Bento Lunch #33 + Egg Fail #2

I was so excited to try out my egg molds and make cute little shaped hard boiled eggs. The instructions on the package were in Japanese, but the pictures were in English and looked foolproof  enough :) I cooked the eggs after the sproutlets went to bed, snapped them into the molds, put them in the fridge to chill, confident that I would have adorable heart and star "eggies" for my girls' lunches the next day.  

Sadly, that's not what I found when I unsnapped the molds. Had I been able to read Japanese, the instructions might have told me sooner what trial & error eventually did. There's a clue in the pic above... see it?

Yep, I used Large eggs... Should have used Extra Large. Ah well, now I know what size to use if I want to make a flower shaped egg in my star mold :)

Egg fails aside, the bentos themselves still looked pretty cute. Sprout had a heart "eggie", with blueberry pomegranate fruit leather squares and dried apple chips, shredded mozzarella cheese, and bunny grahams. Birdie had the blossom shaped egg, and cubed cheddar jack cheese with hers.

 

Bella had pizza roll-ups. I stuck some leftover turkey frank in the center of a couple of them - she said they were better without. She also had grape tomatoes, a fruit leather bar cut up, and vanilla wafers.

Oooh, I did have an egg success too, though, mustn't forget about that! They were perfectly cooked AND the shells came off easy peasy. My (finally) successful method:

Place eggs in pot of cold water, add salt liberally. Bring to a rolling boil, cover and remove from heat. Let sit for 15 minutes. Put pot in sink, add cold water until it's cool enough to put your hands in. Remove eggs to crack, but peel shells under water.

A fan of my facebook page suggested adding a teaspoon of vinegar (rather than salt). Maybe I'll try that next time :)