Happy Easter to you!
I was inspired by this lovely photo and rushed to dye some eggs in a crunchy way before the Easter bunny arrived. Aren’t these colors divine?
So I followed these directions…
How To Make Vegetable-Dyed Eggs
Keep in mind the effect of the dyes varies depending on how concentrated the dye is, what color egg you use, and how long the eggs are immersed in the dye. I used half a purple cabbage, shredded, to dye four eggs. Err on the side of more rather than less when creating your dye.
Hard boiled eggs at room temperature, or white and brown eggs, preferably not super-fresh
Purple cabbage (makes blue on white eggs, green on brown eggs)
Red onion skins (makes lavender or red)
Yellow onion skins (makes orange on white eggs, rusty red on brown eggs)
Ground turmeric (makes yellow)
Red Zinger tea bags (makes lavender)
Beets (makes pink on white eggs, maroon on brown eggs)
Oil (canola or olive)
White vinegar
Clean the eggs so there are no particles sticking to their shells.
To prepare a colored dye, first chop the cabbage, chip or peel away the dry skins from the onions, or shred the beets. In a stainless steel saucepan, boil enough water to generously cover the number of eggs you’ll be dyeing. Add the dye matter and bring to a boil, turn heat down to low and simmer, covered, for 15-30 minutes. Dye is ready when it reaches a hue a few shades darker than you want for your egg. Examine a sample in a white dish. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature (I put the pot on my fire escape and it cooled off in about 20 minutes).
Pour mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into another stainless saucepan, or into a bowl then back into the original pan if that’s all you have. Stir in the vinegar. For the dyeing, it’s best to use a pan with a flat bottom, like a Dutch oven. Arrange the room-temperature eggs in the pan in one layer and carefully pour the cooled dye over them.
Place in refrigerator until desired color is reached. Massage in a little oil to each, then polish with a paper towel. Keep in refrigerator until time to eat (or hide.)
And of course I tweaked these directions and used what natural things I had around – some green tea, some other fruity herbal tea, a bit of raspberry juice and some turmeric. Looks pretty good so far, right?
Well, here they are. I’m a bit disappointed because they don’t quite look like the inspirational photo, but they’re growing on me. It’s just that I’m not really a pastel kind of a girl. Sigh. There’s always Photoshop!
So for a bit of fun after a bit of disappointment, I decided to start a new Easter tradition. I had the ingredients already, but I just hadn’t quite gotten around to making them. But I needed a good chuckle and I guess I needed a few chemicals too after the crunchy egg dyeing experiment sooooo..
Voila! An orange squirrel on a stick! How’s that for a new Easter tradition?
So here’s the bribe you’ve been waiting for, dear readers. Nothing like a bribe on Easter, eh? The first six people to comment on this post AND let me know what topics you’d like me to explore in future blog posts… that’s right, you guessed it! I’ll send you an orange squirrel on a stick. Note: you WILL be chastised if you ask me what the ingredients are. This is an orange squirrel on a stick; this is not a health food.
Have a wonderful Easter or fun pagan ritual, whatever you choose. Enjoy!
Score one orange squirrel for me! Believe it or not, Jim had some beets for supper and I SAVED THE JUICE to dye eggs tomorrow! I have brown eggs, so I’ll look forward to some maroon egg-eating. (Although I had expected red until I read your blog!
Idea for future posting: Write about SPRING PEEPERS! You could post next to anything about them because everyone loves a spring peeper (the frog-variety, not the pervert variety). What do they look like? And what does the weather have to be to make them peep? Just a thought. I happened to hear them on the tart trail the other day and it got the wheels turning.
My Easter tradition: The past few years we’ve hiked or snow-shoed a mountain. Not going to happen here. Perhaps we could do the dunes? We’ll see. Jim works tomorrow, so we’ll have to postpone it regardless. At the very least, I’m going to make a German Chocolate Cake tomorrow to bring to a friend’s house for dinner. That could be back-up tradition. Hike or eat cake. Hmm. Tough choice.
We have a winner!
Spring peepers – yes! We were JUST talking about them yesterday and wondering when we would hear them. We were thinking it was maybe too dry, but now that you’ve heard them, well, let the peepin’ good times begin!
Happy Easter to you and enjoy the beet dyeing – yahoo for you AND lucky Ava.
I win! Those squirrels are awesome. Your eggs look great too.
Speaking of squirrels. Joe found a dead one in our yard last Sunday. Gross. He threw it in our trash can to decompose until trash pick up on Friday. Nasty. What if the little guy had stayed there until Easter and then had risen from the dead? That would be quite a story, instead I just have a rancid trash can and have to hold my breath when I take out the trash. Luckily we compost and recycle most of our trash.
I would like to read more about orange things. And Wren. And Wren wearing orange.
Orange squirrels??? I don’t care what the ingredients are, that’s brilliant! I want to hear about TC in the summer and what to do on our next trip back! Aaron’s a few years removed from TC, so he’s useless! Tell us, tell us! We all know TC is fab in the summer, but what should we do besides the typical stuff?
E-mail me your mailing address, Steph!
i love your blog – so fun and bright. I think anything you write about it interesting…. i love all the “crafty” topics. anything about your aspirations for future craft projects and more gardening news…. and of course, more wren in stripes. 🙂
i love the eggs, but i do understand (not being a pastel person, either) – congrats on exploring it nonethless. i, like doreen, love the blog and find myself captivated by your wonderful prose.
i must admit a particular ‘attachment’ to the confessions – they, in many cases, feel like thoughts plucked from my brain and make me feel much more normal (*sigh*).
keep ’em coming, and best of all, write from the heart……hidden spots, hikes/bikes and runs we can all celebrate with you, and (please!) continued updates from your garden.
happy easter!!!
E-mail me your mailing address!
You don’t have a fire escape.
Great ideas! So much better than those disappointing Paas kits. Once you get all the dye ready, kids could then do the actual dying process, eh? Maybe they’d like to help chop cabbage, shred beets and peel onions. Now my question – how much vinegar, and what prevents the dye from rubbing off on your hands, etc.? Love your blogs!
You could sample dying fabric the same way – oh, wait a minue, I guess that’s already been done. Isn’t that tie-dying?
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(just call it orange inspiration)
a sunny hump-day made me remember another thing i hope you keep up (via blog or FB). the ‘friday finds’ from your local garage sale ads. those always made me giggle (and wistful that there aren’t garage sales in my neck of the woods). once the season starts up again, i hope you keep us posted! 😉 happy weds!
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