I’m sitting outside on our balcony on a brown plastic couch (super classy) that we bought a few months ago, not realizing how thankful we would be for outdoor furniture. Looking out over a city that’s never looked so clear, sounded so quiet, and felt so serene. The smell of daal (lentils), spices, and rice is in the air because it’s almost 2:00pm, the time people each lunch where we live. Laundry is drying on peoples roofs and over balconies. Three girls just walked by laughing as they carried wood back to their house so they can cook over a fire.
Tomorrow is Easter. Yesterday, on Good Friday, we watched The Passion. It was so hard to watch — to look at the stripes on his back, the beating, the torture, the tears, the blood, the thorns, the crucifixion, and the weight of sin on his shoulders.
It truly was the best and the worst day in human history!
This year will definitely create new opportunities for us to celebrate Easter in ways we’ve never done before. To worship alone, with others online, or with your immediate family or roommates. In some ways, I feel like I’ve had a head start on thinking about holidays in ways I’ve never thought of them before due to overseas life. Of cherishing them, planning for them, and deciding how we want to celebrate as a family when customs and holidays are so different where we now live.
One of the things I wanted to try this year was to naturally dye Easter eggs.
So, my husband and I hopped on the motorcycle and drove down the street in search of a crate of eggs. The first guy we asked clearly had 2 crates of eggs but he said they were bad. I’m glad he was honest or we would have had some rotten Easter eggs on our hands. We found some at the next little shop that was complete with circles on the ground to make people keep the 6 feet/2 meter rule. Since we were the only customers I guess my husband figured, he didn’t actually have to stand in the circle–haha.
As far as the naturally dyed Easter eggs went, I got some ideas from the websites below but changed the measurements. I made up the two green ones on my own.
- Good Housekeeping – exact measurements and ideas
- The kitchn – onion dyed Easter eggs (which I didn’t do cause we are trying to conserve onions in quarantine)
- Design Mom– has a lot of great ideas about different color combinations and how to make naturally dyed eggs
The eggs changed from white to a range of beautiful pastels. I’m trying to be conservative with our veggies, vinegar, and pretty much everything due to lockdown so I’m sure I didn’t do everything the perfect way but oh well. It’s not about perfection anyway!
Here are the dyes I tried:
- YELLOW: Turmeric – 1 T turmeric + 1 cup hot water + 1 t vinegar
- BROWN: Coffee – 1 T instant coffee + 1 cup hot water
- PINK: Beet Juice – cut up 1 beet. boil in 1 cup water for 20 min. drain & add 1 t vinegar to juice.
- GREENISH: Green Tea Pomegranate Tea Bag- 1 tea bag (leave in cup) + 1 cup hot water. I liked this one, turned them kind of green with specks of purple on some
- LIGHT GREEN: Moringa Powder (similar to matcha powder) – 1 1/2 t moringa or more + 1 cup hot water.
And these were total failures …
Curry powder. this didn’t work for me.Spinach juice. this didn’t work for me.Paprika powder. this didn’t work for me.
I soaked them from anywhere between 10 minutes to 2 hours, checking them every so often to see how deep the color was.
And there’s the spring colored naturally dyed Easter eggs.