Edited to say: I've created a "cheat sheet" for our recipes as of 2010 here.
We've had a fun couple of days, making spring crafts and enjoying the company of good friends.
Saturday night we had a big "couples' night out" with 6 couples at a nice restaurant. What a treat! It's pretty rare that we go out on a date night, and to get to do it with a bunch of other parents was extra special. All the baby sitting stars had to align, and they did.
Then Sunday, the kids and I tried using natural dyes to color Easter eggs, after seeing the lovely ones Stephanie made with her family. In the past, we used regular food dye, so this was filled with mystery. What would work, and which ones wouldn't? What colors would we get?
We gathered our ingredients...salt, vinegar, red cabbage (to make blues), turmeric (to make yellows), plus spinach, grape juice, blueberries, and paprika. Oh yes, and eggs (we happened to have white and brown).
Then E (who's 5) helped out with the chopping:
She is using a couple of veggie choppers I found here (a Montessori supplier)--she gets such satisfaction out of helping mama chop things. Plus they make cool wavy shapes out of food.
We added our vinegar and salt per Martha Stewart (in general, 1/4 cup salt and 1/4 cup vinegar per 2 quarts of water per color). We tried a bunch of different things hoping to get a range of colors. I also used boiling water with all of them (although some of them, such as turmeric, might work fine--or better(?) with cold water).
Clockwise from lower left--paprika, turmeric, spinach, and red cabbage.
I rather like the element of surprise.
The bluer blues were just red cabbage; the green ones were NOT spinach (which was a flop), but rather various combinations of red cabbage and turmeric (dipping them in one color, then the other, for various periods of time). The orange-y ones are the paprika ones, which are much paler and blah than the photos suggest, I don't recommend paprika as a dye at all.
I would have loved some eggs in a blush pink, or lavender, but I'm still in search of a good natural dye that makes pink or red. Perhaps rhubarb?
