The Super Mom Attack: Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs

Once in awhile (okay, really more often than I'd care to admit), I get ideas.

Brilliant ideas.*

*Note: The above should be read with a heavy dose of sarcasm to ensure full appreciation of what is toe follow. Rolling your eyes and adding a British accent (after all, aren't we all wannabe Brits this week anyway?) would probably help.

It came after reading my favorite "Crunchy Mom" blog, where she extolled the virtues of naturally dyed eggs. Think of it! No artificial dyes seeping into your egg and possibly giving your kids ADHD. No packages. No chemicals. No fuss.

I was in heaven. No artificial anything? Wonderful! As it is, artificial sweeteners are banned from our house and the word "artificial" is looked at with little tolerance - mostly because I have no willpower once something enters my house, so if I keep it out, everyone is happy. And because my girls have enough of their lives to make all the food choices they want - my goal is to keep them healthy enough to have that option.

Of course, I stopped reading at this point. I missed the rather large caveat at the bottom, the inevitable, "BUT WAIT!".

Instead, I decided to try it out. After all, I was working from home the Friday before Easter - the perfect time to try out egg dying au naturale during my lunch hour. Woodstock thought I was quite possibly the coolest mom ever. That was enough for me.

She helped me fetch the necessary ingredients:
Turmeric
Paprika
Purple cabbage
Blackberries
Spinach
Carrots
Vinegar
Boiled eggs

And multiple pots. At this point I should have realized just what I was in for - anything that requires MULTIPLE pots and all four burners of one's stove should be examined a little more closely to see what the fine print had to point out.

Because fine print is not for Super Moms, I forged bravely ahead. I quizzed Woodstock on what colors the various edibles would produce, and she put them in little bowls. I measured water. She dumped crushed veggies, spices, and such. I added vinegar while she held her nose and asked, "Will it make the eggs stinky?!" We waited for the water to boil and the color to leach out into the water. We poured it over white eggs nestled in coffee mugs. This should have been another warning flag - it required the use of every coffee mug in the house. 12 eggs. 12 coffee mugs, which means I even had to use the ugly golfing mug I got as a white elephant gift and have been meaning to part with (for once, it's good thing I procrastinated!).

And then ... we waited. And waited. And waited. It wasn't so hard for me. At this point, my lunch hour (and then some) was over, and I was beginning to feel the hairs on the back of my neck raise in alarm given the color of my (now formerly) white counter top (yes, white, with gold speckles - an homage to the 1970s), along with the amount of dirty dishes now piled in the sink. Pots. Knives, cutting boards. Little bowls. And soon ... 12 coffee mugs, whenever the eggs decided they were done soaking.

Woodstock, however, being only 3 1/2, was not so into waiting. Every 2 minutes like clockwork she asked to see the eggs. After a couple of hours, she forgot and eventually focused her energies on something else.

Dinner rolled around, and I re-entered the kitchen. Inwardly I groaned. Not even Mr. Clean's fabulous magic eraser (reserved for special occasions) could remove the turmeric-blackberry-paprika infused stains on the counters.

The moment of truth had arrived. One by one I pulled out the eggs and dried them with a kitchen towel (which also now bears the rather psychadelic hue of turmeric-blackberry-paprika). As it turns out, carrots make lousy dye. As does Spinach. Probably because it was the last one, and I forgot and boiled all the water out of the pan and had to add new - all of the green likely evaporated into thin air with the original water. Bad mom. Although purple cabbage was a much-touted source of natural blue dye - and the water was a lovely blue violet color, the egg was ... white. Maybe a touch whiter due to a slight tinge of blue. But really not noticeable to Super Mom and her offspring.

But the other 9 eggs? Beautiful pale Easter egg colors - they looked like Robin's eggs and other naturally occurring colored eggs. A bit speckled. A bit uneven in their color. But beautiful.

Woodstock gasped, "Oh mom, they are soooooo beee-uuuuu-ti-ful!" Pebbles said, "Egg!" repeatedly, as if we were mid-way through a vocabulary lesson. I began to wonder what possessed me to dye 12 eggs when 1/3 of the people in the room (ahem, me) didn't even like eggs and the remaining 2/3 had the collective appetite of a sparrow.

As it turns out, 5 days later, my counters are still stained. I had to wash the mugs twice. (It turns out natural dyes dye everything else right along with the eggs). I still have 6 sad hard boiled eggs in pretty colors in my fridge, taunting me. "Do not waste us," they chant, "Even if it means giving in, salting the heck out of us, and eating us just so you don't waste food." Because those eggs know I'd rather choke them down than throw them away. I still am exhausted thinking about the sheer amount of chopping, measuring and boiling required to eeek out those pretty pale colors.

But Woodstock is terribly proud of her beee-uuuuu-ti-ful Easter eggs. And while naturally dyed eggs are a PAIN IN THE NECK, it required close supervision, which meant spending a solid 90 minutes sandwiched between the two girls standing on stools in my one-and-a-half-bum kitchen. Some day, while Woodstock will likely not care about how hard I worked to save her from the evils of Red Dye #3 and Yellow Dye #6, maybe she will remember the time she and I spent in the kitchen conducting her very first science experiment, and remember how much her mom loved to spend time with her. That will probably make staring at turmeric-blackberry-paprika stained counter tops for the next six months worth it.

Until next holiday, when Super Mom attacks once again.