Easter Eggs

Much to my shock and dismay, I have a lot of friends that have never dyed Easter eggs before and have no clue how to do it. So, if you still have not dyed any eggs, never fear. I have an easy way you can accomplish this without having to shell (get it? shell? egg-shell? nevermind...) out dough on a dyeing kit.

First step:
Hard boil your eggs. I take a dozen (or however many you want to dye) eggs and place them in a large pot and cover with cold water (enough to cover about one inch over). Bring them to a boil. Once you have a nice boil, cover the pot and remove from heat. Let the eggs sit for 15 minutes. Once the 15 minutes are up, drain off some of the hot water and run some cold water over the eggs. Remove from the pot and let cool.

Now onto the dye:
I didn't buy an Easter egg dye kit this year because I figured it'd be cheaper to just buy food coloring. Most of you will probably already have all of this in your pantry. What you'll need are:

Containers for your eggs
1 cup of hot water for each container
1 teaspoon of vinegar for each container
Food coloring of your choice. I used a combo of the Regular Colors and the Neon colors. On the back of the packages, if gives you a handy guide on how many drops to use.

Drop an egg into the dye and let it sit until it reaches the desired color.

Now onto the fun stuff.


For this egg, I took a sheet of vinyl sticker paper (you can get it at any craft store) and a craft puncher in the shape of an airplane. Once the dye dries, you peel of the sticker and voila! An airplane! I also used flower punchers but they didn't turn out as well as this airplane.


For these, I took a vinyl Alphabet sticker and soaked it in yellow. Then I took it out, let it dry and adhered another letter and soaked it in blue. Once the egg totally dried, I took a fine-tip Sharpie and wrote the rest of our names on the egg. It's a PB&J set!

Herbed-Baked Eggs

Hello all! Remember me?

Anyone?

I'm finally back and fully recovered! Also, I have a list of posts for you this week! To kick off the week, I bring you a breakfast recipe. (Although, I had it for dinner Friday night.)

I'm really not a big egg lover. I'll eat them scrambled or in an omelet and that's really about it. I think it's because runny yolks make me want to gag. I always picture my dad using toast to get up all the yolk that's run out of the eggs. Gag me with a spoon. However, for the sake of the blog, I figured I'd plow through and give this a shot.

Well, I still don't like runny yolks, however, I would make this dish again. I only used two eggs in each gratin dish (mainly because that's all the eggs I had on hand), but next time I might try and do just egg whites to see what comes out. It was very easy to put together and if you're making this for breakfast, you can get the herb mixture prepared the night before so it will go even quicker in the morning.

In other news, you may or may not have noticed a new feature here at From My Teeny Tiny Kitchen...Printable versions!! I've gotten a few requests from different people in the last week to include an easy way to print recipes. So below all recipes, there will be a link for you to click and print from there. I'm working on updating all past recipes so eventually they will all have their own link. Please let me know if any do not work properly and I will get them fixed.

Herbed-Baked Eggs
Source: Ina Garten

Ingredients
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan
6 extra-large eggs
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Toasted French bread or brioche, for serving

Directions
Preheat the broiler for 5 minutes and place the oven rack 6 inches below the heat.

Combine the garlic, thyme, rosemary, parsley, and Parmesan and set aside. Carefully crack 3 eggs into each of 2 small bowls or teacups (you won't be baking them in these) without breaking the yolks. (It's very important to have all the eggs ready to go before you start cooking.)

Place 2 individual gratin dishes on a baking sheet. Place 1 tablespoon of cream and 1/2 tablespoon of butter in each dish and place under the broiler for about 3 minutes, until hot and bubbly. Quickly, but carefully, pour 3 eggs into each gratin dish and sprinkle evenly with the herb mixture, then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Place back under the broiler for 5 to 6 minutes, until the whites of the eggs are almost cooked. (Rotate the baking sheet once if they aren't cooking evenly.) The eggs will continue to cook after you take them out of the oven. Allow to set for 60 seconds and serve hot with toasted bread.

Printable version