When I was doing my egg dyeing experiments earlier this week it occurred to me that I should take notes on what I did because 1. someone might ask 2. I would forget 3. if it actually worked, I might want to try it again. "Three" hasn't really panned out but since "one" happened, here's what I can recall.
For all: hollow out eggs. Use a safety pin to make a small hole in the top and a slightly larger hole in the bottom of the egg and use your lung power to blow out the egg contents into a bowl (I have a photo of this--I will not share). Carefully dribble water into hollow egg, shake and blow out again to rinse. Then refill with water so the eggs won't float (nifty trick for ya). Make innards into frittata while you are dyeing shells.
Blueberries: about 1/4 cup (or less) frozen b-berries in about 2ish cups of water. Toss in a few tablespoons white vinegar and your eggs. Boil until your water is running out (about 30ish minutes). Let soak/cool overnight--or take out if you are happy with the color. Rinse. I took the egg out after the dye cooled and let the fabric go overnight.
Onion: Same as blueberry but use the papery, colored skin of a large yellow onion torn into small pieces.
Tea: Put 3 Lipton tea bags in a container. Add about 2 cups boiling water. I'm not sure if I added vinegar... (gently) toss in egg. Soak for about 30ish minutes
Coffee: Make yourself a cup of coffee using your french press. Enjoy. Refill with boiling water and some vinegar. Add egg and use plunger to keep submerged overnight. (I think fresh coffee grounds would work better but why waste? Part of my goal with this was to actually use/eat the food and not waste perfectly good food. This didn't seem possible with the tea and blueberries)
Beet leaves and stems: Don't bother
Beet bodies: Peel and thinly slice 2-3 beets. Add about 2 cups of water and your eggs. Boil until beets are tender. Remove beets with fork, cool, add to yummy beet salad. Watch out for pink pee. Using remaining red water, toss in some vinegar and continue to boil your egg for another 30 minutes and let it soak for a good while. The beets turn things an amazing shade of pink which, in my experience, promptly washes off.
Cajun seasoning: Take leftover seasoning packet from bean soup mix. Add boiling water and egg. Soak overnight. Be disappointed with result. (Martha suggests using turmeric but, again, I was trying to avoid wasting food--the gross Cajun seasoning packet was headed for the trash)
For the fabric, I tore a cast off white, flannel sheet into about 18 inch squares and added a square with each egg (except the coffee, no room in the press). The samples shown have been rinsed and dried but not really washed. I expect the color will be nearly gone after a washing--maybe I will investigate how to actually set dye. The fabric did help keep the eggs submerged through the boiling, filling the eggs with water helped but wasn't quite enough.
That's it.
On a separate note, we got a federal tax refund (woo hoo) and I hit submit on the e-file so that's all done. It's a good feeling to have the taxes all wrapped up for another year.
THANKS! I will have to give this a try...
Posted by: Kris H. | March 29, 2007 at 08:46 AM