Dinosaur Eggs

A few months ago I was totally wasting time avoiding piles of laundry and dishes browsing Tastespotting for official food blog research purposes when my then 4 year old son walked into my office.  He took one look at the computer screen and exclaimed, “Mom!  Is that a dinosaur egg??!”  What he had spied was actually a Chinese Tea Egg.  When brined in a mix of tea, and spices the crackly designs look (to me) like something you’d see on a Halloween themed table, but I took a mental note to make these with fun colors when Easter came around and we could pretend they were Dinosaur eggs.  My boys thought they were SO cool.

First thing you need is a bunch of hard boiled eggs.  Click here for a how-to on boiling the perfect egg!

After the eggs are cooked, cooled, and dry, gently tap them on the counter top.  You want to create little cracks all over the egg.  It’s okay if a few small pieces of shell fall off, but try to avoid breaking large chunks off.

You should just have small tiny cracks all over.  In fact after you make a few taps on the counter, you can even gently squeeze the egg in your hand to crack the shell.

Use liquid food coloring to tint your water, and plop your eggs in.

For some reason, my Ikea kids cups are always my egg-dying cups.  We wanted a few different colors so we put a single egg in each cup.  This part isn’t rocket science.  No specific measurements, just, ya know…do it.  I let my kids squeeze in the food coloring so I’m guessing there are about 847 drops in each cup.  If you want to be exact.

Let them sit in the fridge for several hours, or overnight.  I’ve actually only let them sit overnight, so I can’t tell you how many hours will do it if you don’t leave them in all night.  Somehow that makes it more fun too.  My kids get all excited to wake up in the morning and crack their eggs open.

Remove the eggs from the water, rinse them off (so you don’t color your hands, um, not that I’ve done that…) and gently remove the shells, revealing the dino designs inside!

Isn’t it strange how that one egg shell didn’t absorb any color but the inside is colored??  Weirdness.  Also I have no idea how those other ones have lines around them.

That red one freaked my husband out.  He said it looked “veiny”.  Can’t say I disagree.

He then promptly mocked my egg-to-dinosaur size ratio in the lovely diorama I set up on our back porch.  Whatever. Maybe they’re all just hanging around wondering where the ginormous dinosaur is that produced an egg bigger than all of them.  Use your imagination people!

Pretty sure this purple one is my favorite.  I have shoes that color.  Love.

They’re sort of weird and awesome all at the same time.  Like me.

Emphasis on the awesome.

Now you’re probably wondering what to do with a bunch of neon eggs.

Why, have a dinosaur egg salad sandwich of course!

Here’s my favorite recipe for Egg Salad.  I had to close my eyes before taking a bite because the technicolor factor tripped me out, but my kids sure thought it was rad.  And that of course was the whole point, so plus one for Team Mom.  Woot woot!  So try this one with the kiddos – they’ll be excited when you’re in the middle of egg dying and you tell them to crack the eggs.  Or better yet, crack some and don’t tell them- wouldn’t that be a fun surprise?!