Breakfast Recipes Week & an Asheville Girls Vanilla Giveaway!

 

That's right, you read it correctly!  If you follow us on Facebook, you saw our delicious coffee cake photos last week and the French bread we baked yesterday morning.  So many Facebook readers requested the coffee cake recipes, we decided to make a week of it!  Each day next week (Monday-Friday) we will post a YUMMY breakfast recipe!  All of the breakfast recipes will include eggs (preferably Farm Fresh if you have them for the best taste!) and Vanilla.  Our new favorite cooking product is the Asheville Girls Vanilla!  It's organic, pure, and from a small business like ourselves which is so important to us!  The ladies are sweethearts to boot!  They're SO sweet, in fact, they're offering some of our lucky readers a FREE bottle of this tasty baking staple!  I kid you not folks, my baking has tasted better since I began using this Vanilla. 

 

How can you enter this great giveaway?  Starting Monday, I'll set up the contest and you can earn entries by doing the following:

Like Us on Facebook,

Like Asheville Girls Vanilla on Facebook,

Follow Our Blog,

Try some of the Breakfast recipes I post next week and leave comments about them.  Good or bad, it's okay, just give them a try and let me know how you like them.  I'm leaving the contest open through next weekend to give everyone an opportunity to get the most entries in they can.  Trust me, you're going to LOVE this Vanilla.  I can't bake with anything else now!  My son, Chance said to me, "Mom, you've been on a roll since you got that new Vanilla!" Out of the mouth of babes, right?

 

 

First up on Monday is this crazy good Buttermilk Blueberry Coffee Cake!  You've got to try this one, Chance called it, "AMAZING!"  What can I say, my boy loves to eat!

Have a blessed weekend!  See you'll Monday!

Welcome Spring with a New Chick!

Welcome Spring!  We welcomed Spring here at The Egg Basket with some new arrivals yesterday!  We're still staggering hatches indoors using our incubators and hatchers but we also had a great Spring surprise outdoors! 

Amy and Autumn have been brooding (sitting) on eggs in their nest box together for just about 3 weeks.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect for a new Spring baby chick!  As you can see from the photo to the left, we spotted a pipped egg on Tuesday morning when Autumn hopped up for her morning food and water.  The hens rarely leave the nests and Autumn and Amy take turns with their once a day meals.  I hopped in quickly to check on them since I knew I wouldn't have long to peek and managed to snap this photo.  We were excited and worried because these two ladies were our first broody pair of hens to successfully sit so long.  The fact that they were sitting together added to me nervousness for the safety and health of the chick.

 

As you can see from THIS photo, we had nothing to worry about.  Little Ver (Latin for Spring) hatched just fine with his mamas and was moving around and on them in their nest box yesterday.  Once again, I timed it to hop in their run and peek while Autumn was out and found the little guy (after trying several times throughout the day and not being able to see him between BOTH hens).  When they're both in the nest box and we try to look they somehow move him between them and back behind Amy's right wing so we can't see him.  With Autumn out of the box I could just spot him, I gently lifted Amy's wing and his curious little head popped right up!  He's just beautiful!

As Ver ran around the front of Amy she gave me a nice warning growl that let me know I had overstayed my welcome.  I noticed that Autumn started heading back towards the coop at the sound of Amy's growl also and I wanted to ensure she ate and drank all she needed so I quickly shut the nesting box and left their run.  I don't want to disturb or upset the hens too much, we still have 6-7 other eggs under them.  I'm trying to time it perfect today to head out during the afternoon snack time when hopefully one or the other of the ladies will be off the nest again.  I need to see if any of the other eggs have pipped or hatched by now.  It's always excited to hatch eggs but there's something special about watching these hens do it all themselves with no intervention or help from us, just the way God intended.  I think Ver might be our prettiest chick yet...but don't tell the others!

Many Blessings,

The Egg Basket is published, as a contributor in "Must Love Chickens"

 

The Egg Basket is published in Erin Kelly's book, "Must Love Chickens" available at Amazon.com!

It's official! We're published!  The Egg Basket is pleased to announce Erin Kelly's book, "Must Love Chickens" has been released.  We're a contributing author and photographer to the book and very excited about it!  It's inexpensive ($2.99) and full of ideas and information from us and other knowledgeable chicken keepers from different perspectives.  Go download yours today!