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Cute Deviled Egg Chicks for Easter

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Deviled chick eggs

I love to make a fun food for each holiday. After my kids grew up, I stopped making silly, fun holiday food. But now that I have a 2 year old granddaughter, I have  a new generation to make these things for.

Now I actually saw something similar to this on Pintrest and I thought I had repinned it to show yall. But now I can’t find it so I guess I didn’t.

Anyway the original was made with your traditional deviled eggs, you know where the yolks are mixed with mayonnaise and maybe a little mustard.

I like my deviled eggs more chunky, like egg salad with lots of chopped veggies. So I wondered if I could make cute chicks with the chunky consistency. Only way to find out was to try it and I think they came out pretty cute.

Below I show you how I make my deviled eggs. Feel free to use your own deviled egg recipe if you want. Also I really don’t have many measurements for my deviled eggs. I just eyeball and taste test until they are just right.

What you will Need to Make the Chicks

  • Clean egg carton
  • Eggs (as many as you want to make)
  • Pitted Black Olives ( I only used 1 for this)
  • Carrot (I used just part of 1 baby carrot to make 8 eggs)
  • Ingredients to make Deviled Eggs (or make them the way I do- see below)

 

What You Also to Need if You Make Chunky Deviled Eggs Like Mine

Devield Egg Ingredients

Along with the eggs, I also use:

  • Mayonnaise
  • Mustard
  • A Dill Pickle ( I used 2 dill pickle slices)
  • 1 Stalk of Celery
  • 1 Small Onion
  • Paprika
  • Salt and Pepper

Boil Your Eggs

Boiling Eggs

  • Put your eggs into your pan in one layer and cover with water.
  • Put a splash of vinegar and sprinkle of salt to keep the egg shell from sticking to the eggs while cooking.
  • Bring to a boil and then turn off.
  • Let eggs sit on burner for 15 minutes (If you use a gas stove, leave them on low heat for 15 minutes).
  • After eggs are cool, gently crack the shell and remove it.

Prepare Your Eggs

Cutting Boiled Egg

  • Cut your egg as shown in the photo above. Leave enough at the top for the chick’s “cap”.
  • Gently spoon out the yolk, being careful not to tear the egg white.
  • Put the yolks in a large bowl. NOTE: If you do tear the egg, just chop it all up and add it to the deviled egg concoction. I sacrificed 2 of my eggs this way.

Prepare The “Deviled” Part

  • With your electric mixer, mix the yolks with mayo, mustard, paprika, salt and pepper to taste. I don’t have set amounts for these ingredients but usually it’s around a tablespoon of mustard and 2-3 tablespoons of mayo.
  • Chop your veggies and add to the bowl with the yolks. I used my food processor to finely chop my celery, onion and pickle.

 

 

chopped celery

Your egg mixture should look something like this:

egg mixture

Make Your Chicks

Now comes the fun part!

Fill the egg whites with the deviled egg mixture. Make sure you over fill so you have the chick’s “head” coming out of the egg white.

Fill the eggs

Add the faces. Just chop up tiny pieces of black olive for the eyes and a carrot for the beak.

eggs in carton

 

Now just add the caps and your done!

finished chick eggs

MayMay loves eating these cute little guys. In fact, we made these about 4 days ago and she has asked me every day for more “eggy chickies”.

MayMay eating eggie chickies

If you make these, please let me know how they turned out. I’d love a picture too and will add it to this page.

Happy Easter!

Cathy

Mothers Day Ideas

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What do you do for Mothers Day?

happy mothers day

It’s almost that time again. That time of year when we honor those wonderful women who gave us life! Mothers Day! Many of us are moms. I know I am. I have 3 children, all in their twenties. My mother who is in her 80′s  is still here with us too.

With this upcoming holiday, it got me thinking of how most of us celebrate it.  I know some of these will be things you have already done, but other ideas will be new.

  • The mandatory breakfast in bed, made by the kids, who God bless them, leave the kitchen looking like a tornado hit it. Not to mention the yummy burnt toast and undercooked eggs mom feels obliged to eat.
  • Some moms are lucky enough to get taken out to eat for brunch, lunch or dinner.
  • If you are a church goer, you will most likely get a carnation if you are a mom on Mothers Day morning. I know in our church, we always had special little prizes given for the oldest mom, youngest mom, and the mom with the most kids.
  • Another time at our church, the dads made a special dinner and provided entertainment for all the moms. They served us too. It was quite fun!
  • One year, a mothers club that I belonged too held a mother/daughter tea at a nice restaurant. We all dressed up and even the kids had a great time.
  • I have heard of this but have not been a part of it.  It being a Mothers Day party. Invite all the mothers in your life to a special party in their honor. Everyone gets a special little gift. I love this idea. I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to hosting a party like this but maybe I’ll get lucky and get invited to one.
  • One of my friends spends a special Mothers Day with her mom. They go out to brunch, and then go shopping and on to dinner and a show.
  • One gift I keep asking my kids for, but they never seem to oblige, is the gift of time and service. Instead of a store bought present, I’d love it if they would do some chore for me that I have a hard time doing or just hate doing. Things I would like would be to get my car detailed; have my wood stairs mopped; or pretty up my yard by trimming the edges, weeding, etc.
  • Maybe a special weekend trip for mom, like to the beach, the spa or a quaint little bed and breakfast.
  • Some moms just want a quiet day at home, spending time with the kids. This is great but it’s even better if mom doesn’t have to do any work that day. She deserves a restful day off.

So, how will I celebrate Mothers Day? Well, I’ll probably get breakfast in bed. Fortunately, my son, who is 20 has a natural talent for cooking and really could be a world class chef if he wanted. He will do the honors and make breakfast.

Then my kids will give me their gifts. I will also give one of my daughters a gift since she is a mother too but her child is just a toddler and obviously too young to buy her mommy a gift.

Later, I will visit my own mother and give her a gift too.

For dinner, my son will probably grill steaks so I won’t have to cook.

That’s it for me. Simple, but I enjoy it.

How do you celebrate Mothers Day? Please leave a comment and let me know!

 

 

 

 

 

Check out Fathers Day Gift Ideas for more great gift ideas!

How to Make a Pretty Christmas Wreath from Yarn

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yarn wreath

I didn’t come up with this idea. I originally found it in “All You” magazine.But I did mine a little differently. Instead of just regular yarn, I used the fuzzy, wavy kind.

What you will need:

wreath aupplies

  • A Styrofoam wreath (I used the 16 inch size)
  • A ruler
  • Yarn in two colors
  • clear tape
  • marker
  • scissors
  • straight pins
  • A pre-made bow (not shown) You can also make your own bow if you prefer.
  1. On the back of your wreath, measure off and mark with a marker where you want your colors to start and stop. start on back of wreath
  2. Start at your first line and tape the yarn. Then start wrapping the yarn around the wreath until you get to the next line. Cut and tape or use a straight pin to secure the yarn to the back of the wreath.
  3. Use your next color and wrap til you get to the next line. Cut and secure the yarn to the back. Continue until the entire wreath is completed. switch colors on wreath
  4. Attach the bow with straight pins and hang! Since the wreath has a Styrofoam base, it’s easy to just push it on a nail back or hook.

yarn wreath

Cute and easy!
Cathy

 

Article by Cathy Ratcliffe
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make a Pretty Centerpiece for Any Season

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christmas candle

I was trying to think of a pretty centerpiece to use for my Thanksgiving table this week. In the past, when my mom was alive, she always sent a nice bouquet of flowers the day before Thanksgiving. I always looked forward to them but we would have to move them when it was time to eat because they would take up needed space on the table.  I wanted something that didn’t take up much room so we could enjoy it while eating.

I went to my local craft store and wandered the aisles for inspiration. I didn’t want to spend more than $20 and I was hoping to find something that I could use for other seasons.

I had a loose idea of what I wanted to do and walking through a craft store often helps me gel things together.

Here’s what I bought:

candle supplies

I got 2 candles, 2 cylinder glass containers, a gold berry garland and a bag of small Christmas balls. The large cylinder vase is 6 inches around and the smaller cylinder vase is 4 inches around.

With my coupon it came to just under $20.00.

First, I decided to make a candle centerpiece with Fall leaves so I went out to my backyard and picked up a few and put them in the big cylinder so they went around the smaller cylinder with the candle inside.

If you have kids, you could get them to collect the prettiest leaves they can find to help you make the centerpiece. It’s an easy  and cheap way to bring Autumn into your home. Here is what it looks like:

candle with leaves

 

I wanted to go a little fancier for my Thanksgiving table, so I cut up a length off the gold berry garland, wrapped it around the smaller cylinder and here are the results:

candle with gold berries

Simple and elegant! I used the rest of the garland to decorate my TV cabinet. This one could actually be used for Christmas too if you wanted but I decided I wanted a different look for Christmas. I changed the candle to a red one, and filled up the space between the 2 cylinders with the tiny Christmas balls. Here it is:

christmas candle

 

I’m really loving this Christmas centerpiece. I still have plenty of the balls lefy over so I may go back and get some more cylinder vases and candles and make them for gifts.

Also, I’m thinking I can just keep this on the table and change it up according to the season or holiday. Like for Valentine’s day, I’d keep the red candle but maybe put some little red hearts around it. For Spring, I could use a pastel candle or put the cream colored candle back in and add some small pretty silk flowers in it. For Independence day, use the red candle and add some red, white and blue stars or confetti.

The possibilities are endless!

One caution: make sure whatever you put in between the 2 cylinders isn’t high enough to fall over into the candle.

So what do you think? Do you like this idea?

Cathy

 

Article by Cathy Ratcliffe