Slow Food - Part 4

I'm sad to report that Tilly, the Cauliflower-leaf-eating-chicken, died this week.  Old age I think, possibly compounded by a mite infestation brought in by the visiting chooks.  We buried her in the front garden and put some flowers on the top of the soil.  We are currently looking after our neighbours' 4 chickens, so we are not short of a chicken around here.  The first few nights the visiting chooks spent here, they slept in the diagonally opposite corner to the resident chooks.  Them and Us.  Gradually they became accustomed to each other, and now they are integrated (as in the photo above).  Well almost integrated.  I'm sad to say that "Blackie" is the bottom of the pecking order.  Did you notice the white powder on the perches and the top of the nesting box?  That's to eliminate any residual mites that may choose to hide in the wood.  Since we treated the flock for mites a week ago, egg production has moved from 2 per day to 5 per day.  What a lot of bounty to share with family and friends.  The kids have named the visiting chickens Blackie, Pearl, Flakey, and Angel.  Flakey had scales flaking off her feet - that's what alerted us to the mite infection.  That, and Blackie was pecking Flakey's bottom!  Eating mites, one assumes.  A bit difficult for a chicken to peck it's own bottom I guess.  My Clever Ben made both the perches and the nesting boxes.

The surplus of eggs brings me to the subject of today's blog, which is SLOW FOOD.  A little while ago, I committed to cooking my way through the Green and Gold cookbook, which many Adelaideans have a copy of.  I flipped straight to the puddings section, and chose Bread and Butter pudding, to take advantage of yesterday's stale bread.  It makes perfect sense when you are baking your own bread, sans preservatives, to use it the next day for pudding, that is, if the chickens haven't been given the scraps first.  Yum Yum Yum.  One recipe down, several hundred to go!