It’s likely to be wet and muddy during the Easter holidays, but the kids will still want to play in the water.
Spring puddles offer opportunities for canal dredging, dam building and stick boat racing. Mary-Ellen, my sister-in-law, is busy collecting takeout food containers and lids, meat trays and wooden blocks for her kindergarten students to use to design puddle boats. Last year, her students had fun adding sails and decorations and then taking the boats to the playground puddles to see which ones floated and sailed the best.
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Children may also be looking for fun indoors. Decorating Easter eggs has been a tradition in our family for two generations. I recently had an opportunity to decorate some eggs with my oldest granddaughter, Keira, who is almost two.
DECORATING EASTER EGGS
Egg decorating is a craft where the imagination can go wild with stickers, crayons and dyes to produce beautiful and unique eggs.
Items needed:
hard boiled eggs
plastic tablecloth or sheet of plastic
newspaper cooling rack
wide mouth coffee mugs white vinegar
Easter egg dye or food colouring water
wire egg lifters (they come in the Easter egg colouring kits) or teaspoons paper towels kitchen towels egg cartons
Tiny stickers in different shapes, hole reinforcements or stars
different coloured crayons
farmliving, none, none
Cover the work area with a plastic tablecloth and newspapers.
Place cooling rack on newspapers. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for preparing the dye or place one tablespoon (15 mL) of white vinegar into a wide mouth coffee mug or glass and fill half full with water, then add several drops of food colouring.
To prevent accidents with eggs, place a folded kitchen towel on the table underneath your child’s hands or use an egg carton for the egg to sit in.
Dry off eggs with a paper towel.
Stick reinforcements or stickers on the egg. Make sure that all edges are firmly stuck to the egg.
Use crayons to draw and colour designs such as squiggles, faces, names, flowers or animals.
Using an egg lifter, place the egg into the colouring and allow it to sit until the desired colour is obtained. The longer you leave the egg in the dye, the deeper the color will be.
One option is to make each side a different colour. Gently lift from mug and let the egg dry on a cooling rack.
Leave the stickers on or remove them after the egg is completely dry, to reveal white patches. If desired, dye the egg again using a lighter shade to fill in the white spaces. Let dry completely.
If you plan to eat homemade Easter eggs, keep them refrigerated from cooking to decorating. Display eggs on a bed of ice. Total time at room temperature should not be more than two hours.
HARD BOILING EGGS
To boil perfect eggs that are tender with no grey ring around the yolk, place the eggs in a single layer in a shallow pan, covered by at least one inch (2 cm) of water. Bring to a gentle boil on medium-high heat.
Cover the pan with a tight fitting lid and boil gently for three minutes. Turn off the heat and let the eggs sit on the hot element for 15 minutes for extra large eggs, 12 minutes for large eggs or 10 minutes for medium eggs.
Carefully drain out hot water and cover the eggs with cold water, drain and replace with more cold water as it warms. Ice cubes added to the water speed the cooling.
Once cooled, put the eggs into the refrigerator until you are ready to colour them. Never hard cook eggs in a microwave because the eggs will explode.
EGGSHELL MOSAICS
Even young children can have fun making these mosaics. When cooking or baking, save the eggshells and tint them with food colouring.
eggshells
2 c. water 500 mL
1 tsp. chlorine bleach 5 mL
food colouring, various colours
white vinegar
water
paper or plastic cups
paper towels
construction paper
liquid glue
pencil
crayons or markers
plastic or rubber gloves
Carefully wash out the eggshells. Remove the thin membrane that clings to the shell.
Mix the water and bleach and add to the eggshells to disinfect them. Gently mix to be sure all shells have been rinsed. Pour off the bleach water and rinse.
Use leftover Easter egg colouring to tint the shell pieces or mix one teaspoon (5 mL) of vinegar with two tablespoons (30 mL) water and add food colouring.
For bolder colours, use more food colouring. Add the eggshells to the tint and mix.
When the eggshells are tinted, remove from containers and place the shells on the paper towels to dry. You may want to use rubber gloves for this.
When the shells are dry, crumble them into small pieces.
Slightly larger pieces will give more of a mosaic look. It is easier for younger children to work with more finely crumbled pieces.
Use liquid glue to make a design on the paper, draw a pencil design and cover with glue. Sprinkle broken eggshells on the glue and the design will emerge.
Source: www.bountytowels.com.
CORN FLAKES MACAROONS
My mother-in-law, Maria Deobald, loved to make special foods at Easter, including these egg nest cookies that she filled with jelly beans.
3 egg whites
1 c. sugar 250 mL
1 1/2 c. coconut, long thread sweetened 375 mL
4 c. corn flakes 1 L
Beat egg whites until stiff, then add sugar gradually while beating.
Fold in coconut and corn flakes. Spray a cookie sheet with oil and then use the backs of two spoons to mould into a small nest shape. Bake in a 350 F (180 C) oven for about 12 minutes until slightly brown. When cool, fill with small jelly beans.
Father’s Day barbecue recipe contest
Are the men in your family the barbecue chefs? Here’s a chance for them to share their favourite recipes with our readers. Barbecue accessories will be awarded for the top three recipes. Look for these favourites in TEAM columns throughout the summer.
Submit your entries by May 31 to TEAM Barbecue Recipe Contest, Box 2500, Saskatoon, SK, S7K 2C4 or e-mail team@producer.com .
Betty Ann Deobald is a home economist from Rosetown, Sask., and a member of Team Resources. Contact: team@producer.com .
