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Hi there!

I’m slowly working towards some simplicity within the home, but hey! It’s a lot of hard work!

I love having a go at growing my own veges and always use herbs fresh from my garden. I try to plant from seed whenever I can and have learnt to save and share my own seed for the following year. I make Award Winning preserves and pickles; and my husband brews Award Winning boutique beers as well. I love to stockpile and try to limit quick trips to the shops. I dabble in bread making and enjoy making my own stocks too.

I enjoy feeding my family good hearty meals, nothing like those tiny restaurant stacks you have to look for on the plate. My husband maintains our vehicles and machinery and we both enjoy fabricating on a small scale mostly relying on metal & timber recyclers for any materials needed.


While I don’t always have time to reply to comments, I love reading them. I hope you enjoy your stay and I hope you learn something new because I love sharing what I learn, and I'm always looking for another new skill myself.

Cheers!

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Dehydrating Eggs for Winter



There's no point apologising for the vast gap in blogging....let's just say I've had other commitments within my life.....

I've recently discovered that having many chickens, you often have a surplus of eggs.... (Although this didn't happen overnight, as most of them were hatched by myself)

I also know that when you rely on those eggs, your guaranteed to have your girls not lay as well that day. This especially applies during winter when chickens hardly lay or shut down egg supply completely. This is where my Winter Egg supply comes in.......

Yep, you guessed it...
I'm dehydrating my surplus eggs for winter stock. Why not!

All you do is blend...pour...dry...crumbled and store.....
It's that easy!


Dehydrated Egg

Dehydrated Egg ready to crumble or blitz
And it's that simple..... 
I will have a stock of my own eggs all throughout winter. 

If you're wondering how to use this egg powder...It's just as simple....
For every egg needed use 1 tablespoon of powder to 2 tablespoons of water. Mix thoroughly into a bowl...and allow to sit for a few minutes to reconstitute.


Then use as you would any other egg.

Here's how I used some to make scrambled eggs....and it tasted just the same.



Hints: 
1. Make sure you have good plastic sheets to pour your egg onto. I'm not sure if parchment paper would be sturdy enough. My dehydrator comes with liquid trays which I also use to make fruit leather.

2. Make sure you blend your eggs well. Preferably with an electric mixer of some sort.

3. Take the mix TO THE dehydrator trays... THEN pour it on the trays...(spoken from experience). Don't try to move the trays or the dehydrator once you have poured....It just makes an awfully huge mess.

4. Ignore the oily feeling of the egg powder once it's dried...although it looks and is really dry...it feels really oily...and that's normal.

5. Once the dried egg is blitzed into a (large grained) powder.... allow to cool in a large bowl before decanting into your storage container. (Blitzing can generate heat that will make your powder sweat in an airtight glass jar...which will compromise and probably waste all your hard work).

6. Reconstituted egg can be mixed quicker in a blender....but just sitting it on the bench for a few minutes for a couple of eggs is fine.



Do you have surplus eggs AND a dehydrator? 

What will you be doing with your extra eggs next time?



17 comments:

  1. So nice to see a post from you, Nellymary! And thank you for this very useful information. At the moment, I am happy to see two eggs daily, but when I add to my little flock again next year, I'll know what to do with the surplus eggs :)

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  2. Omg what w greqt idea! Glad your back.

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  3. Thanks so much for the great welcome. I'll be blogging about my new bees shortly.

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  4. Oh, this is an awesome idea! We don't have any chooks yet (planning too next year) but our neighbours are always complaining that they have too many eggs (even after giving them away) - I'll grab some from them & share it with them!

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    1. That's awesome Rie that you can get eggs off your neighbour.

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  5. So far, I have been freezing eggs to try to get enough to have scrambled eggs at least twice a week this winter. Dehydrating is next on my list.

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    1. Wow, that must be hard having such a low stock. I was freezing egg whites, but only to gather enough for a pav.

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  6. So nice to see you back here again. I have been missing reading your blog. I didn't even know you could dehydrate eggs. I am hoping to get a couple of chooks next year so will see how many eggs I get.

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    1. Thanks Nanna Chel, it's lovely to be back. I am really going to try to be here much more often.

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  7. Wow! Well there's something I didn't know! I'm try this as soon as I get a chance. Thanks for

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  8. Sorry. Blogger's playing up. Thanks for sharing and welcome back!

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    1. Thanks Linda. Blogger playing up is one of the reasons I stopped blogging in the first place...but I'm giving it another go.

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  9. I've REALLY missed you and I LOVE this post! I'm in the winter shortfall now, but wish I had done this in the summer. Will have to try it next year.

    Dying to hear about your bees! I'm taking a weekend beekeeping course in January and am hoping to get bees in the Spring. I can HARDLY wait!

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    1. Hi Sherrie, I still have your family photo in my hallway. I've missed you too. There's always next year to give this a go. Everyone keeps asking me how long I think my eggs will last over winter...good question hey, wish I could answer it...but I'll keep drying those spare eggs and see.
      Excellent that your doing your beekeeping course...It's very very interesting. You won't regret it.

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  10. Hi Nellymary, Could you please tell us. How many eggs you use per tray. How long they take to dehydrate. And the temperature or dial number you use please. I have a bucket of eggs that could use some help...Thanks. Elaine

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    1. I'm sorry this comes late, but it really depends on your eggs, the sizes you have. I just recently put down 9 dozen quail eggs and 5 dozen chicken eggs. Which took up 10 trays in the dehydrator. Sorry I can't be more specific, as I have all different sized birds laying.

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  11. Awesome work.Just wanted to drop a comment and say I am new to your blog and really like what I am reading.Thanks for the share

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