Recipe: Heavenly Jalapeño & Bacon Eggs

I added 11 females to my duck flock in May and now they are ALL laying eggs 6 days a week. I’m getting a total of seven dozen duck eggs per week. Oh. Em. Gee. What to do with all these duck eggs!

There is a feed store just up the road that buys from me to resell. But that’s only about four dozen gone. That leaves me with three dozen duck eggs on top of the constant supply of chicken eggs I already have. Everyone who comes into my home must leave with a dozen eggs. Well, that’s my hope, but it rarely actually happens. I’m getting into the habit of just randomly leaving a dozen eggs on some unsuspecting neighbor’s front step but those pesky Ring doorbell cameras are going to land me on YouTube or Inside Addition.

Get ready to see a lot of recipe development centered around duck eggs in the near future. Today’s submission is Jalapeño & Bacon Heavenly Eggs. When my family tried these, angels sang. I hope your family feels the same. Click the link for the printable version.

Heavenly Jalapeño & Bacon Eggs

Deviled eggs so good the angels sing.

Recipe Card

Heavenly Jalapeno & Bacon Eggs

INGREDIENTS:

12 duck eggs, hard boiled

4 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled

1-2 jalapeno, minced fine

2T Red Onion, minced fine

2T chopped fresh cilantro

1/3cup Mayo

2T Yellow Mustard

Dash Coconut Aminos

Salt & Pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

To boil duck eggs:

Fill a saucepan large enough to hold all the eggs in a single layer with enough water to cover the eggs - 2-3 inches. Bring water to a roiling boil over high heat. Place room temperature eggs into the boiling water using a slotted spoon. Boil for 7 minutes for med-soft, 9 min for medium, and 11minutes for hard boiled. Drain eggs and place in an ice bath until cool enough to peel.

For the Heavenly filling:

Slice boiled and peeled eggs in half on the 'long' side. Remove the yolk and place it in a medium mixing bowl, using a fork to mash them fine. Add about half of the bacon, all the jalapeño, onion, cilantro, mayo, mustard, and coconut aminos to the yolks. Stir to combine. Taste for salt & pepper need, then season accordingly. Place yolk mix into a zip-top bag and cut a small corner off to make a piping bag. Pipe yolk mix into egg halves on a serving plate. Top eggs with remaining bacon crumbles. Refrigerate for at least four hours before serving.

A note about jalapeño - the more vein you leave, the hotter the pepper in the dish. The heat will increase as the eggs sit

Garnish options - additional thin-sliced jalapeño and chopped cilantro

Raising Chicks

Spring Chicks

hanging out in the guest bathtub to keep warm. Seven Buff Orpingtons and five Americaunas made themselves right at home and prepare to join the rest of the flock.

As a girl, I never dreamed of being a chicken lady. In fact, my family owned a commercial layer farm; raising the chickens that laid the eggs that became the chicken you bought at the grocery store. I grew up as a tiny cog in the wheel of a Poultry Giant. My folks contracted with a few different companies over the course of my growing-up years, but they were all big companies complete with their GMO feeds, mortality limits, and bean counters. I didn’t think much about it at that time. It was how we put groceries on the table and where I learned what hard work really was. Fast forward 25 years,

Now, I have backyard birds and they make me happy. I started with “sacrificial chickens” in August 2018. Don’t freak out. I had a lovely friend with a large flock who were past laying age. She gifted me 10 ladies to start with. See, I have bloodhounds and they needed to be exposed to the birds and taught, “Chickens are friends, not food.” We have six of those original 10 left and the dogs leave my ladies alone. Mission accomplished.

When I received these “spent hens” they were actually laying three to five eggs a day from 10 hens. Not bad for ladies that were supposed to be past their prime. Through this winter, my girls have gifted us with three to five eggs a week, and now we’re back up to three a day from my six hens.

Why have I invested so much time and effort into adding to my flock? Backyard eggs are the best. That is the bottom line. More details? Ok. Here goes.

“Backyard eggs have approximately 25 percent more vitamin E, 75 percent more beta carotene, and as much as 20 times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids as do factory farmed eggs. Backyard chickens, if given the option, will eat vast amounts of green vegetation (high in beta carotene and omega-3's and low in cholesterol), bugs and tons of grains. Their eggs are a byproduct of this nutrition.”  from Mother Earth News

In addition to the nutrition value listed above, I get to choose what my hens eat. It’s not cheap to do so, but I refuse to feed them anything genetically modified, no corn, no soy, no chicken by-products. They range freely on an acre, helping control the bug population. They’ve been spotted fighting over some baby snakes lately and I heartily support this behavior.

Today it’s 73 degrees outside and my new girls are being introduced to the old biddies. They will nest together tonight but remain separated during the days for a few weeks. Wish the new family members all the best!