Easter Egg Dye
When we celebrate Easter, I am reminded of our many blessings of having family and friends close enough to enjoy this day with us. And I smile when I remember Easters past when I was a child, and Mom used to color eggs naturally with onion skins, turmeric, red cabbage and other vegetable scraps. The eggs are so beautiful and softly colored.
I keep that tradition alive in my own home, and it’s especially meaningful this year when my nephew, Aaron, will be celebrating this holiday in Kuwait.
He will be in our thoughts and prayers. Coloring eggs naturally is a great way to teach kids to be good stewards of their environment. Every part of the egg is used, even the shells. Grind them up and scatter about an inch deep into the soil around your houseplants and gardens. The shells have much-needed natural nutrients!
Now there’s no real “recipe”, but here’s how I do it, the same way my Mom, Mary Nader, and her Mom did it.
In a saucepan, place as many papery outer skins of yellow and/or red onions that you have. Cover with an inch of water. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook until onion skins have colored the water, about 10 minutes.
Use this same method for red cabbage (just chunk it up), beets, spinach, etc. Even coffee grounds can be used.
Strain and add a teaspoon of vinegar to the dye. This sets the dye.
To make turmeric colored eggs, place two tablespoons of turmeric in 1-1/2 cups water. Stir and place in pan. Cook until it starts to boil. Remove, let cool but don’t strain. Add a teaspoon or so of vinegar. Place eggs in dye, stirring to coat. When you remove the eggs, gently wipe off the turmeric with a soft cloth or run them very quickly under running water.
Now put your boiled eggs in. Depending upon how long they sit in the dye, the eggs made with yellow onion skins will be pale yellow to dark amber. Red onion skins produce eggs that are brick/brown red. Red cabbage is the winner: it makes beautiful teal blue eggs!
Turmeric makes the eggs more brilliantly yellow than the marigolds my dad, Charlie Nader, used to plant in our tiny front lawn.
I hope you enjoy this old-fashioned heirloom way of coloring eggs.
©2006-2010 Rita Heikenfeld and AboutEating.com
