Hard Baked Eggs... huh?

So, in the land of Pinterest we often pin things "for later". Occasionally, when "later" rolls around I actually remember to look them up. One of my "laters" is Easter. Pssst, guess what? Easter is TOMORROW! Holy crap, that snuck up on me! So it's time to decorate eggs with the kids. Here's the thing- I really don't like boiling the eggs. It stresses me out! What if I cook them too long, not long enough, they crack, etc. There's a billion different ways to do it if you google and a lot of people just tell me they wing it every time. Whoa! This girl needs a step by step recipe!

So I had repinned this one thing from "Greetings From The Asylum" about baking your "hard boiled" eggs. That's right, BAKING them. I had pinned it (a couple times, I think), in hopes I'd remember o go back before Easter and look into this method. So tonight before dinner I sat down and read the post explaining what this is all about. Thank you, Alton Brown!

There were many comments on the original post asking if baked eggs could be used for dying at Easter time. No one knew! The original Blogger had only ever made them for recipes. Now was as good a time as any to find out! I baked my one dozen eggs according to the directions.

Alton Brown's Baked Eggs

Prep Time: 2 min.
Total Time: 32 min.
Ingredients:
2 - 4 dozen eggs
DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Position the oven racks in the center of the oven.
2. Place the eggs parallel to the bars on the racks.  (see picture below)
3. Place a baking sheet pan in the bottom of the oven (just in case an egg breaks).  I have never had a mess in my oven in all the times I have made this recipe.  I have had eggs break, but they cooked inside when they do so there is no mess
4. Bake for 30 minutes.
5. When the eggs are done, fill a large bowl with ice water and move the eggs into the bowl.  I do this a few minutes ahead of time to make sure the water is COLD!
6. Peel the eggs as soon as they're cool enough to handle, then return them to the ice water to thoroughly chill.  I think that the eggs are easier to peel if they are allowed to chill in the water for at least 10 minutes.  Also, I peel the eggs under cool running water.  

 This recipe works best with the freshest eggs you can find.

Before I let my Pumpkin & Junebug start dying, I figured I'd try one egg to make sure the process worked for me, just in general. Then I would know if it was the baking that messed up the dying or vice versa. Holy crap! That egg I tasted was amazing! Peeling it under cold running water made it so easy and it was PERFECT. I'll never boil another "hard boiled" egg!

The kids went ahead and dyed the eggs and they look perfectly normal! This pin definitely came through for me!

Bunny Bait

First off, man have we gotten behind on our project 52 posts! Don't worry- good things still happening just need to post. =)

Couldn't resist taking a break to share another Pinterest find! Tonight we made "bunny bait"!  It's so cute and SO easy. I'm assuming it'll be super yummy when we finally dive into it, too!

First gather your popcorn (popping your own would be better, but they only had buttery when I ran into Target), pretzel sticks, m&ms and white chocolate:

Find some helpers, but make sure they don't eat all the ingredients, like mine!

Mix it all in the bowl (break the pretzels in half) and then pour the melted chocolate on top and stir to mix well. Spread it on wax paper to cool and break apart to enjoy!

Thanks to Sing For Your Supper for the recipe!!!

Flashback: Pinterest success!

Today I wanted to do a 'flashback' post to this idea I found on Pinterest that came out so cute! Last summer I made this circle map thing I found on a 1st grade teacher's blog (via Pinterest). It came out so well and my Pumpkin loved it. She still plays with it 8 months later! Here's the original post. This is what we made:

Pancakes!

Tonight we had pancakes for dinner! I made them from scratch with this recipe from allrecipes.com

Original recipe makes 8 pancakes
(I doubled it and got more than 16, but I did make the kids' pancakes smaller)

•  3/4 cup milk
•  2 tablespoons white vinegar
•  1 cup all-purpose flour
•  2 tablespoons white sugar
•  1 teaspoon baking powder
•  1/2 teaspoon baking soda
•  1/2 teaspoon salt
•  1 egg
•  2 tablespoons butter, melted
•  cooking spray

Directions

1. Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour".
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk egg and butter into "soured" milk. Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and whisk until lumps are gone.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.

I added a sprinkle of cinnamon and a dash of vanilla. SO YUMMY! And fluffy!

Valentine's

Last night my little Pumpkin got to stay up late to write her Valentines. She worked very hard to write each of her 14 classmates' names (some of which she knew how to spell without help!!) and both of her teachers' names, as well as writing her own name 16 times on the "from" line.

Mama cut out each butterfly, but she filled them with the suckers! Thanks to Skip to my Lou for the free download!