Naturally Dyed Eggs
Janelle Sorensen,
Healthy Child Healthy World:
I'm not sure who the marketing whiz is who came up with this, but PAAS has new themed egg dying kits this year including pirates and princesses. If you see the connection, please let me know because I'm clueless as to how these themes make any sense whatsoever.
Bizarre marketing aside, egg-dying is a really fun family activity - regardless of your religious affiliation. This year, try going au naturale using this fantastic recipe from Michelle Stern of What's Cooking with Kids:
Ingredients
1 dozen hard boiled white eggs
White vinegar
Water
Colorful ingredients (described below)
Stickers and rubber bands to make patterns on the egg
Instructions
1. Hard boil 1 dozen eggs and allow them to cool in the refrigerator.
2. Decide how many colors you want to make and take out the appropriate number of pots.
3. To each pot, add: 1 quart of water and 2 tablespoons white vinegar
4. Add the following ingredients to each pot:
Red: 2 cups Cranberry juice and 8 cups red onion peels (Your grocer will gladly give you their discarded peels.)
Red-Orange: 3-4 tablespoons chili powder
Mahogany: 10-12 cups brown onion skins (Your grocer will gladly give you their discarded peels.)
Yellow: 3-4 tablespoons tumeric
Blue: ½-¾ head chopped red cabbage
5. Bring each of the pots to a boil. Reduce the heat and allow them to simmer for 30 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, prepare your eggs by wrapping them in rubber bands or putting on stickers (which will leave behind white stripes or patterns).
7. Pour the dyes through a strainer and return them to the pot or a clean bowl.
8. Gently lower some of the hard boiled eggs into each of the hot dyes.
9. The color will deepen the longer they stay in the dye, but an hour should do the trick. If you wish to keep them submerged for longer, you should pour the dyes into containers that fit into your refrigerator, and let the eggs soak in there.
10. When you are satisfied with the color saturation on the eggs, remove them from the liquid and dry them.
11. Take off the rubber bands and stickers and enjoy!
Learn how doing this can even improve your child's eating habits by reading the rest of Michelle's post!
Also, be sure to check out the rest of her website (so much great info for eating healthy and cooking with kids), as well as her new book! (I'll be sharing my experience making some of the recipes with my kids in the very near future…)
Do you dye eggs? Any tips to share?
P.S. If you're concerned about risky artificial food dyes, please sign our petition telling Kraft to stop using them! They have in other countries due to consumer pressure, now it's our turn to make them clean up their colors.
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