photos by Paul Ferney
Remember when I wondered if we could buy eggs from our neighbor? Well it turns out that yes, we most certainly can. And it’s an errand my kids are always delighted to volunteer for.
We start with an empty basket.
Then, any of the kids interested in this little field trip head next door…
…passing grazing cows on their way.
Madame Lucienne helps them pick out the eggs. Two euros per dozen.
In this case, we were buying 4 dozen eggs for the Easter Party.
Then, we head home.
The eggs are so delicious that we look for recipes that require lots of them — things like omelettes and egg salad sandwiches.
Have you ever bought eggs from a neighbor? Did you feel like they tasted better than store-bought ones? What other sorts of egg-y recipes should I try?
Love. Love. Love fresh eggs! Next thing you will be getting your milk from the other farm next door! I admit being a fellow American in France I was a little skeptical of this one, but then you start thinking of what really happens during processing and I have to admit going to the Farm to get my milk at .80/liter is quite AMAZING for me and the kids!
As far as egg recipes with good eggs my fave is Soft boiled eggs. Simply soft boil the eggs, toast some Pain de Segle/Pain de Compaigne add a little butter and salt to the bread, then you open the top of the egg, and dip the bread in..Delish! Served with a salad with vinaigrette..devine. My 4 Year old loves this too as he gets to help butter the bread and then gets to dip his bread in!
Guess I better get to the market to get fresh egg tomorrow!
Yes! Fresh eggs are the best. Our neighbor doesn’t sell any (we live in the city) but we buy them from local farmers at the market.
At our house we love:
Oeuf à la coque (requires super freshness)
Quiche (with any vegetable that is in season)
Creme Anglaise (with chocolate cake and strawberries makes a simple but delish dessert!)
Voila!
Bises
D
Hootenannie (German) Pancakes! You know, the kind you bake in the oven in a pan with melted butter and the whole thing puffs up into this beautiful and tasty treat that can be sprinkled with powdered sugar or drizzled with fresh syrup. The buttery edges are sublime!
Oh my goodness! I forgot all about German Pancakes. My mother used to make these for special breakfasts. Good memories.
I personally love quiche and frittatas. Frittatas are easier because you don’t need a crust.
I buy eggs from a friend in the ward. All the egg money goes towards her son’s mission fund.
we just had this again last night for the umpteenth time. it’s a favorite:
http://wideopenspaces.squarespace.com/wide-open-spaces/2009/1/23/baked-eggs-with-tomato-sauce-kale-gruyere.html
i am living vicariously through your ridiculously amazing adventure.
wow… ive never bought eggs from a neighbor but it sounds wonderful. eggs are so versatile… the first thing i think of is you should make custards :)
We always buy eggs from a neighbor! It helps that our “neighbor” is an organic farm though :)
They are wildly different, a million times better and I love the variation in sizes best of all – I can use a little one for the little one, big ones for baking, etc. Besides being gorgeous on the outside they are beautifully vibrant inside too…and they taste divine. I do wish we had a basket as gorgeous as yours though!
Have you ever considered writing a children’s book? This would be such a wonderful story!
I would LOVE writing a children’s book. I’ve made a couple of efforts but nothing that I’ve actually finished. Maybe someday…
OK. So I now need to move to France. Great.
We are city dwellers. And in an apartment at that. And while we LOVE living in the city, it’s posts like these that remind us of what is missing in our child’s upbringing. I can’t wait to tell the family about the move.
; )
But onto eggs, we are all big time lovers of eggs. One of our faves are Crustless Quiche Muffins. They freeze pretty well if you go bananas and make a bunch. And then it’s a quick and dirty breaky. And the variations are endless really.
http://living.weelife.com/2008/07/crustless-quiche-muffins.html
bonne chance!
We have 50 laying hens right now and love to watch them wander around the yard. The eggs are amazing; sunset-orange yolks full of goodness. I am happy that you and your family are able to enjoy them!
How fun to get such fresh eggs! And such a fun fieldtrip for the kids! Last night I made this sweet potato souffle (thinking it was a side dish) for dinner. My kids LOVED it! It’s somewhat close in taste to pumpkin pie. They asked if I’d make it for all their birthday dinners and we’re having it again tonight!
http://www.marthastewart.com/316832/sweet-potato-souffle
Nobody’s said pound cake? Pound cake, then! And angel food cake, although you’ll have to find something else to do with the yolks. And meringues. OH! And then dip the meringues in unsweetened double-cream–a trick we learned in Switzerland. So, so, so delicious.
Anything dipped in double-cream is bound to be delicious. : )
I buy eggs from my neighbour! I also live in France… we love our neigbours eggs. The hens are always in my garden, it’s kinda fun, at one stage there was one hen who was laying her eggs in my garden, but saddly she stopped.
I just found your blog, it looks like you are enjoying your year in france!
Léa
I really like this one! http://www.healthytippingpoint.com/santa-fe-casserole
Hope links are okay. I usually double or triple it!
Fried Rice is one of our favorite ways to use eggs. I also have an really good recipe for Flan Cake- it’s pound cake on the bottom and citrusy custard on top—most delish.
i emailed this one to my sister the other day. my boys would never eat anything this full of veggies, but it looks a-mazing.
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/greek-frittata-10000001613225/index.html?xid=dailyrecnews-05-08-2011?xid=dailyrecnews-05-08-2011
Growing up, my dad owned a small farm. We grew most of our own fruits and vegetables and raised our own livestock. What we couldn’t produce ourselves, we bartered with neighbors. We often traded our eggs (or sometimes a whole chicken) for our neighbor’s cow milk (we had our own goat for milking, but my little brother refused to drink goat’s milk for some reason) or our bee-keeping neighbor’s honey. This is where I learned that farm-fresh eggs (farm-fresh anything, really) taste SO much better. My son has recently discovered the same thing about carrots from our garden vs. carrots from the store. I’m so glad to be able to pass that lesson on to him, even if it’s on a MUCH smaller scale than what I experienced as a child.
I actually heard a published chef somewhere (Splendid Table, maybe?) say that she had to adjust her recipes to make allowances for the difference between store bought and farm-fresh eggs. She started cooking exclusively with farm-fresh eggs, and found that they threw her recipes off… she needed fewer farm-fresh, even if they were the same size as store-bought. Just more eggy goodness packed into those farm-fresh shells, I guess!
David Lebovitz’ chocolate ice cream. YUM!
We used to have chickens and the eggs are 100x better! As you’ve probably already discover, though, fresh eggs are harder to peel after being boiled (hard to make pretty deviled eggs). All your baking will be better with fresh eggs — I liked the angel food cake suggestion above. My favorite egg meals are quiche (spinach, bacon, and Gruyere) and egg sandwiches (cook the egg as you would an omelet, but without the filling, serve on toasted bread with cheese, mayo, and lettuce). Yum!
It takes a bit of advanced planning (the dish has to sit for a few hours to allow the custard to soak into the bread) but strata is a great way to use a lot of eggs:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spinach-and-Cheese-Strata-107754
It’s also a great way to enjoy yummy cheese (which you have easy access to these days), use up stale bread (ie. day old baguette, again easily accessible) and the recipe can be doubled/tripled for a crowd (ie. your family). We made a ‘mega-strata’ in a roasting pan for my son’s first birthday brunch and it was a hit!
My father sends farm fresh eggs home with us every time we visit. His chickens lay more eggs then he can keep up with. I am always excited to take a few 4 to 6 dozen off his hands. They are the best eggs I have ever eaten!
What a good Dad!
We have 11 chickens and definitely think their eggs taste better than store-bought ones. My boys have been eating “real eggs” for so long that they won’t touch the ones from the store; they don’t like the taste or the color (have you noticed that the yolks of the farm-fresh ones are orange rather than yellow?) We sell our extra eggs to friends and they are all hooked! (The pictures on this post are gorgeous by the way – it is so wonderful for you kids to have an extended time out in the country!) I make a lot of quiche – with bacon pecorino and lots of spinach. Yum!
Such gorgeous pictures, Gab. It takes me forever to get through posts like this because I’m drooling over every single inch of every single photo ;)
We get our eggs from our across-the-street neighbors and have also worked to find recipes to take advantage of them. Two of my favorites are super simple: homemade mayonnaise and perfect hard boiled eggs.
The key to the hard boiled eggs is the timing: bring the water to a boil, put the eggs in for 9 minutes exactly then drop them in ice water for 2 minutes. Then roll them around on the counter to crack the shells and put them back in the ice water (this makes them easier to peel). Fresh eggs are still harder to peel, but worth it for the insanely perfectly cooked yolks.
Wish I could eat fresh eggs in France with you.
I’m going to try your hard-boiled egg instructions asap. I’ve been looking for fool-proof directions!
I can’t wait to try all of thes egg suggestions. Our favorite is quiche – I don’t add any toppings. It’s so fresh it comes out orange. I make it with my regular pie crust which is really sweet. We always make two and put the extra in the freezer for a busy night.
Oh I am quite certain you would have fresh asparagus in town too, add a little swiss cheese and those eggs for an omelet for dinner, yummy!
So jealous, so very :)
Poached eggs on grilled asparagus with proscuitto (or the appropriate local jamon). Salt and pepper to taste. With or without toast. Scrumptious!
My father-in-law has fresh eggs in the summer. They are free range, organic, and free! They are wonderful!
My favorite egg recipe is German Pancakes. Preheat oven to 450F and put 2 TBPS. butter into an 8×8 cake pan and into the oven to melt. Mix 3 eggs, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. vanilla. Pour batter into the cake pan (on top of the melted butter). Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the edges are golden brown. The edges will puff up and the middle will stay flat and low. We eat it with powdered sugar and maple syrup. (This recipe serves two, but lends itself well to doubling and tripling.)
So funny. We just bought eggs from a neighbor on Monday. Our first time ever! $3/per dozen. I called to get a standing order to pick up every Monday. Had my first one this morning…they were SO good!
we had chickens growing up in suburbia (my parents still do ) and I remember once while doing a cooking class in home economics in High School and we had to use eggs. Some friends around me were all like LOOK AT YOUR EGG!! it was different from all the other ones. Much darker in colour and bigger etc. I said it was an egg from my yard, so maybe that was the difference? Anyway surely that meant the egg was fresher and better????
on the fresh eggs being harder to peel thing Soulemama just blogged about how she uses a clean tack to poke a hole in her fresh eggs before boiling and this makes them very easy to peel!
Oh! I want to try that trick.
I love the pictures and the beautiful children and animals and eggs and country side. Millions of thanks for sharing!
I love eggs. I’m pretty sure I could eat them for every meal and never tire of them.
One of my favorite ways to eat them is as creamed eggs – a.k.a. goldenrod eggs. You make a white sauce with milk/flour/butter/salt and then stir in chopped hardboiled egg. Serve over toast or an English muffin. So yummy. When I describe it to people, they always think it sounds gross, but it’s delicious. :)
These pictures. They actually made my heart flutter there for a second. What an amazing decision to do this year aboad (as if you didn’t already feel that way. But if you ever doubt it, look aback at this little set. It’ll show you how in love you and all of you are with this place, with each other, with this time). BEAUTY, as George Emerson screamed from the treetops in A Room With A View
What a kind thing to say, Emily. Thank you! Maybe I’ll start shouting BEAUTY when I wake up in the morning. : )
I’ve never gotten eggs from anywhere but the grocery store. I think it would be pretty cool to get them from a neighbor.
You must try baked eggs. We had a fantastic batch at a small and wonderful hotel in Umbria called Torre di Moravola. I have not been able to duplicate the exact recipe, but this is pretty close. http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/baked-eggs-recipe.html
Enjoy!
i didn’t have near as many eggs but I did investigate some recipes…how about egg, gorgonzola, & pancetta salad. It is AWESOME! made it for a luncheon this week and it was a real hit. france=cheese+eggs+pancetta (more italy but closer than the U.S.A.). check out Giada at Home for the recipe.
We have some chickens, and I think the eggs are superb. Even better than the best store bought options.
I don’t have any special recipes. Outside of the regular fantastic breakfast options.
We buy our eggs from a friend at church. My g’son likes the brown ones although we know they are all good. I like it because she feeds them well and tells us stories of her farm.
better yet, we collect them from our 3 hens in the backyard in our very urban city.
Knowing there are hens in urban spaces always makes me happy.
No, but I have bought and walked home with pails of goat milk from neighbours when I lived in Margaret River, Western Australia. What an idyllic memory that is.
That IS an idyllic memory!
I live in Australia and backyard chickens are becoming quite common here (you can have up to 6 i think). When we bought our house in December 2010 the owners asked if we wanted to inherit the 2 chickens they had so they did not have to relocate them. It has been an up and down situation (the summer heat turned one of them broody which was a nightmare) but oh the eggs – they are amazing! I remember almost 10 years ago staying in a B and B and being amazed at the scrambled eggs at breakfast and thought they had a ton of butter added – nope just got the fresh eggs from across the road neighbour! that freshness makes them taste buttery!
my best egg recipe is a zucchini slice and we eat it with a salad. super easy and we make double batches each time and freeze portions to pull out for other meals.
Zucchini Slice or Crustless Quiche
Ingredients 2 large zucchini (approx. 300g) grated
1 medium carrot, grated
1 onion finely chopped
3 bacon rashers chopped (I usually use more but we are greedy like that)
1 cup grated cheese
1 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup oil
5 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
Method
Preheat oven to 180C. Microwave or lightly fry onion and bacon for 1 min.
Combine zucchini, carrot, cheese, bacon and onion. Sift flour, add oil and lightly beaten eggs. Season with S&P.
Pour into well greased pie or quiche dish (I just use spray oil). Bake 40 min at 180C.
If top starts to brown too much, cover in tin foil and continue cooking (I have never needed to do this though). Usually it just puffs up beautifully and golden.
WOW I wait one day and over 100 comments! People must love eggs OR more than likely your photos are wonderful ;-)
We get fresh eggs from the countryside…my In-Laws bring them back as they camp every weekend to get away from Paris.
We normally make egg salad sandwiches or Quiches (I LOVE making salmon (smoked) or Shrimp Quiches with swiss…yummy!).
But sometimes we make:
Deviled Eggs (for parties)
Soft Boiled Eggs for breakfast! – in French “l’œuf à la coque” – you will need a ceramic egg holder to eat them. You should be able to find them easily there!
And of course baking with them…
Did you know you don’t have to refrigerate Eggs? The French don’t…they do last longer if you do. But there is no hygienically
reason to do so.
I’m sure your neighbor has loads of traditional dishes that involve eggs since she probably has to gobble them up quickly ;-)
Frangipane tartelettes with fresh apricots!
I only buy supermarket eggs in the case of an egg emergency. Otherwise, it’s eggs from a local farm for me. I have bought eggs from friends with chickens as well.
There are so many lovely comments and suggestions for your eggs. I was just thinking that French Vanilla ice cream would be divine.
I wish I knew someone that I could buy eggs from!
We go through lots & lots of eggs. The hubs likes ’em scrambled & I liked them sunny side up. If I’m feeling a little fancy, I make Hootenanies (German Pancakes) & top them with peanut butter & honey. I make them so often I have the recipe memorized: 1/2 a stick of butter in a pan in the oven (425ºf) until it melts. 6 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1 cup flour in the blender, then in the pan in the oven for 15 minutes. Mmmm!
Penelope loves watching them come out of the oven all puffy & delicious.
Another thing I like to make is salsesha (not sure how it’s spelled. It’s Portuguese). I blacken onions & red peppers in a pan with salt & polish sausage then add 6 or so eggs & scramble it all together. I add sharp cheddar right before it’s done & then serve it on top of toast with salsa.
I think I’ve said this here before: I miss my chickens!!
I used to be the neighbor that gave eggs to their neighbors. I once had a co-worker make crepes with the eggs I gave him & he shared them with us. They were delicious. And yes, fresh, homegrown, never-been-refrigerated, grass-and-blackberry-and-bug-fed chicken eggs taste far superior to the things you get in the supermarket!
Hi Gabby,
Fun post. Looks much more romantic to have farm fresh eggs in France than in did on our family farm when I was growing up. ;) haa-haa. The things you aren’t grateful for until you get older. What a lucky kid I was!
My dear friend Barbara Leopold, wrote a great cookbook called The Egg White Cookbook: 75 Recipes For Nature’s Perfect Food, that is full of great recipes. I think there are even some non-food fun recipes in there.
She has done a lot of recipe testing for Susan Loomis who you did a post on a couple months back. Weirdly enough, I think Barbara was in France at the same time you wrote that post and I wondered if you two might’ve met.
Here’s a link for anyone interested.
http://www.amazon.com/Egg-White-Cookbook-Recipes-Natures/dp/1590770714
i have the warmest memory of making snickerdoodles at my neighbors house when i was little with their home laid eggs. we made the cookies by hand (no mixers- just our ten fingers!) and i swear they were one of the best things i have ever eaten!
How fun! We get our eggs via perhaps the second best option to this…weekly delivery by a local farm! I agree they taste better. (And we get our milk delivered as well…in glass bottles!)