question for those that raise chickens or buy farm fresh eggs.

I kept 2 dozen fresh from the neighbor ,back for 12 weeks (then tested them to make sure they were good) to make deviled eggs. Did different batches... one with baking soda ..suppose to help... it was worse.  one with a steamer... that was not as bad as the baking soda. One batch with vinegar... better but half was still going into the egg salad... the last batch was cracking the shell the last 2 min of cooking... good but still at least 1/4 is going into egg salad.

ANY SUGGESTIONS?

I now have enough boiled eggs for deviled eggs and chicken salad(have leftover chicken) ham salad (ham tomorrow), potato salad and possible egg salad. Can you tell what is on the menu this week???

Dogs got 1 1/2 dozen medium eggs fried for them today.

I have a dozen of medium for dogs (yes I weigh my eggs, culinary training), 2 dozen large for baking and 4 dozen extra large/jumbo for other in the basement for next week.

I also have a dozen large on the counter for the baking this weekend and 3 dozen extra large/jumbo for French toast, custard , bread pudding, cheese cake ( I have a couple jumbos equal to 2 large eggs. I marked them so I can use them for pie actually not a cake) and homemade noodles to be done this week. I am over ran with eggs.

I also had 2 1/2 gal of milk that have the expiration date of yesterday. Last night's
 potato soup took care of 1/2 gal... Enough soup left of Monday lunch. I am down 1 3/4 gals now... figured custard, bread pudding , cheese cake and sausage gravy will bring it down especially when I use it in my coffee. Hubby is out Monday working so he will pick up milk then.

I pulled the last of the sliced bread from the freezer for the bread pudding and will make French toast with half of it. More milk and eggs used

Since I am baking ham (found in the bottom of barn freezer that we cleared out... more about that) I decided I would make augratin potatoes from dehydrated potatoes and Scalloped potatoes from dehydrated potatoes. I haven't tried this. I use dehydrate diced potatoes in soups and casseroles and dehydrate hash browns. But I have a nice bucket full of slices and decided to start using them. Also more milk used.

Between the kids getting food from us and what we have eaten ,I had enough space to move everything that was in the barn deep freezer except the unsalted butter into the basement deep freezers. Hubby was amazed. He then took a couple buckets we had cleaned and put water in them and put them in the freezer.... WHY?

It never got cold enough to freeze ponds or river for the Amish to harvest ice so they are ALL OUT OF ICE. E has a spring house so it stays on the cool side but not enough to put the calf meds in . So he was asking around and one of the Mennonites was able to sell him a bit of ice. We decided to take our square buckets, sanitize them  as they were kitty litter and kitty food buckets. We made the first block and took it over today. M was happy and then cried when Hubby told her we have 2 more freezing. Takes about 3-4 days to freeze solid. One block last 7 days this time a year, early summer is two a week and the dogs days of summer 3 a week .Days of 100 it can get to one EACH DAY. So we figured we would just keep making it and taking it over. They can always store the extra in the ice house. It won't fill their ice house but she won't be worrying about her dairy spoiling or him about the calves meds going bad. Things are bad enough that we need to help ease each other's burden.

Son 2 has several older friends (like older than us) that don't have family around so he is cooking Easter dinner and delivering plates of food to them. He mentioned he didn't want anyone to eat alone and I told him his youngest sister (daughter 4)  is going to be alone. Her kids are going to be there for lunch but that was it. She texted me this morning he was going to drop off food to her tomorrow evening. AND then they are going to video chat to each other while eating their dinners. Got to love technology

We made a judgement call to wait on trying to refill the pantry of non food or sugar , flour,  and pasta.I will make a curb pick up order at Krogers for later this week or early next week.

We are digging through Daddy's stuff and another friend's stuff he got from his mom for canning jars. Yep.... tis the season. Asparagus is coming in and rhubarb is right behind it.

We found canning jars at $12 a case if not cheaper. I figured $16 at I couldn't find them less than $15 last year. SO the budget allowed me to get 1/2 gal canning jars. Not that I will can in them but I can put the pasta and dried beans in them and move those quart jars to the regular canning jars.

Blessed Be