Day 10 of Making it in March - Would You Eat Springbok, Kangaroo or Zebra?

Day 10 of 31 - Mung Beans, Quiche and Crazy Food Questions!

Today's first 'make' was a second bean sprouter!

 

My homemade mung bean sprouter seems to be working but there's a slight problem - I added too many beans and they'd totally filled the jar by the time I got up this morning!

 

Sprouting mung beans

 

I can easily see why bean sprouts can be a frugal source of nutrition but I was somewhat surprised by their technical dietary data. A one-cup serving has the equivalent of 6g of carbohydrates and two thirds of that is sugar!

 

'Phoebe' duck has been doing well and producing an egg each day, so I had yesterday's and today's to use, meaning 2 more shells to turn into mini planters. I now have these cut and primed, ready for painting tomorrow, so I'll need to get some more macramé done to keep up with the egg laying.

 

Cheese & onion base for quiche

To use up the remainder of the pastry from pie-making, I rolled it into a tray, added a diced onion and a sprinkle of grated cheese then baked this with the two duck eggs beaten with a little milk, salt and pepper. Quiche for tea tonight and we'll eat the rest tomorrow lunchtime. (Sorry, I forgot to photograph it coming out of the oven.)

 

Onion rerooting - I think?!

On the 'veg for free' experiment, the first of those musty peas have begun to sprout in the tin can planters on the window sill and, believe it or not, the ones I threw into the planter at the back door also seem to be germinating! The red cabbage base is amazing, with more and more tiny leaves unfurling all around the base and across the cut surface. The photo above is of the onion base, although I am not convinced this one is at all possible. I mean, how can another onion grow from it? I think someone's kidding me on about this one, but I'll leave if for now.

 

VEGETARIANS & VEGANS, LOOK AWAY NOW!

 

 

The above is a competition sponsored by MuscleFood.com and I am hoping that I can gain an entry in order to be in with a chance of winning, so if you haven't already done so, but have been considering it, give them a go for your meat order and have it delivered to your door. Not many can beat £5 per kilo for quality chicken breast fillets. But I have to warn you, their 'exotic meat' section is becoming more and more exotic!

 

Choice of freebies with your first offer

 

I was quite perturbed at seeing horse steaks listed but will admit that I have unwittingly eaten this in the past while on holiday in Europe. Now, however, their free offer for new customers has been expanded to give you a choice of meat free with your first order - tonight I see horse steak is one of them! Not sure what to think of this... but do take a look at what is available to buy for home delivery! It's quite an eye-opener to see:

• Springbok steak burgers
• Zebra haunch burgers
• Tilapia fillets (I had to search that one to find out it's fish that the southeast of England is apparently going crazy for - recipe included here!)
• Kangaroo steaks
• Buffalo stew
• Ostrich steaks
• Horse meat variety pack

What are your thoughts on the above list of meats and would you eat them? Is it just my upbringing on plain foods? Or perhaps my lack of interest in culinary adventure? Maybe it's simply lack of choice by way of my continued rural lifestyle or it could even be a deeply rooted, Old Testament induced belief on what's 'allowed', as far as the food chain is concerned?

 

I don't know... I have a fear of the unknown, but perhaps a bigger fear of actually discovering I like something that I otherwise 'shouldn't'.

 

Making my mind up about this could take some time, as I do remember the big meat scandal when authorities discovered container loads of kangaroo meat coming into Britain and ending up in school meals. That was in the late 70's, early 80's, so we do know that this sort of exotic meat has been reaching our shores for the past near 40 years, at least, but ... no! I won't pursue my line of thought because I'll end up sitting until midnight blogging for The Paranoid Times! 

 

NYK, Frugaldom

Getting Chillier by the Day

Temperatures have plummeted again, this time to -9C. It's still nowhere near the -21C they're getting in the north but it's cold enough to ensure everything here remains frozen from one day until the next. Thankfully, we have been getting some sunshine in between, so the hens and ducks are still able to soak up some rays, enough for them to lay us a few eggs. There's still only one of the five ducks laying every day but there are six or seven of the hens laying, plus a few of the quail. Eggs are in plentiful supply in the Frugaldom household and any surplus easily find a home.

The forecast this week is for more snow but we've been very lucky so far. Here's hoping it will miss us for a while longer. Frugaldom is pretty much stocked up with everything needed to survive a few weeks of being blocked in but I'd prefer that not to happen. Apart from that, I'm going to end up having to buy potatoes! I'm still gutted that the mice got at the potato sack in the garage and, over the weeks, almost emptied it before anyone noticed. The remaining potatoes are frozen solid in their barrels on the greenhouse patio, so no hope of retrieving them for a while and not too confident that they'll even be edible by the time I can dig them out. The leeks seem to be surviving, though, even if they are looking a bit sorry for themselves.

LEEK & CHEESE QUICHE

Made up some shortcrust pastry last night and decided to have cheese and leek quiche. I still have about half a dozen leeks in the freezer and these are so easy to chop for using immediately. I chopped one large leek, gave it a couple of minutes in the microwave on high then put it over the base of the uncooked pastry. Next, I grated over a thick layer of cheddar (it's all I keep in stock) then poured over the egg mix. I used half a dozen of my freerange garden hen eggs with some milk, salt and pepper. This was baked in the oven at avout 220C for 20 minutes and came out looking a lovely golden brown on top. I had beaten the eggs, so it had risen a fair bit. Tasted delicious and there was enough left over to have for lunch today.