Tag Archives: quail eggs

Egg Popsicles and Runner Beans

The Runner beans are starting to dry, which means I need to keep the pods picked before they burst open on their own and scatter the beans all over.  The white ones are the white-flowered variety, and the purple ones are the standard red ones.  It makes for a pretty mix!  I’m very excited about tasting these.

Besides picking beans, today I froze a bunch of excess quail eggs.  When those little girls lay, they certainly lay in profusion!  From what I’ve heard, frozen eggs are practically indistinguishable from fresh eggs (as scrambled eggs, or in recipes) but you can’t just pop them in the freezer.

First, since they ARE teeny tiny quail eggs, I cracked five of them into little plastic cups.  Five quail eggs are equivalent to one chicken egg.

Then, I beat them gently with a fork, to mix the yolks and whites together.  Next, I put the little cups in the freezer.  When they had frozen, I ran the bottom of the cups under hot water for a few seconds to loosen them, then popped the frozen eggs into freezer bags.

They look like little tasty orange popsicles!  During the winter, when the quail aren’t laying anymore, and the chicken eggs are sporadic at best, I’ll be able to grab out however many little egg blocks I need for my recipes.

I’ve been doing a lot of work out in the yard these last couple of days.  I finally finished the raised beds in the vegetable garden, and added more beds in the East Yard.  I forgot to take pictures, though, so I’ll have to do a separate blog post on those improvements later.  This fall, I’m really hoping to get the greenhouse and duck coop built.  No matter how much I accomplish, there’s always an unending to-do list!

What To Do With All Those Quail Eggs!

Yesterday I made one of my favorite recipes – Puffy Pancakes!  Instead of using the standard four chicken eggs, I used all quail eggs…exactly twenty-four of them!

Mom says she noticed a different taste; I didn’t.  They still made the pancake puff nicely!

This recipe is so good, and so easy.  Just preheat the oven to 425 (with your cast iron skillet inside.)  While it’s heating, mix together 4 chicken eggs (or 24 quail eggs), 1 cup milk, 1 cup flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

After the oven is heated, melt 2 tablespoons butter in your skillet, then pour in the batter.  Immediately put into the oven, and don’t open the door again for 15 minutes.  Serve immediately with your choice of topping (we like chopped strawberries and cream!)

Speaking of cream, Mom recently discovered this local dairy (Lynden WA) that sells 100% Jersey cream.  Wow.  It is SO GOOD.  So incredibly rich and tasty.  I could eat it by simply pouring it out of the bottle into a spoon!

We finally got some more work done on the roof of the new quail coop.

The two lower roof sections still need to have waterproofing put on, but the middle section finally has its roof garden.

We are planting it with chamomile.  After this photo, three more starts were planted, so hopefully it will fill in soon and become lush and green.

The strawberries on the other quail roof garden are coming along nicely.  They have flowers now.

There are a few pansies up there, too.

While at a local nursery, I found a fuzzy kiwi vine and fell in love.

LOVE the red tendrils!

So much fuzziness!

After I discovered that my hardy kiwi male can pollinate fuzzy kiwis, I was sold.  I now have hardy AND fuzzy kiwis!  Here’s to lots and lots of fruit (and darling fuzzy vines.)

I have planted out most of my beans.  I planted a TON of beans.  Green beans, gold beans, purple beans, striped beans, red beans, runner beans, footlong beans…I have them all.  I cannot resist a pretty bean!

I especially like the colored beans, because they are so much easier to see (and pick.)  No hiding among the green leaves until they are huge and overgrown.  There particular ones are Dragon’s Tongue.

I am just so happy that winter is over and I need fear no more frosts!

New Quail Coop & Eggs!

The last couple of days have been simply gorgeous outside.  Today was actually tshirt weather!  We’ve been grabbing our chance to work on the new quail coop.

I don’t think I ever showed you my sketch:

As with my costuming, I really don’t like to follow someone else’s pattern.  I just like to come up with these things on my own.

After two days work, here’s where we are:

Different view:

At the last minute, I decided to flip the nest box to the right side, because I realized that will make it possible to see the quail from the kitchen window.  There will be a small green roof on the middle section.  I’ll probably fill it with the musk strawberries I’ve been wanting to grow (that will keep them out of reach of any slugs.)

Loki’s future wives came in the mail today.  Instead of going through a regular hatchery this time, I chose an individual off ebay to buy from.  He had good reviews, so I’m hoping the eggs hatch well.  He did pack them really well, first in a massive box filled with crumpled newspaper, then in a carton wrapped in bubble wrap.

Then each egg was wrapped separately in paper.

Also, he sent extras – a full twenty eggs.  None were broken, so I’ll have to try to candle them to see if the air cells of any eggs are detached, and only incubate the twelve that I feel have the greatest chance of hatching.  Since it’s really, really hard to candle teeny dark-speckled eggs, I’ll probably mostly be guessing.

I was surprised by one of the eggs:

Look – there’s one completely plain egg – no speckles!

I’ll be incubating that one for sure.  I’d heard that some coturnix lay plain eggs, and hopefully, if it hatches and is a girl, she might lay plain eggs also.  That would be a fun addition!

Right now the eggs are “resting” from their ordeal of being shipped.  Tonight before bed, I’ll candle them and choose twelve to put into the incubator.  And hopefully, sixteen to eighteen days from now, I’ll have baby chicks!  Girl chicks.  Fingers crossed.

My little kale and cabbage seedlings are ready to go out into the garden this weekend, which frees up the grow light for ground cherries and tomatoes.

And today at the Food Coop, I couldn’t resist picking up a few Golden Beet starts, even though I’ll be planting my own beet seeds out soon.  It’s just so lovely to have something green and growing in the vegetable bed!

Quail Eggs!

My quail are 7 weeks old – and laying!  Yesterday I found two eggs in their coop.

For fun, we decided to fry them over-easy.

They are so tiny and cute!  And tasty, too.  Each egg was a perfect bite-sized snack.  Hopefully they’ll lay more today, and I can try them hard boiled!

Fertile Hatching Quail Eggs

The Great Quail Adventure begins…now!  I ordered the eggs from Stromberg’s, and they arrived today.  And just like when I ordered live chicks through the mail, the Post Office screwed up.

First of all, they were supposed to call me when the box arrived, and I was supposed to pick the eggs up at the PO.  I even made a point of calling the PO and letting them know the eggs were coming, and refreshing their memories on the procedure.

I did not get a call this morning, so I assumed the eggs would be in tomorrow.  Imagine my annoyance when I discovered they had been delivered to my house, instead.  I really did not want the poor eggs bouncing around in a mail carrier’s truck all day.

And then, despite this label being on the box:

The box looked like this:

Sigh.  I was so afraid the eggs would all be crushed.

They were packed nicely, though, and all seem to have survived.

We ordered three dozen eggs, one each of three varieties of coturnix quail.

Standard:

Blonde:

Italian:

My partner in the Great Quail Adventure and I speculated that perhaps the different varieties of quail would have differently marked eggs, but how odd it is that the eggs’ markings seem to be completely random!

The eggs are now “resting” from their shipping trauma, and after the recommended number of hours of rest, they will go into the incubator.  And then we will see if these little guys will hatch.

They are so tiny!