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Bunnies and Ham and Eggs, Oh My!

Ideas for Easter and Beyond

By Tawra Kellam

It's that time of year again. You're standing, dumbfounded, in front of a mound of hard-boiled eggs, sliced ham and chocolate Easter bunnies. You wonder, "What am I going to do with six dozen eggs, 7 pounds of ham and 25 chocolate bunnies?" The stress of it is almost enough to send you to bed for a week – or at least tear most of your hair out. Here are a few ideas to help you with the aftermath of Easter.

Take a rolling pin to them and crush the life out of them. Then use the crumbs to sprinkle on ice cream, use in milk shakes, stir a few in a mug of hot chocolate, use in place of chocolate chips for making cookies or melt for dipping fruit and candy.

Save bone for bean or split pea soup. Make ham salad, chef salad or ham sandwiches. Chop and freeze to use in potato salad, scrambled eggs, omelets, to top baked potatoes, for potato soup, scalloped potatoes, au gratin potatoes, pasties or pizza with pineapple.

Top tortilla with ham, salsa and cheddar cheese, and warm for hot ham and cheese sandwiches.

Make potato salad, tuna salad, pasta salad, chef salad, spinach salad with eggs and bacon, deviled eggs, golden morning sunshine or fill tomatoes with egg salad.

Natural Easter Egg Dyes For yellow, use: Yellow onion skins Turmeric (1/2 teaspoon per cup water) Chamomile Sage Celery leaves For orange, use: Any yellow dye plus beet juice Red beets Safflower seeds Paprika Rose hip tea For blue, use: Blackberries Grape juice concentrate Red cabbage For brown, use: Black tea White oak Juniper berry Coffee Barberry For light purple, use: Blackberries Grapes Violets For green, use: Alfalfa Spinach Kale Violet blossom plus 1/4 teaspoon baking soda Tansy Nettle Chervil Sorrel Parsley Carrot tops Beet tops Hint: Another way to achieve green is to dip yellow eggs in blue dye. To color eggs: Hard boil eggs with 1 teaspoon vinegar in the water. Place dying ingredients in non-aluminum pans, cover with water and boil five minutes to one hour depending on what ingredients you use. Use enough material to make at least 1 cup dye. Crush ingredients as they boil to extract as much dye as possible. Strain the dye. Most dyes should be used hot. Let each egg sit in the dye until it reaches the desired color. Some dyes will take longer than others to make the desired colored on the egg. Remove the egg and let dry.

Want to see more?

• Eggs-traordinary Easter Countdown
• Save Money in the Kitchen
• Devilishly Good Deviled Eggs
• Talk about it!