We do love to dye boiled eggs for Easter. Last week we tried these directions for dyeing with natural ingredients. We used purple grape juice, paprika, and green tea. I forgot we had spinach to use for green, or I would have tried that, too.
The green tea gave the most even color of the three. The grape juice-dyed eggs came out bumpy and speckled, as though the acid in the juice ate away some of the shell. Which leads us to our next project... Disappearing egg shells.
We're planning to do this Wednesday, so I'll let you know how it goes. If you decide to try it, leave me a comment!
I love hard-cooked eggs with a little pile of salt and fresh-ground black pepper, but I also love egg salad, chicken or tuna salads with hard-cooked eggs, and deviled eggs. My kids love hard-cooked eggs, too. And, even if you can't find a way to feed the PEOPLE with the eggs, won't your chickens eat cooked eggs? (I don't keep chickens, though I wish I could, but I do remember, back when I thought I might be able to have some chickens, that they occasionally like to eat some eggs themselves.)
ReplyDeleteD'oh. I can't believe I forgot another option: do you live close to a shelter to which you can donate the eggs? Preferably a people shelter, where people can enjoy fresh local hard-cooked eggs, but I wonder if an animal rescue group or shelter might also take donated eggs to feed the dogs and possibly the cats?
ReplyDeleteI was gonna say donate too. One of the major supper locations like the Salvation Army or a church kitchen may take them. Good proteins are often hard for them to get donated.
ReplyDeleteI don't like hard-boiled eggs myself. (Cooked yolks, ugh!)
ReplyDeleteBut if I have the urge to dye, I use them up by grating them over salads and pastas with a cheese grater...
If I could boil eggs without screwing them up, we'd eat them a lot more often. My kids LOVE them.
ReplyDeleteYour eggs are lovely. The yellow really came out well!
Oh my, I never heard of natural dye from a grape juice before but it sure makes sense! When my husband mows the lawn, I tip toe outside and my toes turn green :D it's a sight to see!! I can't wait to read about the disappearing egg shells :o)
ReplyDeleteI once read you can use onions skin (the dry outer part) to dye eggs...I think you have to boil them together and use a large amount of skin...but there certainly isn't anything else to do with them!!
ReplyDeletedonating to a shelter is a wonderful idea, they could make egg salad sandwhiches with them which would be a nice change to the pbaj's they usually hand out .
ReplyDeletethe grape dyed eggs have a atural look to them. like a birds egg they look really cool.
ooh- i want to do the egg experiment! so fun!
ReplyDeletei was thinking to try blueberry juice and turmeric to make green...but hello! green tea looks great on eggs!
last thing- a completely wasteful and non- helpful thing you can do with your eggs is play egg baseball...lots of fun!
Wow! You all are so helpful! I'm feeling guilty for not being more concerned about the hungry egg-lovers out there. And here I was, going to waste these eggs by turning them into a science experiment.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, I don't think our local shelter is going to be interested in half a dozen week-old boiled eggs. Unfortunately(!), they have health standards to meet.
But, Mandi, I'm loving the egg baseball idea!! My boys would totally go for that!
So happy I "found" your blog (pretty sure I hopped over from Martha's)...
ReplyDeleteanyway....the Crunchy Christian pulled me in as I am a crunchy hippie Jesus Freak who homeschools too!
I'll def. be popping in again.....
xox
*~Michelle~*
We did red cabbage, turmeric and beets. They turned out ok. We're using ours for egg salad and to slice on salad greens.
ReplyDeleteI love the speckled ones!!
ReplyDeleteWe're doing natural dyes next year. Yay!
:)