for when you run out of food coloring... {Easter eggs au naturel}

Last year we dyed our Easter eggs this way, having run out of food coloring... they came out so well, my son asked if we could do those "onion-eggs" again this year!  Click here and here for more recipes and ideas...

Easter Eggs Au Naturel

1. First, fill a mesh bag with onion skins. 

(These sprouting beauties had been living under our kitchen sink the whole 7 months we were away in New Zealand last year having our daughter!)

2. Put the bag in a stainless steel pot with 4-5 inches of water, and add several tablespoons of vinegar (a blog I read said vinegar helps the dye take to the eggs).  

3. Bring the water to a boil and simmer the whole concoction for about 20 minutes, until the water turns bright red.

4, While the skins are boiling, go outside with your kids and collect several different kinds of interesting leaves.  

5. Cut lengths from an old pair of stockings, and tie a knot at one end of each length.  

6. Let your kids choose a leaf, and lay it flat on an egg (white eggs work better than brown).  Here's the only tricky part: Holding the leaf in place with your fingers, stretch the stocking carefully over both egg and leaf, and tie a second knot at the other end.

7. Put all the eggs in the bottom of the pot with the red water and cook everything together for another 15-20 minutes. 

When we fished our eggs out, they looked like this:

And when we snipped the stockings and peeled off the soggy leaves, 

they looked like this:

I read that you can use things like beets and ground turmeric to make even more colors!  

P.S. My favorite part is that instead of cooking eggs first and then spending hours dipping them in bowls of food-coloring water with spoons, you just throw everything in a pot together and boil it up, and presto - pretty eggs!