Nourishing Breakfast--Bird Nest Eggs and a Tip

I thought I'd have to bow out of this week's Real Food Wednesday, till I visited Katie's blog and saw her great egg recipes. I'm totally copying her egg motif! The theme of this week's carnival is healthy kid-friendly recipes.

I saw the idea for bird nest eggs on a childhood friend's facebook and made them myself. Big hit with my kids!

First make homemade hash browns. Boil potatoes--as many as you'd like. (I did this the night before.) Grate or shred. Salt and pepper, then brown in a skillet in coconut oil or butter. My cast iron skillet resulted in a nice crispy crust.

Separately, fry eggs over easy (remember, these need to be from pastured chickens for optimal healthfulness...I'm working on finding a source of healthy eggs). You'll want one egg for each person, per serving.

Arrange a pile of hash browns on each person's plate in the shape of a nest. Place a fried egg in the dished-out center. Now you have an egg in your nest!

You could also add some kind of yummy, healthful meat to your hash browns if you'd like. Ideally, this would be served with fruit and yogurt on the side, or something along that line.

My kids loved bird nest eggs. They were getting sick of scrambled eggs, so this was something that tasted different, as well as having an imaginative name!

On a totally different note, my kids are not picky at all and they love veggies. They really do. The other day my warped children were begging their daddy for the squash he got at the restaurant. They eat things other kids won't touch.

I've asked myself why. I think it's due to a number of things.

1. I exclusively breastfeed for 6 months. No solids, not even rice cereal.

2. I don't use baby food. From day one on solids, my kids are fed mashed up real food, fruits and veggies at first. (I avoid high allergy foods, of course.) They never know that Gerber Pineapple Delight exists. Their first food experiences are real food.

3. I don't fix "kid food." When we eat chicken, the kids don't get chicken nuggets, when we have spaghetti I don't order them pizza.

4. They don't have to eat what I fix if they don't like it or aren't hungry, but I don't fix special foods for them if they choose not to eat what is on their plates.

5. They have grown some of their own food. They might not like squash if their only experience had been the store variety, but when they had ownership in growing it, it became special. They watched and waited for it to be ready to eat, and since they grew it, of course they thought it was good!

Check out more great ideas at Cheeseslave.

A Perfect Week

Well, so much for my goal of posting more regularly. Just as I was getting off to a good start, my computer went down and now I have sporadic access...Soon, I hope, things will be back to normal and I'll have pictures and regular posting again.

That said, last week was so very nearly perfect and full to the top with amazing blessings that I think words without pictures will be OK today. Here's a list of all the things that came our way...(and I'm probably forgetting some)...

Bags and bags of clothes and shoes in my size, many still with tags. Things I needed!

Lovely papercrafting gifts from my husband

A swing set for the kids--with a fort and slide

A see-saw for the kids (from a different person)

Information about where to obtain raw goat's milk locally, as well infor about local honey, organic apple cider vinegar, and real olive oil. WOOHOO!!!

Lunch with a friend at Copeland's.

A supper date with Billy to celebrate our 9th anniversary at Outback, redeeming a gift card from Christmas

Free babysitting for said date

A trailer full of compost for the garden we're planting

A library book sale...We got around 200 children's books for 75 cents and inch

And I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

I'm not so much thrilled with the physical gifts themselves (although I'm full of gratitude for them), but more amazed at the love of my heavenly Father Who pours His blessings out on me. What an amazing week.

One Who Has Friends Must Show Herself Friendly

You cannot receive affection unless you will also give it. You cannot find others to love you, unless you also will love them. Love is only to be obtained by giving love in return. It is important to cultivate a cheerful and obliging disposition. You cannot be happy without it.

I have sometimes heard a girl say, "I know that I am very unpopular at school." Now this is a plain confession that she is very disobliging and unamiable in her disposition.

If your companions do not love you, it is your own fault. They cannot help loving you if you will be kind and friendly.

~The Original McGuffey's Eclectic Third Reader, 1837