Guinea Hen Egg Frittata

I made a frittata with my guinea hen eggs!  It was yummy.  Here's the recipe:

Guinea Hen Egg Frittata

• Five guinea hen eggs plus three chicken eggs (you can substitute by using 6 chicken eggs) - whisked together in small bowl
• Lots of sage
• Cayenne Pepper
• Sea Salt
• Cumin
• Paprkia
• Cilantro
• Pepperjack cheese
• One medium sizes potato cut into thin slices
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped

Preheat oven to 450*

In a large skillet (we use cast iron), saute the onions in olive oil and add all the spices - adjust amount to your own taste.  Cook until onions are soft and add potatoes.  Toss and then cover, cook for 3-5 minutes until potatoes are soft.  Season again if necessary.  Transfer onions and potatoes to plate or bowl.  In the same skillet add a little bit of olive oil and add whisked eggs.  Let set over medium heat for a few minutes until bottom is cooked and the top is still not set.  Add onion and potatoes mixture on top the eggs.  Place in oven and cook for 8 minutes or until egg is cooked all the way through.  Take out and sprinkle with pepperjack cheese.  Slice into pie shaped pieces and serve warm.

I really like frittata's now.  Of course, I just used what we had in our house but you could use mushrooms, spinach, peppers, goat cheese, etc.  The possibilities for a good frittata are endless.

Fresh from the farm

Today the cook that I work with, Cathy, gave me guinea hen eggs!  It's pretty fitting since the egg show is this month.  She has two guinea hens and she brought in five eggs for me!  Guinea hens are good for this area because they eat snakes and centipedes - both of which we have a lot of.  The eggs are very cute and about half the size of a chicken egg.  Two guinea hen eggs equal about one chicken egg in a recipe.  They are a slightly different shape too - smaller and more round then a chicken egg.  Cathy told me that they are mainly yolk and therefore have more egg taste then a chicken egg.  I can't wait to look up recipes for my five eggs!  Look for a post soon on something made with eggs!

Spinning Class #3

Recap of spinning class this week:

I learned all about the Bradford system - the system that classifies each breed of sheep by type of wool.  For example, the softest known wool is merino and it ranks high on the Bradford system.  Courser wools, like rug wools, are lower on the list.  The system is based on how many hanks you can get from 1lb of washed and combed wool.  Theoretically, if you had 1lb of course wool that was in the 40's on the Bradford system then you should be able to get 40 hanks out of it.  One hank is 560 yards or 7 skeins.  It's a little confusing but once you start knowing breeds of sheep and their Bradford system ranking you can begin to figure out how course or fine that sheep's wool will be and how much wool you'll get from a fleece without even seeing it.  Interesting stuff.  I also got to play with cotton at my class.  I've started to really love cotton.  I was able to card some cotton lint today, which is the process of 'brushing' it to blend the fibers so you can spin it.  To take of the cotton lint from the card when you are done you have to use a small dowel and roll it - doing this makes a hollow tube of cotton called a puni.  I really love puni's!  After you have a puni you can start to spin.  You can spin cotton straight from the seed but puni's are really fun to make.  I even made one that was part orange part white which will make a neat looking yarn and it's all natural.  Cotton grows in neat colors - see picture above.   For my homework this week I have to de-seed a bunch of cotton that my teacher plucked from a cotton field.  There are a lot of seeds in cotton!

I also have to get all the vegetal material out of some purple churro wool she gave me.  Hopefully we'll be carding this next week to spin.  I may get to start using a spinning wheel next week too!

3D Easter Cards

I started making our own cards last May.  One reason was because greeting cards are expensive, they never really say or look as I want, and a lot of them are printed in China with unknown chemicals and dyes.  I received a Cricut machine as a birthday present last year and making our own greeting cards with it has become a fun craft project I look forward to as every new holiday comes.  This year I tried my hand at Easter cards.  I have to say that paired with a nice printed envelope and matching stamp, they came out pretty cute.  Here's how I did it:

Need:
Cricut Machine or access to one such as in a scrapbooking store
Cartridge - Wild Card
Cartridge - Easter 2010

Plenty of card stock paper [blue, white, tan, brown, green, light purple, dark purple]
Craft glue
Brown felt tip fine marker
Foam tape

Directions:

With your Cricut cartridge Wild Card cut out the card "Stitched" to the desired size.  Once cut out, take out Wild Card and put in Easter.  Then measure the opening of your "Stitched" card.  With the Easter cartridge in, cut out one "Lamb" layer in a darker color like brown or black.  Make sure to make your lamb smaller then your card opening.  After you create the lamb layer, cut out the "Lamb" in a white or cream, same size as your layer.  You can then finish your lamb by cutting out the lamb's face with the last layer, again in a darker color card stock like brown or black.

Lastly with the Easter cartridge cut out one grass in a green, again no bigger then your card opening.  Start by gluing your lamb to the lamb layer and then the lamb's face on top of that.  Let dry.  Using a blue card stock cut a square a little bit bigger then the card opening and glue it on the inside so it shows through the front.  Glue your grass to the front of the blue square.  Cut a small piece of foam tape and stick it to the back of your lamb.  Peel the other side of the foam tape off and stick it to the blue square.  Tada!  You have a nice lamb Easter card.  I used the Easter cartridge to make the Happy Easter on the inside to but you could always leave it blank.

The Egg Show

Ba ba Barbarian Egg

Egg in car by our postmaster, Greg

The Egg Show has started!  It isn't a contest or competition - just a display of art work on eggs.  There are many great eggs this year and lots of creativity.  The town really comes together for this community event and it's neat to see people of all ages participate.  Here are some of the ones I like:

A Pinneggle

Easter Cap

When I was in Albuquerque, NM a few weeks ago and found my pretty in purple wool, I also found this gorgeous organic wool by O-Wool called Balance.  It is 50% Merino wool and 50% cotton.  When I saw it I thought of my mom who loves the color blue.  It's a blueish gray with specks of white and although I didn't know what I wanted to make with it I knew I had to get it.  I ended up going on O-Wool's website for ideas and they had a free pattern for a cute little hat called In-Between Seasons Cap.  I had never done a cable stitch but this was a good time to try.  This pattern also had a few other stitches I had never used before like twR and ssk.  The cable band was somewhat easy but as the hat went on I found it to be somewhat difficult, however the end result was worth any frustration I had.  Mine came out somewhat small like a beanie so if I were to do it again I would make it longer.

In-Between Seasons Cap from O-Wool:

Yarn: 1 skein O-Wool Balance, 130yd/50g 
Color: Lapis
Needles: Circular 16 inch size US 6, 1 cable needle, set of 5 size US 6 dpn's
Gauge: 20 st = 4" over Stst  30 rows = 4" Stst
Size: Woman's M (20" circumference)


Directions can also be found on O-Wool's website along with other great free patterns.

Using either circular or two dpn’s, CO 19st.  Do not join.

Work back and forth as follows:
Row 1 and all WS rows:  p4, k2, p8, k2, p3
Row 2, 4:  k1, twR, p2, k8, p2, twL, k2.
Row 6:  k1, twR, p2, sl 4 st onto spare dpn or cable needle and hold in front, k4, k4 from dpn or cable needle, p2, twL, k2.
Row 8, 10: As Row 2
Repeat Rows 1-10 until piece measures 20” (13x total).
Work Row 1 once more.

Robin's Eggs Cupcakes

My mind is on eggs.  Spring is in the air and we've had spring visitors lately like the Mountain Bluebird and soon we'll see hummingbirds again.  The Egg Show starts this week and things are gearing up at the Bear Mountain Gallery.  Kids have been coming in with their eggs to show and all I can think about are eggs.  So on my day off today I decieded to make Robin's Eggs Cupcakes.  I got the idea from Recipes 4 Us and put my own twist on it.  They are so perfect for spring, aren't they adorable?

For the cupcakes:

Marble Cupcakes via Martha Stewart Cupcakes


For the icing:

1 1/2 sticks of butter, room temp
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon cocoa powder

Mix these together until smooth.

I used a Wilton 199 frosting tip and with a piping bag made a 'birds nest' on every cupcake.  Then I sorted my Cadbury Mini Eggs so I had just the blue ones and topped each cupcake with a few. 

Happy Spring!

Spinning Class #2

I finished my spinning homework!  My pink ball of fluff turned into pretty pink string.  This will be plied with something else toward the end of my spinning classes so I can't wait to see what it will look like with another color.  It wasn't hard to spin it but it took patience at the beginning and now I have come to really enjoy spinning and see it as a relaxing thing to do.  Yesterday was my second spinning class and JoAnn taught me to wash wool! 

Every time I've been in class all I can think about it someday owning our own sheep.  I really find it fascinating and it's leading to more things I'm interested in like sheep shearing school.  Now I know the basic's the spinning, how to wash wool, how to care for wool and yarn, some of the history behind spinning and the correct terminology.  In the next class I will be practicing combing and brushing wool as well as maybe starting on a spinning wheel. 

My homework for this week is to spin some of JoAnn's hand dyed wool that is a lovely lime green bluish color.  This will be much thinner then the pink fluff I spun so it may be more difficult but I will post pictures when I get it done.   

Purl in the Pines

I have a new obsession with checking out any fiber store that I haven't been to when my husband and I are traveling.  This week we were in Flagstaff, AZ and I couldn't resist going to Purl in the Pines.  I believe it is the only fiber store in Flagstaff and it is connected to one of the only quilting stores as well.  They carried a few things I haven't seen before including Berroco Peruvia Colors.  Maybe because the coat I was wearing matched it so well or because it was just so wonderful I ended up leaving with two skeins of it in the Raku Glaze color.  It is big, chunky, single and 100% Peruvian Highland Wool.  I've been busy knitting for other people so perhaps these skeins will become gloves and a hat for my coat?  We'll see!

Sneak Peak

I taught myself how to do a cable stitch today!  It's easier then I thought it was going to be and it looks so nice - see the blue yarn above.  I'm working on two knitting projects now and I'm not going to reveal what they are until they are done, although you might be able to tell.  One project is being made with the yarn I got from Village Wools and I just love it.  The other project I'm working on is with O-Wool and I also love it.  Spring officially started yesterday and I know when it gets warm outside I'll put the knitting aside so I'm trying to get these two projects done within the next month.  Just thought I'd give you a sneak peak!