I receive occasional emails from Mothering magazine (great magazine for all-natural mamas). This week they had something I thought I should share.
Ways to naturally dye Easter eggs.
Here's the article for your enjoyment:
By Rhiannon Hull, editor of ecomama.sqarespace.com, and greenhelps.org
It's almost time to spend a colorful afternoon with your kids creating beautiful Easter eggs. Did you consider that you could avoid unnatural food coloring and color your eggs by using natural ingredients, such as beets and tea? Some of the materials I will list, such as lemon peels, must be boiled first, and others, such as berry juice, do not. Coloring eggs naturally isn't much harder than using an Easter egg coloring kit, and you can teach your kids the wonders that food can create besides just eating it.
Here is a list of natural dyes organized by color:
Green: Boiled spinach leaves
Blue: Frozen or canned blueberries and red cabbage leaves, both boiled
Purple: Hibiscus tea, grape juice (organic), and skins from boiled red onions
Red: Fresh beets boiled, red wine, raspberries, strawberries, or cranberries boiled, cranberry juice, boiled red onion skins, wine
Yellow: Boiled lemon peels, ground cumin or turmeric boiled, boiled carrots, boiled orange, or lemon peels
Orange: Orange juice, paprika, or boiled yellow onion skins
Brown: Strong coffee, any black tea
Steps to dye your Easter eggs:
For ingredients that need boiling:
1. Place your eggs in a pot of water, and bring to a boil. Turn heat off and cover for 15 minutes.
2. Place eggs in cold water to cool.
3. Place whatever ingredient you are choosing to work with (about two cups) in the saucepan and cover with water by one inch, and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat and let simmer until the desired color is reached.
5. Strain the concoction so that you catch the colored water in a bowl, and add three teaspoons of vinegar for each cup of liquid.
6. Dye your eggs just as you would with conventional dyes.
do you think the eggs will end up tasting like coffee, wine, spinach, tumeric etc?
ReplyDeleteI would think that as long as the shells are intact the dye won't affect the egg itself.
ReplyDelete