A hungry girl's guide to chicken-keeping: part 1

You don’t need to be good at maths (and I’m not) to know that three chickens, one person at home and everyone else on holiday means an awful lot of these…

Our three lovely chickies have been laying one egg each a day and even though I’ve been giving them to the neighbours… well, when there’s only one neighbour that doesn’t really help. So, I’ve been trying my best to find different things to do with them, my current favourite being an invention I am calling Garden Baked Eggs.

I’m calling it that because thanks to that one neighbour, we are lucky enough to have a constant supply of homegrown veggies in exchange for the eggs, so almost everything I threw into this came from either our garden or his.

I’ll tell you what I put in by way of illustration, but everything apart from the eggs and some kind of cheese can be substituted depending on whatever you have to hand. That’s why this is such a good recipe!

Garden Baked Eggs

for each person

Two free range eggs

Small handful each of sliced courgette, mushrooms, broad beans and red pepper

Three slices of chorizo, roughly chopped

Feta cheese, cubed

Lots of chopped fresh herbs (I used chives and oregano)

Tablespoon red pesto

Salt and pepper

Knob of butter and drizzle of olive oil

1) Drizzle a little olive oil into a shallow individual baking dish and brush around the inside. Turn the oven on at about 180ºC / Gas Mark 4 and put another larger baking dish inside. Put the kettle on.

2) Melt the butter in a frying pan and gently saute the veggies with some salt and pepper until softened.

3) Pile the vegetables into the small dish then sprinkle over the chorizo and feta. Make two wells in the mixture and carefully break an egg into each one.

4) Dot the pesto on top, sprinkle with herbs and grind over more black pepper.

5) Place the small dish inside the larger one, then carefully pour boiling water into the big dish so it comes about halfway up the sides of the little one.

6) Cook in the oven until the top is golden and the eggs are as done as you like them - I like the yolk still a bit runny - so about 10-15 minutes.