Friday, September 17, 2010

Amazingly Fun School Lunch Idea

lunches w
My children LOVE hard boiled eggs.  Can you believe that is what these are?!
Aren’t they the cutest!?
lunches h
What Mom doesn’t need help making foods more enticing to her kids?
To make those eggs I bought the above molds.  Just google Bento Egg Molds and you can find many places to order them online, they are super cheap.  It’s still shocking to me that you can mold hard boiled eggs.  There were a few other shapes to choose from as well!lunches l
  The Fantastic Fishlunches n
The Brilliant Bearlunches s
The Creative Car
lunches u
The Bouncing Bunny

The instructions come with the molds…but they are in another language! HA!
Here’s how I make them:
1. Hard boil eggs.  While they are boiling, keep the eggs moving.  This will help the yolk to end up centered.  If it cooks up to one side, this will not work.
2. Take an egg out of the pan and break the egg shell.  For best results roll the egg lightly on your counter to break up the shell.  How is it that no one told me this tip before?  I had to lose a few eggs before I figured it out on my own! ;(
3. Quickly (because they need to be as hot as you can handle) and carefully peel the shell off.
4. Put hard boiled egg into your mold and close the clasp. I put mine in sideways. It’s pretty obvious which direction to put your egg in as the shapes tend to have a bigger and smaller end.  However, I have seen other people say to have the fat end of the egg down into the bottom of the mold and then clasp the top of the mold down over the egg sitting up.  This doesn’t seem logical to me, though. 
5. Put mold into cold water.
6. Let the eggs cool completely in the molds, in the water (about 10 minutes).
7. Open molds to reveal your shaped eggs.
I first made these with regular eggs.  I found them too small so the tips of the shapes did not fill in.  Then I bought Extra Large eggs and they worked perfectly!  YAY!  A little of the egg white does squish out on 2 of them, but you can trim that off.
Other options:
If you had the heart or star shapes you could make the cutest deviled eggs!
You can also dye these shaped eggs fun colors.  I think it would be best to do this using natural dyes like beet juice.
Shaped rice balls would be so cute using these molds.  I’m going to try that out next week!
I have read online that you can also buy premade hard boiled eggs at the grocery store for this.  You just heat them up in a pan of water and then follow the rest of the directions starting at #2.  However, I have not tried this myself.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with my kids’ school lunches /bentos.   Is this something that interests people? I’d love to know what everyone thinks about this.  Do you have these molds?  How do you make your kids’ lunches more enticing?
Rebecca

I'm joining the following fun parties; Under The Table and Dreaming,

23 comments:

Melissa said...

How strange. I would have never thought.

Wish my girls liked hard-boiled eggs!!

Betty Bake said...

i love doing interesting lunch for my 6 year old
so yes plse more posts like this :)
i use little cookie cutter shapes to cut out fruits and cheeses etc for her lunch box - too cute
thanks for sharing

Betty Bake Blog

Unknown said...

Such a cool thing to do! Im bookmarking this one to check out - fun idea.

Celeste B. said...

Both of my little ones LOVE eggs too, so I may look into these!! TFS! That's an amazing idea/find! :)

Anji* said...

These are really odd and cool!

I have one child who likes hard-boiled eggs and one who doesn't!

Joy said...

awwww! I have this!!! They are from Japan. It doesn't cost less than $1 in Japan. My friend sent me few of them but I use only one time. I will use them tomorrow for my daughter's lunch♪ I went to Japan in this summer so I went to $1 store and got bunch of stuff. (actually I bought 4 moving boxful stuff.)

Shannon said...

Thank you, thank you, thank you for reminding me about these egg molds. I saw them a while back and forgot about them...now that my boys are in school this would be a great snack to take! How fun...I'm off to buy some now!

Shannon said...

We have Laptop Lunch Boxes and try to do Bento style lunches/snack to take to school. Have you seen their website? They have great ideas and photos!
http://www.laptoplunches.com/LaptopLunchPhotos.html

I'd love to see more ideas on Roots and Wings too!

RootsAndWingsCo said...

Shannon, the laptop lunches are what we use too! They are kind of pricey, so I saved up for a bit to buy all three that I needed! I LOVE them! My sister had them first and I HAD to get them!

I'm glad everyone else is loving these eggs. Great ideas everyone. I bought some shape cutters just for making lunches cuter, too! I'll start showing what I do!
Rebecca@RootsAndWingsCo

Lorie said...

Those are so fun!! I hardly even believe they are eggs!

Amanda said...

Those are so cute! I love fun lunch ideas for kids and am always looking for new ideas.

Erin said...

I saw these a couple of months ago and about flipped. I NEED to go buy these!!!

www.makingmemorieswithyourkids.blogspot.com

Kristin (Book Sniffers Anonymous) said...

These are adorable. I don't have kids but I would go crazy making these for myself. I love bento lunch items. They are always adorable.

greetingarts said...

I have the exact same molds, and actually did a giveaway for some on my blog a while back. I love trying to make lunch fun for my little ones, and cutting things into funny shapes, or picking a color to concentrate on, or using fun containers are all part of my repertoire. Would love to see what else you come up with!

the decorated cookie said...

Thanks for sending along to Craft Gossip! I will post today. (ediblecrafts.craftgossip.com). I've got to start getting on this Bento box kick!

Em said...

Found you through Craft Gossip. I love doing bentos for my girls-it's fun for me and they tend to eat more. I bought the exact same egg molds and sent a copy of the box to my Dad (who lives in Japan). The way you do it is pretty darn close to the instructions :)
I was thinking of trying this mold using warm tamago to see if it would take shape. I'd love to see what else you come up with for Bento!

Em said...

Found you through Craft Gossip. I love doing bentos for my girls-it's fun for me and they tend to eat more. I bought the exact same egg molds and sent a copy of the box to my Dad (who lives in Japan). The way you do it is pretty darn close to the instructions :)
I was thinking of trying this mold using warm tamago to see if it would take shape. I'd love to see what else you come up with for Bento!

Smita Srivastava said...

Here thru craft gossip ... I love foody creations n owe a set of these cuties (from Amazon) n often create funny shapes for my lil ones tiffin . To highlight the details i gently put some soy sauce (with a brush of course ) on the facial details ..

Do visit my blog wenevr time permits .

- Smita
littlefoodjunction.blogspot.com
(fun food ideas to feed picky eaters)

CitricSugar said...

The things people come up with!

Thanks for sharing - I wonder if they make zombie molds... M BIL loves pickled eggs so if they were shaped first, could I make zombie egg pickles?

stgraham said...

I started doing Bento lunches with my kids last year, and was amazed at what a success I had. My kids ate healthier, and also stopped asking if they could buy lunch.
I have those same molds,and I have also used them to make rice crispie treats, and as jello molds.
My kids also like having things in their lunch boxes put onto mini skewers, ie fruit kabobs, meat and cheese cubes, and alternating mini marshmallows and tiny cake or brownie cubes. The possibilities are endless.

Allison said...

This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Thank you SO much for sharing.

Allison said...

This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Thanks for sharing.

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