Are your eggs fresh?

One day we hope to be raising our own chickens for fresh eggs but for now we try to always purchase our eggs from our local farmers market. On occasion I need to run to our local market and grab a dozen. I never really thought twice that they wouldn't be that fresh. Thinking they were organic and cage free we should  be pretty much in the clear. Well I am reading of course another cookbook that I have had around for a while and thought I would finally look through The River Cottage Family Cookbook. Another fantastic cookbook with great information and photography.  Well I stumbled upon a section on eggs and started reading on how to tell if your eggs are really fresh. You gently set them in a bowl of cold water and they should lay flat on the bottom. If the egg stands on its point at the bottom then it is a couple days old. But if it floats to the top of the water it  means don't even think about cracking it open, it is old.  When an egg gets older I guess the white shrinks and the egg fills up with air. Pretty interesting, so I decided to try it on the eggs I just purchased at a really popular market here and most of them stood on point at the bottom, but a couple floated to the top! So now the fresh egg test is going to become a habit of mine before we use any of them. Maybe you should check yours out and see what you find:)

Spring Cleaning Time

  Spring is here,  but not here in Southern California brrrrrr. So as soon as this rain stops and the sun comes out it is spring cleaning time in our house. My usual cleaning supplies are always eco friendly and as natural as possible. This year I am going to start attempting to clean our home naturally and make our own cleaners. I am on somewhat of a no waist kind of kick and am trying to eliminate how much packaging we throw out. That is a another post to come....
Back to spring cleaning, to help me get started I purchased a book called  The Naturally Clean Home: 150 Super-Easy Herbal Formulas for Green Cleaning.There are so many recipes using natural ingredients, including herbs and essential oils for pretty much every room in your house. I am so excited to try it out, maybe it will make cleaning more fun than it already is:)


      

Skillet Cooking

 I am so enjoying cooking in my cast iron skillet and am constantly looking for new recipes.  I found a cookbook The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook: Recipes for the Best Pan in Your Kitchen that  has some really good recipes.  Even though I don't eat meat I enjoy cooking it for my family.  We usually roast a whole organic chicken but found this simple recipe in Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys, another great cookbook.  It was a big hit! Cooked in half the time of a whole chicken and was super easy:)  I LOVE cookbooks, so if you have any recommendations for some good cookbooks let me know.    

                                                                                             

Do you know where your fish comes from?

We tend to eat a lot of fish in our home, so we really try to make a conscious effort to eat sustainable seafood.  I feel it is so important these days to really know where your food comes from and how the food is being caught.  There is so much illegal fishing right now that is harming the ocean floor and killing endangered species. And these days we have so many outlets for us to get information from that it is easy for us to stay on top of important issues.  One great website that I love is Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood watch  which has so much information for you.  There you can download a wallet pocket guide for your region that advises you on what fish to eat and which ones to avoid.
 There is also an application that you can download for your phone as well.  I use mine all the time when I am out shopping or even out to dinner.  So check it out and log on to  Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood watch website so you can find out more about the best fish to eat right now.

Ice Cream Heaven

This was one of our finding's this last weekend in Ojai, and oh my goodness this ice cream is so yummy! The kids and I ate the whole thing!!  So here is another great find that I wanted to pass on. Henry's Frozen Delight is their website so you can see where they are selling in your neighborhood. I promise you will love it:)