Monday 10 August 2015

Shucks .... and Possibilities


In the comments on yesterday's blog post Barbara asked ' ...  what was the judging criteria for the hard boiled egg?!' 

It's the strangest  thing I've ever done, hard boil an egg lay it on a plate of shredded lettuce and leave it for someone to judge.  I don't know the criteria for sure, maybe John can comment with some more information, but I'm guessing a good quality egg, cooked to perfection, with the yolk dead central in the white.  That would be what I would look for anyway.

Mine wasn't quite there, once it was cut open by the judge, the yolk was almost at the bottom of the egg .... I've a thought on how to rectify that for next year :-)

But it's weird, the night before the flower show I suddenly woke up, I don't know what time it was but it was still dark, and thought to myself 'what a shame we haven't had a double yolker for ages'.  Then  I went straight back to sleep.

And yes, you guessed it ...... this morning I went over to the henhouse and there lying in amongst the other eggs was the one on the right, a guaranteed double yolker .... shucks!!


Then later on this morning these arrived .... my next set of Tesco money off coupons.  I noticed the date on using them up by isn't until the end of August 2017.  It's got me thinking again, well the coupons and something Lovely Hubby said to me the other day about us 'eating for free' next year.  


I have all the free seeds that have been accumulating this year through my magazine subscription.  This months magazine arrived the other day with three more packets of free seeds, three kinds of herbs this time.

So with free food to grow, maybe I should save up any usable vouchers and coupons for next year and see if Lovely Hubby's challenge to me of us eating for free would be possible.  I'll dwell on it for a while.

It's a Challenge that needs thinking about .... I've loads of time anyway, there's no need to rush into anything  ;-)

Sue xx

22 comments:

  1. I don't think I've commented before but I follow your blog. We used to live in Holyhead so are familiar with your area.

    As regards free seeds, a few weeks ago I saw a Groupon for a Sutton's seed tin plus 20 packets of flower or vegetable seeds plus a £5 Sutton's voucher for £14.99. Having seen the tin in a local garden centre at a higher price and had resisted, I gave way and bought it. However, when it arrived it had vegetable seeds in and I had ordered flower seeds so I thought. Well I must have made a mistake. A few days later another packet arrived with the flower seeds and apologising for sending the wrong seeds and I could keep the vegetable seeds. I then checked the prices and I had £96 worth of seeds, a lovely tin and a £5 voucher for £14.99. Rather good I thought.

    Pat in Norwich

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    1. Bloody hell...... what an absolute bargain ..... well done :-)

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  2. That would be a challenge for sure, eating for free. You do still have to feed the animals for the eggs and meat, but you shouldn't need much of anything to grow the vegetables. It does cost something to preserve them, but the flavors and nutrients would be fabulous. Good luck.

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    1. I was possibly thinking using coupons for meat (except rabbit and chicken) and milk, and growing as much as possible.

      The hens are self financing, the money we make on selling the eggs pays for their food etc.

      Like I said lots to think about, thanks for keeping me on track :-)

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  3. How do you tell just by looking if an egg is a guaranteed double yolker?

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    1. If they are anything like mine, they are much bigger. They make me wince to think of the poor hen that laid it!

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    2. It's experience with our hens. The size, girth and weight of the egg as you hold it tells you. I am sometimes wrong and it's just one huge yolk but I'm mostly right.

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  4. The boiled egg class has always been a bit of fun
    The judge is looking for
    1. Texture of white
    2. Deep colour of the yolk
    3 smooth outer skin
    4. Absence of grey ring ( which sometimes happens when you Dont put boiled egg into cold water prior to peeling)
    5 also over fresh eggs dont peel properly!

    Hows that?
    X

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    1. Brilliant, thank you John.

      My white most likely let me down as well then, I used one of our blue eggs and I find the white just somehow a bit different to normal brown eggs.

      I'm entering four of them into the Llanrwst Show on Saturday, but there they are judged on uniformity of colour, size and quality of the shell, fingers crossed ;-)

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    2. My eggs would always be losers!

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  5. Boohoo, I only got £3's in vouchers. I don't seem to be spending much in Tesco lately, mine usually come from using my T credit card.

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    1. I didn't expect that much to be honest, then I noticed that a lot of the points were from buying petrol, it was cheapest there for a while, and yes we have a T card too.

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  6. Double yolkers are suppose to bring good luck the chinese covert them :-)

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    1. Well they're not having mine ...... Lol ;-)

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  7. It would be a very interesting experiment to eat for free, even if it was only for a few weeks .....

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    1. Possibly worth a try, and we plan on a low spending year after all this building work. We want to pay off the mortgage in the next two years.

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  8. Got my vouchers today too. I often wonder if we could eat free, maybe when the kids have all left home!

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    1. I hadn't realised they had such a long use by date on them. I'm going to tuck them away so I'm not tempted to use them :-)

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  9. Hi Sue, Man Wonderful and I 'spend' ourTesco vouchers by boosting them and using the quadrupled face value for dinner out. It's how we justify eating food that expensive! (Our version of free food!)

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    1. We could possibly do this in the future because it is a good use for the vouchers but we will have to wait for the long promised Prezzo to finally open in Llandudno, in the meantime there is nowhere near to us to be able to use them, so I will hang on to them for basic food shopping.

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  10. I love your philosophy Sue , we have been trialling a ' make the farm self funding' project this year the hope is that all our animal and feed costs etc will be covered from the sales generated from eggs preserves, meat and crafts . We have access to a stall at the farmers markets and i also bake for the country market but no passing trade we are in profit at the moment and have 4 lambs and 2 pigs in hand so to speak. Hubby hopes to retire next year and knowing our hobby farm can pay its way will help him decide . good luck in the show classes

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  11. From Margie in Toronto - I loved your 365 pounds in 365 days challenge - and still like to refer back so if anyone could do a "No Spend" challenge it would be you!
    I still spend too much but I'm writing down every penny spent now and deliberately avoiding shops for days and somehow I'm managing and it has opened my eyes to how much spending I do on food where I'm not really thinking about it or what I already have in the pantry. You are an inspiration!

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