Recipe: Duck Egg Noodles

These simple and delicious, homemade egg noodles, made using our Muscovy and Black Swedish duck eggs, were a hit with the whole family! I added 1/4 cup of blanched, finely chopped stinging nettles to this batch as well, as I had them on hand. You can take or leave the addition, or substitute your family's favorite fresh herbs, kale, citrus zest or a bit of beet or pumpkin puree to mix things up a bit. 

Fresh duck egg and stinging nettle noodles

An eggy windfall - where it all begins!

Duck Egg Noodles

-3 cups all purpose flour (plus extra for rolling out)

-2 whole eggs

-4 egg yolks

-2 tsps salt

-2-3 tbsps water, more or less*

-1/4 cup blanched, well drained, chopped stinging nettles (or chopped herbs, kale, etc.) *optional*

Start with your flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle for your eggs & yolks. Gently scramble the eggs with a fork, slowly beginning to incorporate the flour/salt mixture. Once the eggs and dry ingredients are well mixed, begin adding water in small increments, kneading and squeezing the dough together after each addition. Continue adding water as needed to the dough to reach your desired consistency. Now it's time to fold in the nettles. Knead them into the dough well, until the are mixed evenly throughout. Allow the dough to rest for at least 10 or 15 minutes before rolling out. I run my dough through the pasta roller attachment on my Kitchenaid mixer, rather than rolling the dough out by hand.** 

After rolling out into sheets, I let the dough rest/dry again for at least 10 minutes or so before cutting into individual noodles.

I most often use the fettuccine attachment to make the final cuts, but rolling and cutting by hand with the kiddos is just as good a method (if a slightly messier one) for getting 'er done. 

I freeze any pasta that I don't use immediately by laying the finished (uncooked) noodles in a single layer on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and popping them in the freezer until thoroughly frozen, then transferring them to gallon freezer bags for storage. If you skip the cookie sheet step, and put them straight into the bag, you may end up with a giant noodle octopus rather than nice, individual noodles. ;)  I've had mixed success with drying them, but you're welcome to give that a go if your freezer space is at a premium.

*Because duck egg whites are significantly more viscous than chicken egg whites. You will likely need more water (or other optional liquid/puree, if using) than the 2-3 tbsps called for here.

**If you'll be using a similar pasta making attachment, I recommend starting at thickness setting #1, and running the dough through again on setting #3, and lastly, #5. Eggs noodles are meant to me a little beefy and chewy, so thinning them out further is just not necessary, and makes a lot more work, in my humble opinion. ;)

2 Days' Take - 3/22 & 3/23/2015

Nothing too much happening here - rain, rain and more rain. Bleh.

In spite of the dreary weather, Scarlet and I went nettle picking on Sunday. I didn't think to weigh my take before blanching them, but it amounted to about 1/3 of a paper grocery bag full. Not too bad for an hour's walk in the woods!

Beyond the nettles. nothing but eggs. I'm hoping we'll have a good amount of them collected and ready for sale by next weekend in advance of Easter. Speaking of which, the girls and I will have to try using one of our big ol' duck eggs for making pysanky this year. :)

For the record -

Duck Eggs - 8
Chicken Eggs - 12
Stinging Nettles - 12 (+/-) loosely packed cups' worth (before blanching)

Today's Take - 3/12/15

Not so much in the way of taking today, rather, Scarlet and I did a little putting.

Carly-girl helped me plant out 3 1/2 dozen or so Yellow Rock onion sets. Hedging our bets just a little, we kept back about half a bag of the sets to put in in a week or two, weather depending. They already went in a good 4-5 weeks late, what's another one or two? The worst case scenario for having planted them late is that we end up with a lifetime supply of onion greens instead of bulbs. Doesn't sound too bad, all things considered.

The stinging nettles are almost tall enough to start nipping, and the Muscovy hens should (hopefully, maybe) start laying any day now. We'll have a really interesting quiche in our near future if the stars align and both greens and eggs arrive at the same time.

The chickens have been pulling their weight well, giving us 5+ eggs per day as of late, possibly on account of a) daylight savings time ending, and or b) the heat lamp running 24/7 in the brooder. In the case of the brooder light, I'll be glad that it's helping out the hens, because it sure isn't helping out the rooster. Darth Vader was crowing every 90 seconds like clockwork at 1:30 am, the night before last, on account of the time change and the extra light throwing him for a major loop. My neighbors are endlessly patient with us and our yappy critters, but I still feel awfully bad about it.

Our not-so-grand totals for today -
Eggs - 4

The Indelible Taste of a Fish Lost

"The Longest Silence" is one of my favorite books.  The writing is fantastic, reminding me of Schweibert and Haig-Brown in it's practical love of fish, the places they live and people who they meet while chasing them.  I especially though love his months long description of trying to catch a permit, one of the hardest to catch fish on a fly.

I read that section again and again sometimes because it reminds me of learning to fish.  For whatever reason I seem to find the hardest way to figure it out.  Fly fishing was like that, salmon were like that, steelhead were like that and now Puget Sound is like that.  What's weird is that I can remember the first one of those fish hooked and lost as easily as if it was yesterday.

My first big fish on a fly was on the little Deschutes where I clambered down a steep bank into a slowly deepening run with overhanging alders.  I roll cast a Clouser Minnow into the current and let it roll along and then pull up tight and stripped it back.  I had about decided to leave the run and had just let the fly dangle in the current when a big Cutthroat took it.  My line ran off of my little reel and the fish jumped twice and was gone with my fly.  I can still remember the sun shining on the fly right before that trout decided to kill it.

My first hooked steelhead on a fly was in a very very long run of cobblestone.  I had recently started tying spey flies and had landed a dandy 19 inch Cutthroat on a Lady Caroline and had switched to a homemade contraption of copper colored dubbing and a duck flank.  Steelhead fishing makes your casting better over time and I remember casting about 45 degrees downstream and thinking that was a nice cast.  Bam, Tug, Tug and it was gone faster than it took me typing those words.

I've been trying to figure out Puget Sound since I got my boat.  I've fished for Kings off of Lilliwaup and Bald Point, Chambers Creek and everywhere else I could think of.  I've caught a few Chum and Pinks so I know how to pick them up at times but the big Kings keep eluding me.  This morning I went out, armed with some new knowledge from a friend of mine and started fishing not long after first light.

I was trolling in shallow water with a cut plug herring and a 4 oz weight.  I don't have a fish finder so I had to check for bottom by holding the rod every now and then to feel for bounces.  I had just done than and put the rod back in it's holder when it started bouncing back and forth like mad.  I killed the motor and got the rod out of the holder and set the hook in time to see my line taking off of the reel and the fish splash on the surface.  I started playing it in and then reached for the net to make sure it was handy.  Right then the fish ran straight for the boat and by the time I reeled up tight, no fish was there.

Like those other two fish, I will never forget this.  The astonishment at seeing the rod bounce after getting it in the rod holder and the gutting disappointment when I reeled up to a 4 oz weight with no fish.  The quiet hum of my trolling reel when it's letting line out and the solid head shaking weight of a big king.

Today's Take - 8/31/12

*Eggs - 6

*Apples - 4 pounds for us, 3 pounds of windfalls for the critters

*Blackberries - 1 pound

Today's Take - 8/23/12

More of the same - it's high blackberry season, which will soon give way to apple-mania.

*Eggs - 4 (What's up with that, laydies?)
*Wild Blackberries - 1 pound, 1 ounce
*Windfall apples - 8 or 9 (unweighed) that went straight to the goaties, who appreciated their under-ripe yet bruised texture very much. ;)

Today's Take - 8/17/12

Well, it seems like our extended, super wet Spring, followed by these past two weeks of miserable heat may have finally paid dividends in the form of a berry landslide.

Today the girls, some friends and I went back to the u-pick blueberry farm just up the street and managed to pick 2 pounds of berries from just 5 or 6 bushes. They were chock full! We'll try to get back and pick a few more once or twice at least before the season wraps up, because at $2.25 per pound for organic, I intend to fill up on berries for eating fresh, making jam and freezing for use in baked goods and breakfasts throughout the next year.

The marionberries and blackberries are also pretty epic this year. Just today I picked a pound of berries from a bush that grows in the chickens' yard. I also got a lot of unwanted attention from the cluckers while picking, and so shared a berry with them for every 4 or so that I picked for myself. They would scramble and race each other to every berry that dropped with the winner then high-tailing it away to a secluded place in which to snarf down their prize. They haven't been waiting on my kindness though - they've been helping themselves to all of the berries that they can reach. You can definitely tell how high they are able to jump, based upon the total absence of berries below about 18 inches off of the ground. ;)

As much as I whine and complain about this crazy weather, I sure am thankful that it has provided us with so much beautiful food.

P.S. - The apple trees and pear tree are loaded too! YAY!

*Goat Milk - 1/2 gallon
*Eggs - 15!
*Marionberries/blackberries - 1 pound
*Blueberries (u-pick) - 2 pounds
*Garlic (from Lisa) - 28 heads!
*Potatoes, squash, basil & beans (also from Lisa) - Lots!

Today's Take 4/9/12

Hooray for the return of the sunshine!

*Dandelion Greens - 4 ounces
*Dandelion petals - 1 ounce
*Eggs - 21!

Today's Take 4/3/12

Scarlet and I did a little foraging in the yard today. Hooray for Spring!

I was actually a little disappointed with the number of dandelions that I was able to get. I was hoping for a lot more. I guess that this extended Winter has everything behind schedule, including the weeds.

We did, however, find a new patch of nettles growing on the south side of the property. I don't mind having to go and find my food in the woods, but there is definitely something to be said for being able to forage in your own yard!

As for what I'm going to do with these gathered greens, I'm going to use the dandy petals for wine, the greens for salad, and Bill will use the roots for home brewing. I'll also be splitting my nettle haul 50/50 with him, as dried nettles are apparently good for bittering a beer. Who'd have thought?

I had to cut my expedition to the back yard short today, but I plan to go grab up some more nettles tomorrow. You have to strike while the iron is hot! :)

*Dandelions (flowers, greens & roots) - 8 ounces
*Stinging Nettles - 8 ounces
*Eggs - 12

Today's Take 3/9/12

*Stinging Nettles, 18 ounces
*Eggs, 7

Not much, but the bounty of Spring isn't far off now. :)

Today's Take 9/29/11

-Goats Milk, 64 ounces
-Eggs, 7
-Hawthorn Berries (haws), foraged, 5 pounds between my friend B & myself. ;)

Today's Take 9/20/11

Goats Milk - 4 ounces - A whole half-gallon jar got kicked over and spilled by Fritzen. :(
Eggs - 9 (Still not edible, due to antibiotics)
Blackberries - 1 pound
Sugar Pie Pumpkin - 4 pounds, 8 ounces (1 pumpkin)

Today's Take 9/10/11

Bill made us a lovely goats milk parmesan today, our first. It's still in the cheese mold pressing now, but the labor intensive, watching-the-clock part of making the cheese is done with. Now it's just more pressing, flipping, watching and eventually waxing. Our recipe specifies that parmesan needs to age for at least 8 months, but is best at 18 months. Yikes, that's a long wait!

Following cheese mania, we went blackberry picking. The blackberries are magnificent this year, on account of all the rain, followed by the late summer heat. I can't wait to make my girls some fruit roll ups with them!

Goats Milk, 48 ounces
Eggs, 8 (another new one-day record!)
Blackberries, 4 pounds

For the Record, week of 4/16-4/22/11

Milking - Including what we had to chuck because Chardy stepped in the bucket, about 6 ounces (one milking).

Eggs - We're averaging 4 eggs per day. Rose & Grace are laying inconsistently, but all three of the other girls are giving us an egg per day without fail.

Garden - Planted one additional raspberry cane out along the road, and cleared more space to the south of the raspberries in which I'm going to plant some peas & pole beans. I'm going to butt them up against the chain link fence and let them crawl on that. I intend to put peas & pole beans in the garden as well, I just like the idea of having some snacky foods planted right along the road for passersby to enjoy. ;)

Bill also planted some hop rhizomes that he got from J & G along that same stretch of fence, but on the opposite side. We don't know their variety. We're hoping that they will climb the fence too. Besides being a critical ingredient in Bill's beer, they are also really pretty little things when in bloom.

Foraging - Collected and plucked 5 ounces of dandelions today. It might not sound like much, but it ended up being a few cups worth of petals. I'm freezing them as I go until the dandelions peter out, at which point I'll start as big a batch of wine as I can manage with the total number of petals I end up with. That dandelion wine is gooood stuff!

Seedlings & Starts - Potted up 6 Cinderella Pumpkin plants, 9 Mammoth Melting Peas, 3 Cilantro, 2 Kentucky Pole Beans and 3 Nasturtiums for the school plant sale. I'm leaving them out tonight for the first time in an attempt to further harden them off. Lets hope that I'm not murdering them with my optimistic gamble.

Started 5 more Cinderella pumpkin seeds 3 days ago, as well as 6 sugar pumpkins. All but 2 of the 11 seeds sown have germinated. I also have a tray full of Dark Opal Basil and Lime Basil germinating in the kitchen windowsill. I have historically had terrible luck with basil, so my fingers are crossed for these babies to thrive.

Critters - We're going to take Barley & Blackjack to the vet for checkups, as they have a slight limp and a runny nose, respectively. Blackjack's nose and eyes have been exhibiting symptoms of cold/allergy off and on for a while now, so we're going to have him looked at to see if he needs any meds or treatment to get well or if it just needs to run its course. Barley has a slight limp that seems to come and go, making us wonder if he was injured while horsing around with the other kids, or was perhaps stepped on by a mama goat. We'll see what the doc says.

Gertie is looking quite pregnant. She's wider than ever and her rectum/vaginal area is bulging somewhat. (Sorry for the vivid details!) We have not been able to feel fetal movement at all, but she does have a very thick coat and is still just under a month away from delivery, so I'm trying to remain positive that all is well in her little belly. I guess we'll see, come the second week of May.

That's about all for now. Hopefully by this time next week we will have, at a minimum, made a little more progress on the new coop and will also have mowed the very rapidly growing grass.

For the Record, week of 3/26-4/1/11

Since for some reason writing it down here is easier than plugging it into my farm journal -

Foraged this past week-
*1 lb, 4 oz stinging nettles
*Approx 2 cups of dandelion petals

The critters-
*Averaging 3 eggs per day
*Epic amounts of critter poo everywhere I look. Oy.
*Peanut the Silver Spangled Hamburg chick died.
*Bought three Barred Rock chicks to replace our lost chickies.
*Started adding Hilton Herbs Daily Hen Health Poultry Compound to the chickens' water. They seem to be digging it so far!
*Listed baby bunnies for sale on Craigslist, only one has been spoken for so far.
*Listed Spike & Archie for sale on Craigslist, have had zero inquiries about them. :(

Grown/Growing-
*Started 6 "Cinderella" pumpkin seeds on Monday, 5/6 have sprouted so far.
*Started a flat (12 seeds) of "Homemade Pickles" cucumbers today
*Pole Beans, peas, nasturtiums, cilantro & arugula are all growing well. Beans & Peas need to be re-potted and hardened off ASAP. I hope to get them planted out by next weekend at the latest.

Projects-
*Working on two knitted blankets off and on.
*Bill plans to have the new coop ready (enough) to move the little chicks into by the end of this weekend. YAY! I'd forgotten exactly how bad baby chicken poop smells. I remember now.
*Critter pen/cage cleanings all around this weekend. Bleh!
*Bottle last year's dandelion wine.
*Go nettle & dandy picking, time permitting.

Behold the Mighty 'Shroom!

I've been hunting around in our "woods" in search of some edible mushrooms. I found a few boletes that google helped me sort out were edible, but not palatable, resulting in my bitter disappointment, and the undesirable fungi hitting the compost bin. Alas, the very next day I spotted this mushroom (or is it a toadstool?) from a distance of about 30 feet away. Check out "Mega Shroom" -



Nuts, right? It weighed in at over three pounds! The oddest thing of all though, might be that I am sure that this mushroom wasn't there the day before when I'd picked my first few specimens for researching. I knew that mushrooms could grow quickly, but who's ever heard of a 3-pound mushroom springing up overnight?

This, too, was a boletus of the edible, yet non-tasty variety, (not to mention that it had been hit pretty hard by slugs before I found it), so it too was composted. However, now that I know that I have the right conditions under which to grow mushrooms, I now just need to figure out how to get my preferred type of 'shroom growing. I've picked up a few chanterelles from the grocery store and am going to go shake them around under the spruce tree where I found the others growing, in the hope that I can get them to drop a few spores and grow like weeds. Yummy, free, 3-pound weeds. ;)