Natural Egg Dyes

This is all over Pinterest, but I'm so pleased with the results we had from our natural egg dying, that I want to jot down my notes for next year :)

I used the What's Cooking America website for ideas of materials to try dying with.  We tried spinach, carrot tops, beet peels, paprika, espresso, red wine, red onion skins, yellow onion skins and red cabbage.  Other possibilities include herbals teas (especially rooibos and hibiscus), other spices like cumin, saffron and turmeric and really, anything else you can think of that will turn cooking water a color when it's boiled.

Yellow onion skins, red onion skins, red cabbage, beet peelings, espresso and spinach

The day you decide to make the dye solutions, make sure you have LOTS of pots available and a couple of hours to spare.  I've only got 4 burners on my stove, so I could only boil 4 dye materials at once and had to wash pots out in between batches.

Also when you go to dye the eggs, unless you're going to do a bunch of eggs in a single color, have lots of little containers handy (1/2 pint jars were a great size for a single egg) so your kids can concoct special color combinations for each egg.

I hard-cooked the eggs first, made the dye solutions separately, and soaked the eggs overnight to color them.  If you make your dye solutions, then boil the eggs IN the dye solutions, the colors will turn out much darker and richer.  But then there's no mixing of colors for the kiddos.  And that's no fun.

We dyed 23 eggs in individual cups (you always lose one when you boil a batch, dontcha?) in a total of 3 quarts of dye solution (and actually had some left over).  Probably you'd use less dye solution to cover a bunch of eggs in one bowl than each egg individually ya know?  That's just to give you an idea of what kind of volume of dye solution to shoot for.

3 quarts total dye solutions

To make the dye solutions, I didn't do a lot of measuring.  For vegetal stuff, I put in enough to come about halfway up the sides of my pot (or as much as I had, in the case of the red onion skins and carrot tops), covered with water by about 1/2" and boiled.  For spices, I could only get about 1 tsp to dissolve per cup of water.

So here's my materials rundown:

• Peels, tops and tails from 5 beets (cooked the beets for dinner) --> boil 30 minutes --> 1 quart dye solution
• Skins from 4 yellow onions --> boil 30 minutes --> 1 quart dye solution
• Skins from 1 red onion plus tops and tails --> boil 30 minutes --> 1 pint dye solution
• 4 cups chopped red cabbage --> boil 30 minutes --> 1 pint dye solution (I could have gotten more of this dye with the same amount of vegetable just by using a bigger pot and more water)
• tops from 1 bunch carrots --> boil 30 minutes --> 1 1/2 pints dye solution
• 4 cups spinach leaves, finely chopped --> boil 1/2 the spinach for 30 minutes, add the remaining spinach and boil 30 more minutes --> 1 1/2 pints dye solution 
• 2 tsp paprika --> dissolve in 2 cups boiling water --> 1 pint dye solution
• leftovers from the coffeepot plus water to make 2 cups plus 1 tbsp espresso powder --> 1 pint dye solution
• don't finish the red wine bottle --> 1/2 cup or so dye solution

Boil, strain, put in a jar.  Fridge until needed.

Dying was a lot of fun.  The kids each got a large measuring cup and requested mixtures of colors.  We Grownups poured the colors into the measuring cups to order, then the kids put an egg in a container and poured the mixture over.  No spills, no broken eggs...it was well-nigh an Easter miracle LOL  We poured a bit of vinegar into each cup afterward (about 1 tsp per egg cup), mixed gently with a spoon and let them sit overnight in the fridge.

Mad Color Scientist at work

Getting the wet eggs out of the dye baths requires a bit of gentle handling.  Some of the colors want to rub off very easily while wet (spinach and red cabbage particularly).  Some were sturdier even while wet (beets and the onion skins).  This is where one of those wire egg dippers could come in handy.

Color rubbed off the wet egg where my fingers slipped on it

I put mine on a cooling rack under a ceiling fan for a few hours, turning them once *very* carefully.

Once the eggs are dry though, no more color rub-off.  They will dry more mottled and speckledy than they look while wet, but they're still beautiful!

Beet dye

As far as final color results go, don't be surprised by what you get.  The dye may not be the same color as the plant material (yellow dye from carrot tops, blue-purple dye from red cabbage), the color on the wet egg may not be the same as the dye color, and the dry finished color may be different as well.

The 3 reddish dyes all produced rather different final colors.  The very intense beet dye solution gave a pale mottled pink.  The red onion skin dye gave a deep orangey red.  The yellow onion skin dye gave a solid yellow.

The red cabbage dye was not surprisingly the most striking dye.  Definitely want more of that one next year.  Since red cabbage liquid will turn different colors with acids/bases, I'm curious to try adding baking soda to the dye bath in place of the vinegar (not in addition to!) and see what we get.

Red Cabbage dye

The red wine had an interesting effect...sediment fell out of the wine and crystallized on the eggs, leaving the eggs a surprising mixture of blue, green and wine-purple with sparkles.

Red wine dye

The spinach was fairly pale.  I might try a greener green next year...kale or collards maybe?  When we combined spinach and carrot top dyes, we got more vibrantly colored eggs than using either one alone...perhaps I'll do a mixed batch of spinach-carrot top as well.

Whatever else we think up to try, we will definitely be doing this again next year :)  Happy Easter! Pin It

Gumbo Z'herbes

I saw the original recipe in the May 2013 issue of Food & Wine magazine.  It's a meat 'n' greens stew, and takes advantage of all the tasty spring greens hitting the markets (or coming up in your garden) at this time of year.  As a stew, you can make it in advance very nicely...the first time I tried this recipe, I cooked it fully in the morning and put it in the crockpot to keep warm until we got home that night.  It also freezes beautifully.

Btw, "z'herbes" is shortening of "fines herbes"...a mix of fragrant, flavorful green herbs such as tarragon, rosemary, thyme, parsley, lavender and so on.  It's pronounced "zayrb", if you're a French linguistics nerd like me ;)

The OR calls for particular amounts of particular greens and particular amounts of particular cuts of pork...I think of it more as guidelines ;)  I LOVE that I can throw in that half a head of cabbage that's left after making cabbage 3 different ways for a regular side dish, the rest of the collard greens left over after making sausage-stuffed collards, the nubbin of romaine lettuce left over from 2 salads.  Use turnip greens, beet greens, mustard greens, chard, kale, spinach, collards, spring mix, romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce...about 3 lbs. of whatever is green in your fridge or garden.

And you can throw in handfuls of oddball greens like carrot tops (if you get carrots with the frondy greens still attached), second-year parsley (oddly, my parsley survived our winter and is coming back up and preparing to bolt as biennial plants do), watercress or arugula that you scavenge out of your early garden.

Clockwise from left: Ham hock, chopped hamsteak
with thyme, andouille

I'm also using up the last of our locally-raised hog.  When you buy a whole animal like that, you wind up with...well...weird bits.  Bacon ends.  Bony sirloin roasts.  Smoked hambones.  Tiny pork chops that are too little to serve by themselves.  I'm throwing all that stuff in this stew.  You can use fresh pork shoulder or loin, smoked pork, sausage links (andouille is traditional, and is the only thing I've bought special for this stew), ham hocks, hamsteak, chopped ham, neck bones...about 3 lbs. total.

When you chop up all those greens, it's a LOT.  You'll need an 8 quart or larger pot.  And then you only add 2 quarts of water to that pile.  It seems like too little.  It's not.  Trust me.  The greens cook down and give off their own liquid to make a flavorful broth that the stew is built on.  You do not want too much water here.  Here's how to tell if your tiny amount of water is boiling when you can't see it under a mess o' greens...put the pot lid on, turn the heat to high, and when there's condensation on the underside of the lid, you're good to go.

Lastly, the OR calls for file powder which I don't keep in my pantry.  File is a flavoring as well as thickening ingredient.  I add extra flour to compensate for the lack of file.  Use 2 tbsp flour instead of 4 tbsp and 1 1/2 tsp file powder if you want.  You can always add some beurre manie at the end if your stew seems too watery.

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Microwaved Beet Chips

These are delicious and cooking them won't heat up the house because it's done entirely in the microwave.  Woot-woot!  Beets are a sweet veg, and the flavor-texture result here is crunchy but melt-in-your-mouth, lightly sweet and lightly salty all at once.

The two in the back left are a leetle burned, but the rest are as they should be

The tricky part is that I can't tell you how long to nuke 'em.  It depends on how thinly you've sliced the beets, how powerful your microwave is, how many slices you're cooking at once.  I can tell you that these will burn between one second and the next if you're not careful though.  Start with a short time frame, then add time in 1 minute or 30 second intervals when you're getting close.  And watch them like a hawk with your finger on the STOP button in case you start to see or smell carbonization.  As usual, I screw up so you don't have to.

What I can tell you is what I did.  I have a "mid-size" microwave (don't know offhand how many watts).  I used 4 2" diameter beets and hand sliced them as thin as possible (pretty thin, but not totally regular or even).  I made the first batch with as many slices as I could fit in the microwave (about 3/4 of the slices).  You'll see the slices go from hard, to softened, to slightly curled to leathery to burned.  I started with 3 minutes.  They were just starting to look softened, so I added 3 minutes.  Then I added 1 more minute.  After 7 total minutes of cooking, they looked a little leathery but I thought they could use more time.  At 7 minutes 45 seconds, they were done but I didn't pull the emergency stop fast enough.  Fifteen more seconds gave me smoking briquettes and a reeky microwave. 

The second batch was much smaller, so at 3 minutes they were looking just leathery.  I gave them 30 more seconds, and stopped the microwave with 12 seconds left to go.  I spread the cooked chips on a paper towel and let them stand a few minutes.  They crisped up as they cooled. 

Four tennis ball sized beets will give you four small (about 1/3 cup) servings of chips.  Or one big afternoon snack.

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Berry Good Smoothie

"It smell delicious!" says my almost-3yo.  He has no clue there are beets in it...shhhh!!  This is my latest attempt to slip more vegetables into my kids' snacking routines.  You can use whatever combo of berries you wish, just be sure to get about 3-4 cups of berries total.

This recipe makes a lot of mix.  I needed 4 full ice cube trays to stash it all.  It also has a high mess/stain factor, and I'd use paper towels or a red dish cloth to mop up after yourself.  Be prepared.

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Easy-Easier-Easiest: Beets

Fresh beets are such different creatures from the pickled beets you find in salad bars.  And a nice seasonal break from more ordinary root vegetables like potatoes and yams.

As you work with them, they will hemorrhage burgundy juice and can turn your cutting board, knives and sink into a veritable operating theater, so be prepared.  Moisturize everything permeable that the beets will contact (wood cutting boards and hands, particularly) so the dark juice doesn't stain quite so badly.  Wear vinyl or latex gloves for extra staining protection.  Warn family members not to be alarmed.

Easiest: Again, though roasting or grilling veggies may not seem like the easiest method of preparation, the fact that the recipe calls for virtually no ingredients beyond the fresh veg itself and requires no babysitting (especially if preparing a main dish using the same cooking method) earns it a gold star in my book. 

Roasted Beets
Makes 4 servings

1 lb. fresh beets
1 tbsp olive oil or walnut oil
1/2 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp balsamic or raspberry vinegar (optional)

Peel and chop beets into 1/2" chunks.  Toss with olive, thyme, salt and pepper and spread on a sheet pan.  Bake at 400F for 40-45 minutes, or grill in a foil packet for 50-60 minutes.  Toss finished beets with vinegar, if desired.

Easier: The tricky part of making chips is getting the beets cut thinly enough.  Once you've got a good thin slice though, the next hardest part is not scarfing them all down before you serve them. 

Beet Chips
Makes 4 servings

1 lb. fresh beets
1 tbsp olive oil
salt to taste

Peel beets and slice them as thinly as possible, preferably using a mandoline slicer.  Alternately, cut the beets in half if needed and slice using a food processor fitted with a slicing blade.

Toss slices with oil.  Lay slices in a single layer on a sheet pan or two.  Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes (more or less depending on how thinly you sliced), turning once.  Toss finished chips with salt, if desired.

(Microwaved beet chips here)
Easy: Just delicious.  A nice change-up on potato salad, especially for cold wintry days.  If you don't have an assortment of red-orange root veggies readily available, just use more of whichever ones you do have.

Warm Root Vegetable Salad
Makes 4 servings

1 large beet root, peeled and diced into 1/2" cubes
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/2" slices
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced into 1/2" cubes
3 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp mustard

Bring a large pot of water to the boil.  Add beet cubes and boil 10 minutes.  Add carrots and boil 5 minutes.  Add sweet potato and boil 7 minutes.  Drain vegetables well.  Mix mayo and mustard in a bowl.  Toss vegetables in dressing to coat thoroughly and serve warm. Pin It

Roasted spring vegetable salad

I am a huge fan of warm or room temperature salads.  This is adapted from an aggravating recipe that I clipped out of the Washington Post a million years ago.  My adaptation involves many fewer steps and only uses vegetables that actually grow in the same season (the original included zucchini and asparagus...yeah, yeah, you CAN buy asparagus nearly year-round...doesn't mean you SHOULD). 

It really is helpful to the cook the beets separately so that they don't color the other vegetables, unless you like completely purple food.  That's today's edition of "I Screw Up So You Don't Have To".

Roasted vegetable salad
Makes 3-4 servings

Dressing:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp lemon pepper

Shake oil, vinegar and lemon pepper together.  Set aside.

Salad:
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
2 tbsp butter, divided
1 medium onion, sliced
2 medium carrots, sliced
1 lb. asparagus, tough ends trimmed and cut into 2" pieces
1 bunch beets, peeled and cut into 1/2" pieces
1 tsp lemon pepper, divided
1/2 tsp dillweed

4 cups shredded romaine lettuce
1/4 cup parmesan cheese or goat cheese

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter over medium-high heat.  Saute onions and carrots for 3 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add asparagus, 1/2 tsp lemon pepper and dill, and saute another 5 minutes, until vegetables are browned and soft.  Put vegetables into a bowl.

Heat 1 tbsp oil and 1 tbsp butter in the same skillet and lower heat to medium.  Add beets to the pan and season with 1/2 tsp lemon pepper.  Saute beets for 8 minutes, until soft.  Add beets to other vegetables. 

To serve, dress the lettuce with the vinaigrette, reserving some for serving at the table.  Put the vegetables in the dressed lettuce and sprinkle with cheese.  Pass extra dressing on the side. Pin It