kool-eggs 2014

It's that time of year again! We dyed our Kool-Eggs yesterday and had some serious fun. Lo experimented more this year with making some lighter pastels; a quick dip in Berry Blue and then Lemon Lime made an awesome mint green. Mixing Strawberry with a little Orange ended up with a lovely shade of coral. And Strawberry Limeade makes a sweet pink. So much fun. If you haven't checked out my original Kool-Eggs post, look here and see how fun and easy it is to dye your Easter eggs with Kool-Aid. (No vinegar necessary - the citric acid does the trick!)

Happy weekend to you and your family.

egg shapes

School lunch days are coming up, which means back to bento! Over the summer, Lo has taken a liking to hard-boiled eggs. This is after she started begging for me to make eggs 'that are white with the yellow in the middle.' And I was like, 'Yes honey. Eggs are always white with yellow in the middle unless they're scrambled.' And I kept making fried eggs for her until she finally said, 'No, the kind we had at Easter.' Ahh! I was excited because I love having hard-boiled eggs on hand. And hard-boiled eggs give me a super good excuse to put my egg shapers to use.

If you're into the bento thing, you can find inexpensive egg shapers here. And if you've never given these a try or wondered how in the heck they actually work, the whole process is pretty easy. Just boil your eggs as you normally would, and then rinse them in a bit of cold water or put them in a bowl filled with cold water. Don't let them cool off completely, because you'll want to peel them while they're still hot. Peeling the shells off of hot eggs can be a bit painful, but it's not too bad.

So, yes. Peel the hot hard-boiled egg. Try to get the shell off while leaving the surface of the egg white as smooth as possible. And then place the egg (firmly) in the shaper and close it with the tabs.

Put the shaper in the freezer for a couple of minutes or until the plastic mold feels cool, and then pop your egg out. That's it.

Beware that if your egg isn't exactly the right size, you may end up with something like this. A bear with no ears. But no biggie – it's still pretty cute. Also, if your eggs are super big, you'll end up with a ring of smushed egg white around the little face, but you can just trim it off with a knife. I've been boiling six eggs at a time to keep in a covered bowl in the fridge and they're great at lunchtime, on a salad or for a snack. I'll definitely be boiling a few each week during the school year for Lo's lunches. Now that I've finally figured out which kind of eggs she wanted.  :)

** Want to read more bento posts? Click here to see my attempts at Phineas and Ferb/Hello Kitty bentos from last year, or here for all my other bento posts ... including some pics of teeny-tiny preschool Lo eating bentos on a plate. **