List of Natural Dyes for Whatever ...

--First off, here's a list of ingredients you can use to color ..... Following that is the more specific 'how to' guide.

Some of these foods will stain or dye fabric, counter tops, floors, and so on pretty well. If you are even a fraction as messy as I am in the kitchen, I heartily recommend that you put on a large apron, and similarly outfit the kids, if they are helping. You might even want to put newspaper down on the kitchen counters. Speaking from experience, I can assure you that things like turmeric, raspberry juice, blueberries and beet juice stain like crazy.

Pale red -can be obtained with fresh beets, cranberries or raspberries. You may have already found out that the juice from these foods is extremely difficult to get out of clothing and babies bibs!

Orange- comes from yellow onion skins. I haven't experimented with carrots, but if you've ever tried to get Gerber's baby carrots out of a bib, you know how stubborn those stains can be. If you want to try for a good orange with carrots, I'd suggest putting carrots in a Cuisine and shredding them, then using them as the food source (see below). (I myself have used the yellow onion skins and the eggs came out light yellow..not orange?..Ana)

Light yellow - comes from orange or lemon peels, carrot tops (funny, huh...the tops LOOK green!), celery seed or ground cumin.

Yellow- can be obtained from ground turmeric. It is REALLY, determinedly yellow! Another one of those colors which stains easily.

Pale green - comes from spinach leaves.

Green-gold - comes from yellow Delicious apple PEELS

Blue- comes from canned blueberries or red cabbage leaves. You might try some fresh, frozen blueberries if you have any in your freezer like I do. Smush them first, then apply to the water bath (as detailed below).

Beige to brown - comes from strongly brewed coffee, or teas.

Now, on to the Specific Instructions:

Some people prefer to boil their eggs with the dye solution. I prefer to hard boil the eggs first. That way there is less chance of the solution's flavor seeping through the hot shell and tainting the flavor of the egg inside.

1) Eggs boil best when the water they are sitting in is brought to a full boil, then the heat underneath the pan turned completely OFF. Let the eggs sit in the quiet, hot water, covered, for one hour. By then the eggs and the water will be cool, and you'll have hard boiled eggs that didn't bang against each other, which tends to cause cracked shells.

2) Next put a tablespoon of apple cider or white vinegar into a sauce pan. Add two cups of water. Also add the ingredient you are using which will give you the color that you want. Bring this to a boil, then simmer (slightly below a boil) for 15 minutes to half an hour, covered - less water will evaporate that way.

3) Use a sieve to strain the food out of your water. Now you can add eggs to color them, or pour the colored liquid dye into a glass bowl. Let one or more eggs sit in the dye and turn them periodically so all sides get some color.

4) If you want a darker shade, you can leave the eggs in the dye, cover it, and put them in the refrigerator over night. I have not tried this, so I do not know whether coffee, for instance, would seep through an intact hard boiled egg shell. I suspect I would not, as long as there are no tiny, hair-line, hard to see cracks.

OPTIONS

Another trick is to save your onion skins for a few months, prior to Easter. You know: those dry outer layers which are not used for anything. There are light brown and red onion skins. GENTLY wrap the onion skins around a raw (!) egg. Take it slow and easy. Hold the onion skins in place with light rubber bands. If you purchase parsley, save the little rubber bands which are used to hold the stems together. Those little rubber bands are just about right for a project like this. Now boil the eggs (see above) as usual. When they cool and you unwrap them, you will have interesting colors and designs. When they are cooled and dry, you can even rub a little vegetable oil over the eggs to give them a shine!

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