Zero Waste Blueberry Dyed Eggs

This is one of those posts that really annoy me.... 1) because what help is this the day before Easter morning and 2) it will be long forgotten for Easter next year. However, since we celebrate Easter all the way until Pentecost, you can still try this out this year, even if you don't do it tomorrow morning! 

But my excuse is that I didn't know well enough in advance so here is is Saturday morning and I am breaking my blogging fast to share this with anyone who dyes eggs last minute like I do. I try to keep it as far away from Lent/close to Easter as possible, so I settled on today. I have thought throughout the last year about dyeing eggs naturally. I don't generally like food coloring (which doesn't mean I don't eat it, but I avoid ever using it at home or in anything I make), and even though it just goes on the shell, I still felt like there was a better option. I've seen things floating around about different spices and vegetables you can use to dye eggs but it just looked like so much work. So I kind of avoided thinking about it, until my sister posted something on my facebook page about it (a cool chart with what things make certain colors) and I said to myself, "Self. That's it. You're doing it!". But being the lazy person that I am, and because my husband will eat one or less hard boiled eggs, I decided to start with just one color and six eggs this year.

I thought about what would be easiest (again... lazy) and pretty. I settled on blueberries and bought them frozen. I swear this is easier than it sounds. Here's what I did, and failed to capture the process on camera because I was sure they would be a flop:

Blueberry Dyed Easter Eggs

• Purchase fresh or frozen blueberries (which is what I used, so I can't guarantee how fresh will turn out), and heat them over medium heat with a small splash of water, 1/4 cup or less.
• Once the blueberries are warm, use a potato masher to mash the blueberries so the juice comes out.
• Put your cooled hard boiled eggs in a bowl with a colander on top of the bowl. Don't let the colander touch the eggs so they don't crack in the next mashing step.
• Pour the blueberries into the colander over the eggs. Use your masher to continue mashing the blueberry pulp until you think the juice is out.
• Set the pulp and colander aside. Use a spoon to stir the eggs around in the blueberry juice, and to coat them a few times with the juice. 
• Once they reach your desired shade of beautiful purple-y blue, set them on a wire rack with LOTS of paper towels and newspaper underneath. (I have white counters and blueberry juice can stain!)

See the speckles? Love them!!! They are a bolder purple in real life, but my camera and my camera skills both suck ;).

Bonus step:

Put the pulp and leftover juice in a bowl. Top with whipped cream and reward yourself for making naturally dyed eggs!