Eggs in a Nest

Tonight's dinner was an inspiration. Just came to me as I was preparing lunch. Simple, nutritious, yummy, fun (at least for the 5 year old, who knows what a nest it).

Cooked some rice (about 2 cups raw). Steamed some shredded cabbage and a handful of matchstick carrots over the rice in the rice cooler. Mashed up half a can of chick peas with some yellow food coloring (I would've used turmeric, but I was out) and a dash of cumin and garlic powder.

When cooked, make a nest of cabbage and carrots on each plate. Run hands under cold water (prevents sticking and lets you hold hotter rice -- work fast) and flatten out some rice in your palm, place a small dollop of yellow chickpea mash in the center, add some more rice on top and mold around chickpea "yolk" to shape an egg. (The smaller an egg you can make, the better, as they tend more to fall apart the larger they get.) Place eggs in nests.

Went over big. I'm pretty proud of this one.

UPDATE: For midnight snack (which she eats at 9 p.m.), the 5-year-old wanted some kind of dessert. I offered to do something with the bananas we'd just bought, intending to simply cut them into a fun pattern. Gripped suddenly by new inspiration, I threw together some cornmeal mush (we love cornmeal mush, though I make it with milk and throw in an egg at the end, so there's actual nutrition), with half a banana mashed into the milk, and extra sugar. Sliced the other half banana on top of it and voila, banana pudding. It was appreciated. Man, I gotta write a book...