Google Searches that Brought Me Readers II: Getting Kids to Eat Eggs

February 1, 2008 5 Comments

For kid-friendly egg recipe scroll to the bottom of the post. 

I continue to be amazed by the search phrases that bring people to my blog. Just to reassure everyone, there’s no indication who made the search or where they were coming from, at least not that I know how to or care how to find.

Last time I wrote about the amusing search “mean poems to say to enemies” and obligingly put up a few. Since then not a day goes by when I don’t get three or four hits from people with similar searches. Some of them say “mean poems to say at guys” and some simply “mean poems.” I think I may safely guess the gender of most of these searches. It makes me think there might be an unrecognized market out there…hmm, book idea.

One search that nearly broke my heart was the phrase “need Orthodox friends.” I’m not sure if that was Christian or Jewish Orthodox but if anyone needs friends all I can say is that I too am largely reduced to looking for them on the internet and I sympathize with this need. Feeling alone in your faith is not the normal way it was meant to be. However my husband likes to quote “Athanasius against the world” to me, reminding me that those times do come upon the Lord’s people and probably are coming upon us.

Who knows what monstrous deception is overtaking our world…what with epistomological questions, and tens of thousands of splinter christianities, and funamentalism darkening the face of all religion. It may be that in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ many will find themselves alone in the coming centuries. But he will come again to judge the living and the dead. We wait for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Oh yes, and, if anyone wants an Orthodox internet friend, I can’t promise instant bff status but I would love to chat with you and see if we don’t hit it off. My prayers are with you, anonymous searcher.

 More practically, I recieved a hit from someone looking for ways to get a kid to eat eggs. Now people trying to get their kids to eat veggies or eat at all are another almost daily phenomonon. But to the question of eggs I do believe I have something to add.

 Kid’s tummies, if I remember my own, are far more sensitive than adult’s tummies. I was not able to eat eggs until I was in college. And as I remember I always liked the taste but as a child they were so rich that they made me ill.

My mom used to get eggs into us by making french toast. That is, you whip up a few eggs and milk, dip a slice of bread into the mixture, and fry it up in oil. Add syrup, honey, or powdered sugar and you are in business.

The problem is that it’s difficult to make good french toast. It takes a lot of time, it’s messy, and likely as not the bread is going to collapse under the weight of the eggs and come out dense and hard. And all that oil…yuck.

I’ve just perfected a whipped egg-and-bread pancake recipe that comes out exactly like a perfect french toast. And my Johnny loves it. If I have real maple syrup in the house I put a little on and tell him it’s “tree honey.” If not he eats it anyway. Now Johnny likes eggs so he is not a perfect test-case for those of you who’s kids can’t handle the stuff, like the child me. However it’s an idea to try. Here’s the recipe.

In a small cup, whip up an egg and a jug-capful of milk (about half a teaspoon?) Blend quite thoroughly with a fork.

Tear the crust off of a slice of bread. (The wonderful thing about this is that you can use whole-grain bread as it’s not going to be too dry or rough in the recipe.) Lightly shred the bred in small peices and drop them into the cup of egg and milk mixture. Stab the bread repeatedly with the tines of the fork, until it is throughly saturated with the eggs and milk.

Melt a small pat of butter in a frying pan. When the butter starts to bubble, turn the cup upside down and let the mixture plop in the center of the pan in a disc.

Now you can cook this mixture exactly like a pancake. Not too hot or fast, don’t scramble, test the edges. When it starts to puff up and the edges are becoming solid, turn it over with a spatula. Both sides should be brown and puffy and the center should be bouncy when you tap it lightly with a finger or spatula.

Of course we all know how to introduce new food to a toddler: show it to him, give it an exciting name that relates it to a food or object he’s already familiar with, let him see you cut or prepare it in some way, and eat a few bites in front of him as if you are tasting it to see if it’s any good and finding that it is. And then ask him if he wants to try it. If his mouth opens at all pop a little bit in to see if he cares for it.

He’ll let you know.

Parenting Blogging, Children, Christianity, Eating, Eggs, Food, Friends, Getting Kids to Eat, Google, Kids, Nutrition, Orthodoxy, Recipes, Search Engines, Searches, Toddlers