Playing with Natural Dyes for Eggs
Inspired by this post and using these instructions, I decided to dye eggs again. Last year I tried it with food coloring. I’ve always wanted to try using foods as dye – have you? I left all of these eggs overnight and it helped a ton – I checked them all after about an hour and there was hardly any difference(except in the batch with onion skins – they got some crazy saturation!) Also, the yellow was a bust. I tried carrots and then added orange skins for good measure and it didn’t work out well at all. Then I re-read the instructions and realized they said carrot tops, not carrots. The beets also didn’t turn out very saturated or red, but I tried to do them using the liquid from a can of beets and I think that was my biggest error. The dyes from the things I boiled and simmered on the stove did much better – the onions(used the whole onion and not just the peel and it still worked well) and red cabbage(my favorite!) and the carrots that were a bust. Grape juice also surprised me and worked out really well!
It was a project for me alone because of the spill potential and I like it that way – a lot. If you want to dye eggs with little kids, this might not be the best ever option. The kids were around while I worked on it all, but the multiple pots boiling and transferring liquid dye from pots to bowls and dropping eggs in just wasn’t working for me with the kids trying to actively help. I did consider doing it outside in the grass, but it felt like an unnecessary step when they were perfectly happy with their pretend eggs and pots and pans. It feels good to have little projects going by myself lately.
With the eggs? Deviled Egg Salad: Chop up hard boiled eggs. Add a teeny tiny amount of mayo(I think that’s the trick to keeping it not too gloppy!) – I think I used about 1 teaspoon, 1 teaspoon dijon mustard, salt and pepper and paprika. I put mine on a wrap with lettuce, sliced onions and crushed a few chips on top for some crunch, I have egg salad texture issues and this helps, just in case you’re in the same not-liking-egg-salad-texture boat, but have a lot of eggs to eat and some chips floating around!
{P.S. – When I went to find links for eggs, I stumbled across this post. Look how little they are! That was right around when I first started to work on getting my camera out of auto. Look at what a difference 2 years makes!}
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Steel Cut Oatmeal and Cranberry Cookies
I wanted to make oatmeal cookies the other day because I got a bug up my skirt about having cookies in a cookie jar, but I realized that I didn’t have any rolled oats. I have massive quantities of steel cut oats, though, and I wondered if I could actually use them in cookies. I figured them might result in pucks that would crack a tooth, but figured it was worth a google. Turns out, it’s no problem! I followed this recipe loosely and changed things a bit. The steel cut oats work no problem – they don’t need to be soaked or pre-cooked or anything complicated. The result is a cookie with a tiny bit of bite to it – just enough to seem almost nutty. I like little cookies, so I based the cooking time on cookies made with about 1 tablespoon of dough, if you like them bigger just extend the cookie time a bit.
Steel Cut Oat and Cranberry Cookies
6 Tablespoons butter(room temp)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup plain applesauce
1 large egg
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups steel cut oats
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup dried cranberries
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
- Beat the heck out of the butter in the mix. Then beat it some more. Then add in the sugars. Once the butter and sugar are blended, add the applesauce, egg and vanilla and beat a bunch more until it’s all creamy.
- In a separate bowl, mix the flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cranberries.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture a bit at a time until it’s all incorporated.
- Refrigerate the dough for a good chunk of time.
- Spoon dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheets in tablespoon-ish sized balls.
- Baked for 8-10 minutes until edges just start to look brown.
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An Easy Art Gallery
Nothing fancy, but having stuff all over the fridge makes me crazy. Molding, a few nails, some bulldog clips. We could paint them, but we’re lazy and just wanted to get it all up. Inspired by my friend Molly – she has them in her house with thumbtacks to move the art, etc. and I’ve liked them forever, so we got all crazy and made some of our own.
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Recently and Links
The links have been stacking up. As I read blog posts in my google reader, I star the posts I really like or want to share, then share every so often. So I guess I haven’t shared in a bit? Or maybe there have just been a lot of great posts lately?? Either way, I have a backlog so I’m sharing a ton today! I figured it was fitting to share all of the random photos I haven’t managed to blog while I was sharing random links. It’s that sort of all-over-the-place kind of day around here.
- 15 Spring Activities For Kids
-This English Muffin Bread is on my list – SOON.
- Learning to Say I’m Sorry – this really hit home with me on just the right day.
- Sometime I have to catch my breath because her writing is so real and honest.
- Saag Paneer – on the meal list in the next weekish. Can’t wait! (also, I finally got her cookbook after dreaming about it and hearing about it in about 5 million different places. It SO did not disappoint – if you’ve been considering, do it! I want to make every single recipe.)
- A Daily Uniform – I’m working on mine for the summer, are you? It really does simplify things.
- A great, easy tutorial on getting portraits of your kids inside(hint: have them face a window!)
- How to have awesome bangs. Mine have been side swept for a while and I’m considering jumping back into a legit bang…
- 5 Healthy Dips that Qualify as Lunch – YUM.
- These are too beautiful to not share.
- Family Album Design Tips – if you’ve been thinking about making a photo book with all of your family photos, check out this post first!
-It’s not really a secret that I’m head-over-heels in love with film at this point. 90% of what you see on this blog is film now. Heidi Murphy, though? She takes it to an entirely different level. She’s UNREAL. Seriously, her work is lovely beyond lovely – if you like beautiful food and lifestyle images, you need to start following her!
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At Three
He’s 3. THREE. It just seems so big – no more mistaking him for a baby. Full sentences and potty trained(mostly). Opinions and anger and standing up for himself. Thinking he’s so funny and not wanting to wear pants at all – only shorts. Doing everything all by himself. THREE.
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In the Morning
Early this week, I decided that I’d photograph our morning. It was springs and warm and sunny and I have been focusing so much on a million different things lately that I haven’t been taking as many normal, “slice of life” photos of the kids. My mornings are my time with the kids. We have our norms and they vary a bit, but generally we get up and get dressed, watch George, have breakfast, play a little then head out if we need to – to preschool, for errands, to play with friends. I try to dedicate more days to staying home entirely, but with necessary lunch and nap time in the afternoon followed often by me needing to get to work by 4pm, the mornings are our time of doing. So I wanted to document the normal a bit. I liked it so much that I continued it over a few days – playing outside, dyeing eggs, eating breakfast in the backyard and in bed, making art projects, visiting a neighbor, playing, visiting Grandpa, stopping for lunch groceries, getting some seeds planted, buying some lettuce plants. Nothing too crazy and that’s just how we like it!
(Yes, they’re Pop Tarts – don’t judge! They were a special treat and my kids didn’t even know what they were!)
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Easter Eggs and Blogging Thoughts
Yes, it’s early. But the big display of the box called my name and, honestly, I wanted to take some pretty egg pictures! The goofiest part? I got a tiny bit upset in the grocery store over the eggs – they’re all stamped! How am I supposed to take pretty pictures of eggs if they’re all stamped up? (One more reason to add to the list for buying eggs from a farm when we can!) It worked out, though. Just an FYI in case you’re a weirdo like me and have similar thoughts: the stamp almost totally fades with boiling and it was completely gone after we dyed the eggs. Also? Red wine vinegar works just fine in a pinch.
Completely Unrelated: I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot lately. While I’m thinking of all of the things I want to do with an “extra” 20ish+ hours in my week again when I’m not working, blogging is one of the only internet-related things that stays on the list. I really do enjoy it and I want to focus more on actually writing more in this space along with the photos. Somehow vocalizing goals just makes them feel legit, so I figured it might be good to talk about the thoughts. I want to be in this space more. Focused and planned and not taking forever for a post, but with a bit more beefy content again. I’m not planning anything like, “I will make X number of post with this, this and this topic being on each day.” But I have started a list a mile long of things that I haven’t had focused time to write about in a while that I’d love to talk about with all of you. So I thought I’d put it out there again – do you guys have any requests? Do you come here just to see some pics for a few minutes and not even read the words anyway? If so, I’d love to know that! Do you like the everyday rambling more than posts with legit content? Something I’ve talked about that you want to see more? I’m just curious. I know there are lots of you lurking out there and I would so, so love for you to say hi and especially for you to include a link to your own blog if you have one along with your comments!
