Happy St. Patrick's Day

 I buy eggs that come from free-range hens who typically eat a soy-free/gluten-free/non GMO diet.

Last months' eggs included these green beauties - just in time for St. Patrick's Day.

I will eat Green Eggs and Ham, ahem, Bacon from Vogets.

 

 I finally got a pic of my car trash popup  inside my car.   It's dark in my garage, so I snapped this after I got off work. Cute. And it looks awesome.

Easter Egg Puzzle Balls

I saw this craft on facebook and needed to do it. Let me caution you right now, its a messy, three-day craft that takes up space.

This is a stiff ball made of yarn. Inside is trapped a chocolate candy (or 2 or 3). How did the candy get inside?

Use up your odds & ends of yarn, dipped in glue mixture, wrap yarn  around water balloons filled with candy, let dry and then pop the balloon ---what could be easier?






For every balloon I managed to squiggle a candy into, another was torn.
The egg with three candies? I now  declare it the Golden Egg!

The yarn soaks up the glue & water mixture (equal parts) and as you wrap it around the egg, it drips glue everywhere. Not to mention the sodden mess of yarn that wants to glom up into a celtic knot. So you should put down a thousand layers of newspaper to soak up the puddles--haha,  cant give away all the tips.




Some tricks to get those candies into the balloon.
Blow up the water balloon first to stretch it out.  Pull the sides out to make it squeal as the air escapes for the delightment of the dog.
Pull the neck apart and 'roll' the balloon over the Hershey's Chocolate Egg. Rolo's also worked fairly easily. Hershey's Chocolate Kisses, good luck! not so well.
Once candy is seated, you need to blow air into the balloon to partially blow it back up.
Squeeze what you blew up and the candy will drop into the bottom of the balloon.

If you want more than one candy inside, you'll need to repeat this.








Let dry for ThreeDays!!!.
 Until stiff.

Pop the balloon and carefully extract the balloon rubbage which has a disconcerting way of wrapping around the candy and not letting go.




One for each of my co-workers and assorted nephews & nieces.

Eggs & Chocolate

I decided to dye some easter eggs after seeing this great posy post.  She managed to dye her eggs with onion skins to a fabulous terra cotta color with the flora contrasting so well.

I bought four onions which I never have in my pantry (another food sensitivity of mine).
I peeled skins off the onions, cut sprigs of greenery and flowers from the garden, laid my frondy things onto the egg and wrapped them in sections of old pantyhose. Then, I boiled the funny wrapped eggs amongst the onion skins.

Admittedly, I forgot the vinegar.
More skins are better. My eggs are too light to show the botanicals. I did a zoombrowser contrast trick to get them past a  soft watercolor look.
I think I also read that Martha adheres her frondy things on with egg white.
While the house smelled like onions, the  eggs themselves did not taste onion-y.  We fortunately had yet another sighting of the sun yesterday with temperatures above 60'. Yes, it was prop the doors open and air the house out weather.
The clouds swallowed the sun around 4:30 --about when I finished unwrapping the eggs. I had to delay the photos until Easter Sunday.

The best flowers were the Leopard's Bane (daisy) and Veronica (small, spreading purple flower). They naturally wanted to conform to the egg shape (re-thinking the egg white glue).

Happy Easter everyone.



Drizzling Chocolate on the coconut macaroons.
Recipe here.
I thought about making a nest of the macaroon - the better to put jelly beans in.
In the end, I decided to drizzle the macaroons with chocolate. Spring treat for Easter dinner.
(all of the j.beans were sent off Monday to assorted Easter recipients)

Boring Amazing! chocolate drizzle video taken with my left-hand while drizzling with my right:

Growing Easter Eggs

I pulled down my Easter paraphernalia and found some hollow eggs dyed - from last year. Obviously, someone was thinking ahead. It was a surprise, nonetheless.

I am so impressed.
Last Sunday, I planted four eggs each of lettuce, basil and nasturtium seeds.
Guess which one is up first.
They are only four days old.

Silly Peeps.

The moisture from the soil has leached some of the color off the pink and blue eggs.
The windowsill where the egg planters have sat to sprout has seen sunshine.

Our last frost , here in Canbyland,was April 19th.
But, at least this week, with the cold nights and a full moon, we have received sunshine during the day.  Our Willamette Valley has been saturated with rain this season and it has been a bit dreary, even for an Oregon winter.