile chicken lady” on Craigslist, and she delivered them last night.  Here’s what we got:

Cinnamon Queen:  Cinnamon Queens are noted for their tremendous egg production.  They lay large light brown eggs that are similar to the expensive ones you find in Whole Foods.  She’s about 4 months old and should start laying in a couple of weeks.

Golden Laced Wyandotte:  These birds are quite sweet and easy-going.  They are dependable egg-layers of large brown eggs.  She was pretty shy at first and spent most of the morning hiding in the roosting box.  She’s about 8 weeks old.

Ameraucana mixed with Black French Copper Maran:  This little girl is a hybrid chicken.  I loved our other Ameraucana (Peanut) because she would lay blue eggs.  This chick will end up giving us olive-colored eggs, although they will tend to be on the smaller side.  She’s about 6 weeks old.

We introduced them last night after dark, so it was hard to see what was going on.  This morning, however, the Cinnamon Queen was trying to establish herself as the “top bird” by chasing the other chickens and pecking at them.  They’ll supposedly settle in to the pecking order soon, but for now we’re going to have to keep a close eye on them to make sure no one gets bullied too much.

How to Select the “Best” Seafood

Yesterday was the 3-month anniversary of my killing and eating my own chicken.  Since that time I’ve eaten fish once, but I’ve had no other meat.

My objection towards eating land animals is based primarily on how they are raised and slaughtered.  My objections to fish, however, are based less on the humane aspect and more on the environmental impact.  Since overfishing has huge ramifications for the environment, it is important to know where your fish comes from and how it affects the world.  For a quick look at the best types of fish to eat based on environmental impact, check out the Environmental Defense Fund’s Seafood Selector.

I, like many of you, have cravings for meat.  Chicken, beef, and pork are not options, but using the Seafood Selector, I found that Pacific Halibut is a good environmental choice and a tasty way to satisfy my craving.

Last night I cooked dinner for me and Laurie.  I got 2 portabella mushrooms, some asparagus, and the aforementioned Pacific Halibut.  I marinated the mushrooms in balsamic vinaigrette, seasoned the asparagus with lemon, salt and pepper, and seasoned the fish with cilantro, lemon, salt and pepper.  Then I put them all on the grill.

Meanwhile Laurie cooked up some Israeli couscous, which are basically little balls of wheat flour.

She also sautéed some yellow and green bell pepper with onion to add to the couscous.

And of course if you have fish you also MUST have margaritas!

The final result was quite tasty, healthful, and environmentally friendly.  Next time you eat fish, try using the Seafood Selector to make sure you are getting the best overall product.

Dirt Remedy

This June Pure Austin is hosting a 4-race mountain bike series on Tuesday nights called the Dirt Remedy at City Park.  I missed the first one, but Max and I made it out for last night’s second race.

We both raced in the “B” division which is equivalent to intermediate.  There were 24 of us at the start line.  The course is a short, sweet 4-minute loop that you do continuously for 40 minutes.  The winner is the one who finishes the most loops.

Max finished 2nd last week and was going for the win this week.

Unfortunately I got a flat tire on the second lap and had to take an 8-minute break to get it fixed.  I was pretty much out of the race at that point.

Max showing off at the finish line with after his first win.

40 minutes of all-out pedaling is tough, but the race is definitely an awesome way to spend a Tuesday evening.  We’ll be back next week for the third race in the series.