Homemade ramen

Some time back, Eli and Rachel treated me to a big bowl of homemade ramen. They had made it by simmering pork feet for 24 hours, making a gelatinous, fatty broth. It was amazing. I do not have the patience to stand at a stove for more than 20 minutes, so I decided to make a pressure cooker version. I used the pork feet, chicken wings, sauteed onions, and thumb-sized piece of ginger.

The result was not as gelatinous as Eli's broth, but close enough.

Plop that onto some store bought udon noodles.

After microwaving and adding a soft boiled egg. Just look at all that fat floating on the surface. Yum! (Also added scallions after the picture.)

The thumb-sized piece of ginger was too much - I could pick out the taste in the finished soup. Next time I will use half that, and also two smaller onions or one large one, rather than the two large onions I'd found. Other than that, it's a delicious hot meal!

Broody hen adventures

Back in March and April, my Blue Laced Wyandotte started to be broody. This means that she was spending nearly all day and night sitting in a nesting box, only leaving to eat, drink, and poop. I was preparing for my move so I didn't pay her much attention.

After the move she stopped being broody for a while, but then took it up again. Most of May and June were spent in the nesting boxes. She became more ornery as I kept reaching under her to remove the eggs she was sitting on.

After two of my other girls died from heat exhaustion, I decided to let the Wyandotte try to incubate some eggs. I gathered a few and stuck them underneath her. All was good for two days. Then I checked on her, and found that she had left the incubating eggs and instead was sitting on fresh eggs that another hen had recently laid.

So I decided that she needed to incubate eggs in her own little pen, with a single nest, forcing her to sit on the correct eggs. It took six days to gather six (hopefully fertilized) eggs. I made sure to regularly tip them from one side to the other while they waited (to keep the yolk from sticking to one side of the egg, which harms development).

I put her in her pen a day early.

 And then arranged the six eggs in the nest, and put the top of the crate on to give her shelter/privacy.

Over the course of the next week, the Wyandotte pushed the eggs out of the back of the crate, where she slept at night, and spent all day hanging out outside the crate. *face palm*

I let her out after a week. I was about ready to butcher her - if she's not laying because she's broody but she won't successfully sit on a clutch of eggs, her only value is as eye candy.

Lo and behold, the week spent in the pen has broken her of the broody state. She is now laying eggs again, almost one per day. I can tell because they're a much paler color than the eggs I was collecting while she was broody.

I decided to buy some chicks online, as four hens isn't quite enough eggs for me except during the summer months. I decided to order a few silkies since they have a great reputation for sitting and raising chicks. The place I ordered from had a minimum of 15 bantams per order. My friend Sherry joined the order to get more Golden Sebrights for herself. Ironically, while looking at the website, I decided to throw in a few unusual bantam breeds just for fun. I guess I CAN keep a few hens around just as eye candy.

Second and third solar dehydrator runs

My first try at the solar dehydrator had resulted in tasty but blackened peach slices. My second and third tries created perfectly dehydrated peaches and apples.

I scarfed down a fair amount of the dried fruit. However the point is to dehydrate fruit while it's in season (and cheap) so that I can eat it year round. I put the rest in baggies, labeled with contents and dates, into the freezer. That puts them out of sight, out of mind, and guarantees that they'll be fresh just in case the dehydration isn't enough. I need to also dehydrate a batch and leave it unfrozen to test how long it lasts, but I'm not sure how to keep myself from eating it in the meantime...

 

Reloading yarn

I bought 2 skeins of Berroco Flicker in the color "albrecht." Together that is 378 yards. I decided to use them for a pattern that calls for 350-370 yards. I knew that I was cutting it close, but forged ahead.

I ran out of yarn only 2/3rds of the way through the pattern. WHAT

I went online to purchase more and found that this yarn has been discontinued. Frantically searched and found a website that had 3 skeins in stock. Bought all of them.

There was one more potential problem - the new skeins might not match the old ones exactly, since they would probably be from a different dye lot. Luck was on my side: the dye lot was exactly the same on the 3 new ones as on the 2 I'd already used. Win!

Sexy chicken

The Gold Laced Wyandotte is enjoying sunbathing.

Duct tape dress form failure

Back in March I had a few friends over and we had a duct tape dress form making party.

Sadly, the tape I used is not holding up. At first just the neck kept popping off despite more and more reinforcements, but now the entire seam down the back has split open.

It would be hard to retape at this point and still keep the shape accurate, so I think I need to call it a loss. At least I can reuse the stuffing.

Perfecting yogurt

The key to making a thick, creamy yogurt with maximum flavor?

Minimum of 14 hours in the Instant Pot.

I make it without added flavoring or sugar, then eat it with fruit if I want dessert.