Slow Food - Part 2

We harvested our first cauliflower today.  It was well worth the effort to get the seedlings in the ground by the end of March to be eating them today.  For lunch today, I chopped 4 florets off and steamed them, then chopped them up, mixed with a little dijonnaise, added a grated 1/2 a carrot, then put the whole lot into a sandwich that got toasted.

Keith and the first Cauliflower of 2012

Very nice.

I have now consumed 2 out of my goal of 5 vegetable serves for the day.  A serve, according to the experts, is approximately the amount of veggies you can fit in a 1/2 metric cup.  I don't know about you, but I struggle to consume 5 different vegetables in one day.  Steak and 5 veggies certainly is a challenge to my tired brain at dinnertime.  Knocking over 2 veggies at lunchtime sure is a good start.  We are going to have the rest of the cauli with dinner, covered in a cheese sauce to appease the junior food critics.

The junior food critics didn't have the same level of enthusiasm as I did about a toasted sandwich containing vegetables, but oh well.  Maybe if I offer it to them another 14 times, they'll eat it eventually.

Tilly the chicken munching a leaf

And guess what else - the chickens LOVE eating the outer leaves of the cauliflower.  (Did anyone spot the red chicken comb sneaking up on Keith and the cauli in the above photo?!?)

Speaking of chickens, ours have developed a frustrating habit in the last few weeks since the cold weather started to bite - they are laying their eggs while on their sleeping perch, instead of going into the nesting box.  Splatttttt.  Broken egg on the ground in a pile of chicken poo.  Maybe they are too cold to leave their snuggling perch-buddies to go to the box?  So I've put a box underneath their perch, with some straw in it to try to reduce the egg-loss.  I'll report on the success or otherwise a bit later.