Easter Eggs

I had a small person guest this weekend.  Weekends, it turns out, are really long when you have to entertain a small person guest.  We filled up some of the time making Easter eggs.  I didn't feel like boiling them, so I used hollow eggs.  Of course, to get hollow eggs, one has to make hollow eggs.

First, get a decent sized needle. (I made more eggs after an initial dyeing, which is why my fingers are stained.)

Use something to hammer the needle into the egg.  I used the handle of a knife.  Of course, be gentle.

You end up with a tiny hole.  You can do this on both sides, but it makes blowing out the egg quite difficult, so I chose an easier, slightly less aesthetic route.  The other hole will be bigger, so I put the little hole on the top (smaller portion) of the egg.

You can just use the same needle and make a larger hole on the bottom and blow out the contents.  I happen to have a meat injector, which I chose to use as an egg remover.  The needle of a flavor injector is significantly larger, so it's easy to make big cracks.

Again, use something to gently hammer it into the egg.

Very carefully pull up on the injector to remove a large portion of the egg.  You can put the injector back in, but that risks more cracking.  I decided to blow the remaining egg out.  It is probably horribly unsanitary to put your lips on egg shell, but I rinsed them off.

As you can see, the hole is much bigger, but it's not too bad.

Here's the thing about kids and dyeing eggs.  They have zero interest in keeping colors separate or keeping their fingers clean.  Fingers getting dyed is particularly a problem with hollow eggs, as they float.

Most of the eggs end up some sort of greenish brown shade, because the egg is indiscriminately dipped into all colors and everything gets mixed up.  The ones in the first row were completed before there was too much contamination.

Kitchen Chalk Board

I sprung forth from the kind of people who just love to pick trash up on the side of the road and call it a "treasure" -- in general, I have accepted this particular fate. I found this shelf door a long time ago. Or, maybe my mom found it and I stole it from her basement? Who knows. Anyway, I had some vague vision about what it could become. My vision was considerably more awesome than what I actually ended up doing, but that's OK too.

First I sanded the whole thing down. I didn't sand it perfectly, because I wanted the texture to show through. Also, I'm pretty lazy.

Then I painted it with magnetic paint.  As usual, I painted first, then read the directions.  The directions pretty clearly state that the surface needs to be extra special smooth for magnets to work.  Due to my creative (lazy) plan to leave a rough finish, the magnetic quality is pretty weak.   Next I painted it with this stuff, which is paint that turns any surface into a blackboard.

I painted the border a similar green to the original, but you can't really see it in the picture. Now it hangs in my kitchen, welcoming all to my humble home! =)

Rambutan & Dragon Fruit

When my mother was here, we made our customary visit to Jungle Jim's. Mostly we bought items that you might have heard of before, but we did buy a rambutan and a dragon fruit. If you've ever had longan or lychee, rambutan is kind of like that. It's a lovely fruit and really tasty.

Unpeeled Rambutan

Use a knife to slice a cap off and then peel the rest

You end up with this!  It's tastier than it looks.

Be careful not to eat the seed!

Optional clown nose

The dragon fruit is also a lovely fruit, but not nearly as tasty as it looks. It doesn't taste bad...it just doesn't taste like much of anything at all. It's like a very bland kiwi.

Unpeeled Dragon Fruit

Cut it in half and then slice the fruit into cubes, keeping the skins as a bowl

Isn't it lovely? Totally tasteless.  It could add some visual interest to a fruit salad though

Lighting "Upgrade"

I had some really hideous, old-person lighting in my house that I upgraded to slightly less hideous (but free!) lighting.  Also, you'll see from the pictures that "I" didn't really do that much at all...

Hideous, cheap lighting fixture

Mom getting rid of hideous lighting fixture

Fairly hideous lighting fixture.  What is it with that fake brass/gold crap?

Fear not!  Rustoleum is here to save the day!

After a quick coat of spray paint

All installed!

Bolognese Sauce

My super cool roomie got me a cooking magazine for Christmas, Cuisine at home, which I was excited about because I always wanted to steal hers when it came to Gracewood. I also think it was a ploy to get me to post on the blog again, well done Rach.

Given my love for cooking with meat, I decided to make the lightened bolognese sauce which was delicious! I didn't want to cook sausage so I used Tofurkey Italian sausage. I thought it was very good but I can see how others may hold different opinions for tofu sausage.

Here is the recipe. And it was a lightened version of the sauce so while it may not be good for you (unless you use some tofu meat products :), it wasn't that bad.

Lightened Bolognese Sauce

Heat:
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 lb ground turkey breast
8 oz bulk Italian turkey sausage (or tofurkey:)

Process:
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced carrot
1/2 cup diced celery
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 cup 2% cottage cheese (I used ricotta instead)

Stir in:
1/4 cup tomato paste (I used sundried tomato spread- forgot this at the store)
1 can diced tomatoes in juice
1 cup dry red wine
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp each dried oregano and basil
1/2 tsp each kosher salt and red pepper flakes
1/2 cup neufchatel
1 cup chopped fresh parsley

Heat oil in large saute pan over med-high heat. Add turkey and sausage break into smaller chunks, cooked until browned.

Process onion carrot, celery, and garlic in processor until minced; add to browned meat. Cook vegetables until softened (5 mins). Process cottage cheese in processor until smooth(2 mins); stir into meat mixture in saute pan.

Stir in tomato paste, cook 1 min. Add tomatoes, wine, vinegar, oregano, basil, salt, and pepper flakes. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer sauce 40-45 mins stirring occasionally. Add the neufchatel, stirring until melted, then stir in parsley.

Lip Balm Candle

I actually did this while I was home over Christmas break, but I'm just now getting around to posting it. I saw this recipe for homemade lip balm on a blog and decided I wanted to try to make it with my mom. A nice mother/daughter project.

The recipe calls for natural grated beeswax, which I suppose looks something like this:



Well, my mother and I, being who we are -- we picked up the first thing that seemed vaguely similar. We got beeswax beads, which look like this:


This apparently matters.


The rest of the recipe we followed correctly. Here I am melting the beeswax and the coconut oil.



Our talents are so profound that it took two of us to complete this step. Several times, the water almost boiled over into the oil in the wax.

So then we added our essential oil -- Eucalyptus, the cheapest essential oil we could find, because, again -- me and my mom. Then we poured it into a small glass jar thing (a repurposed jar -- no need to buy what you already have!)

It was clear before we poured it that this was going to be the worst lip balm ever. It was basically like vigorously rubbing your lips with a candle. Not so effective. So we made a candle instead! Two candles actually, even though I only have a picture of one of them. For one, we just stuck a birthday candle in it. The second one, which is pictured, we put cooking twine in it. The cooking twine one actually burns better. I didn't get lip balm, but I did get a little candle, so that's good enough for me!

The end.

[Edit: Here are both candles burning.]

Today in the World of Unnecessary, Overpriced Kitchen Gadgetry That I Really Want

A sculptural cutter that both slices and serves. Awesome.