Easter Eggs "Au Naturel"

It's a bit late but I wanted to make sure to share our Easter Egg "Au Naturel" experience. Maybe it can be inspiration for next year's Easter plans. This is the second year that we've chosen to color eggs using things commonly found at home and for the most part they turned out great. Here's what I used for each color:

Yellow = turmeric

Brown = onion peels

Blue Swirls = red cabbage

Lavender = 100% grape juice

Tan = apple/raspberry juice and paprika

I forgot until after I had already hard boiled a dozen that dying them this way requires boiling them in their dyes so some of them were twice boiled. Oops. But they didn't taste terrible. In fact nobody even seemed to notice a difference Easter morning or maybe they were just being really nice, wonderful people.

Being the very impulsive person that I am there was no measuring. I just filled some saucepans with water and the ingredients above, added a few spoonfuls of vinegar and voila! If you plan to do this next year beware of the stinkyness. You might want to spare your family and wait until you have the house to yourself for an hour or two. And it's not the best system to involve children in since it centers around a stove top of simmering dyes. I did mine after the kids were in bed.

Also, while I was very pleased with the turmeric and onion peels (although I must admit buying brown eggs would be much easier) I won't try paprika again since it didn't dissolve but left a gritty feel to the eggshells. And the cabbage and juice eggs should have soaked in the fridge overnight for more intense color but I am far too impatient for that.

After they had cooled I brushed them in vegetable oil to make them shiny. If the eggs are room temperature the oil isn't greasy at all but when they are cold the oil makes them slippery so be careful when handling them.

I'm no Martha Stewart but I do love how "organic" they look and they were a nice conversation piece on Easter. The process is worth it if you're adventurous in the kitchen and willing to experiment. Try this with anything that has a rich color or that stains your hands when working with it like berries or spinach.

Next year my daughter will be old enough to dye eggs so we'll probably head back to the "good old fashioned" way that I remember from my childhood featuring colored fizzy tablets and wax crayons.