Gene wrote: and i would like to add fresh > fertile eggs taste much much better than store bought.
You're so right Gene. As a throwback to an earlier time I was privy to that country goodness. Free range eggs are full of taste and oft are a shock to those who have only eaten the store bought kind. The yolks are dark yellow and have a stronger flavor. We always prepared them in bacon grease which brought that flavor out perfectly. As a teenager our chickens had the run of the proximal alfalfa field back in the Texas Panhandle. They ate so much of the stuff that the yolks literally turned green. True green eggs though rarely with ham. Gene, I, too, raised Araucanas for a time. My mother told me that their eggs were purported to be of a lower cholesterol count than your average egg. Most were pale green and, rarely, we would be treated with one that was a very pastel pink. The shells I write of. Along with the enriched taste of your free chicken egg is their meat which beats the heck out of that stuff sold in stores. We wouldn't even have to season it, so full of flavor it was. The only downside was having to butcher the poor things which was always hard. When younger we would dip them in hot water and pluck the feathers. Yuck! What a stench. Later on, after the warnings about fat, we would simply skin them. Hope to have more soon if I can talk Tod into it. Anyway, thanks for the thread. mack
