Easter Eggs

Okay, I know I said before we don't do eggs much at our house, which is usually true, but with it being Easter, it was one of those times that I get eggs, and I'm getting better at hard boiling them!

We don't do a lot of Easter Egg decorating here, but I wanted to have a lunch prepared so she wouldn't have to peel the eggs at lunch time, so I just took the natural, locally made food coloring, mixed them in some water, and the kids just basically watercolored the shelled eggs. Super fun for them, easy, and didn't make much of a mess!

I found some cute little plastic bunnies at the japanese store too, so added those for some extra fun. The rice is brown rice, green beans and carrots with mint sauce.

Pick up chicks here

When I was growing up, my older brother worked at this animal feed/garden store called the Wagon Wheel. Every spring, they would set out a sign that said "pick up chicks here" so people would know where to pick up their order of baby chickens they ordered that year. We also lived in a tourist town, and soon people started taking pictures in front of the sign; girls, groups of girls, guys with girls, and pretty much anyone. Over the years it became it's own tourist attraction itself, without ever having that intention to begin with. 

Photo by Brad Williams

Hard boiled egg chicks, in a gluten free spaghetti nest. Nori eyes, and carrot beaks. 

Pick up chicks here! 

Valentine's Day Foods

I absolutely love celebrating Valentine's Day with the three little loves of my life, they bring me such joy and it's always fun to do something together to celebrate our little family.

My oldest decorated some hard boiled eggs with the rice cheese and the alphabet cookie cutters.

While I was in the shower, my kids cut out these letters out of apples and rice cheese for me, and put them by my coffee, so I would be sure to see it! 

My little one always needs a snack at Pre-K so I made her some heart shaped hearts and carrots, complete with valentine picks. 

The youngest is allergic to beef and there was some ground buffalo on sale and I thought we would try it. I made some small, heart shaped mini meatloaves for dinner. I made up the meatloaf, then used my rice mold to make the hearts and then cook them up! I also made more heart carrots and Roma tomatoes, cut on the diagonal and put together as hearts. My son is very into presentation and fancy drinks and desserts so he insisted we have our sparkling strawberry cider in our pretty glasses with blueberries, all on top of a white tablecloth. What a fun treat! 

Heart shaped eggs.

This really happened at my house.

A friend of mine posted this link on Facebook on how to make a heart shaped egg. We don't usually keep eggs in the house, as my youngest is very allergic to eggs, my son breaks out in minor hives and gets a stomach ache, and I also get violently ill for a few days if I have straight eggs, however in baked goods they don't seem to bother me... but I don't bake a lot. My oldest daughter does love eggs though and every now and then I will get some for her and she will make herself over-hard eggs for breakfast, and likes to try her hand at omelets.

After I saw the link though, I knew I just had to try this! So I bought our every few month purchase of a dozen eggs and knew I would have to take more time in this effort.

Step one... I had to google how to hard boil an egg because I don't think I've done that in years. It seems a bit nerve wracking with all the rules and the color change and the shells cracking, but amazingly, they turned out pretty awesome. I had collected the rubber bands and cut my half and half box apart for the molds, and we always seem to have chop sticks around, except mine were square. As you can see by my photo, the round chop sticks would end up with a nicer heart.

So here they are, a bit lopsided and awkward (kinda like me!). It was fun, a great learning experience, and easier than I actually thought it would be!