Here is this years version of naturally colored Christmas cookies. All of the colors on these cookies are made from fruit and vegetable juices. The colors are as follows.
orange = carrot
red/magenta = beet
light pink = cranberry
yellow = pineapple
green = basil
purple = pomegranate/blueberry
dark purple = grape
blue = red cabbage

Last year I wrote an in-depth post on the process and you can read that here. In short the icing is a royal icing recipe that uses powdered sugar, meringue powder and water (recipe here). Instead of using water I use concentrated fruit and vegetable juices.  I concentrate them by simply boiling them down, you can skip that step but the color of your icing will not be as vibrant.  Typically I just buy a single container of juice, the exception are the beet, cranberry, basil, and cabbage. For the beet I used the same steam bake method that used did last year. You simple bake the beets with water and the use the left over water as your juice. Then you have the beets to use in salad or soup (we like beets). The cranberries I did a little differently, instead of pureeing them I just strained them out of the juice after boiling them and just reduced the juice. Instead of using spinach for the green I used basil instead and I really like the resulting flavor. The big difference this year is that we now own a vitamix so I was able to puree the fresh basil with just a little bit of water with out cooking it. The vitamix obliterates the basil and left me with a very very fine puree. I passed that though a sieve and just used the uncooked juice combined with a little bit of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to preserve the color. Last year I used 3 capsules and this year I only used one and it didn’t alter the flavor at all.  The blue is the most complex color to make. It is made from cabbage. Cabbage contains anthocyanins so it is very PH sensitive. If you shred some cabbage add water and boil it down you should get a purple liquid depending on the ph of the soil that the cabbage was grown in and the ph of your water. To get blue juice from cabbage you simply need to make the water more alkaline. You can do this by adding baking soda to the water but you only need about 1 tsp per 4 quarts of water. If you make the water too alkaline the cabbage water will actually turn green/brown as you boil it down. For the cabbage I just shredded a head of cabbage, put it in a giant stock pot, covered that with water and added 1 tsp baking soda. I then allowed the cabbage to boil in that until all of the color had gone out of the cabbage. You then strain out the cabbage and reduce the remaining liquid.  And that’s the process,  it’s actually pretty simple.

1. Cabbage juice boiling down 2. cranberries in juice before being strained out. 3. Beets after being steam baked. 4. left over reduced beet juice  in ice cube trays (being frozen for future use). 5. beet icing 6. beet icing being put into icing bottle.

Royal icing is very versatile and you can make it as thick or thin as you like depending on if you are piping or poring it. The linked recipe results in very thick icing which is great if you want to pipe flowers but for decorating cookies with kids I would definitely error on the side of much much more runny icing (simply add more liquid). It will flow faster and be easier for kids to work with, also the icing gets thicker after a few hours of even just sitting in a container so you will want to make it thinner than you think you will need it – it will all dry hard and shiny in the end.  I put all of the icing into ketchup style squeeze bottles and then all you need is some cookies, then let the kids have at it.

Making cookies

Then decorate with friends

Yum!

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We really scored with the blues and purples this year but not so much with warmer tones.

These were the ingredients that we attempted , also not pictured was chili powder and pomegranate juice. I just forgot to put the chili powder in the photo. I switched the raspberries to pomegranate juice as about halfway through the process I checked the color and the raspberries were not working at all.

We used the Martha Stewart method for hard cooking eggs which is you place them in the water and bring it to a slow boil, then remove the pot from heat and cover the pot letting it sit for 12 min. The eggs always turn out perfect and the yokes are not gray but bright yellow. I let Simon carefully place the eggs into the water, he was really into helping with with project.

For the Chili powder and the tumeric we made a paste with vinegar and then rolled the eggs in the paste and then wrapped them in plastic wrap.

(wrapped eggs)

For all the other ingredients I just made a juice either by food processing the fruit or in the case of the cabbage and beets boiling them with water until I had a sufficient quantity of water sainted the correct color. I then put eggs in these old pom wonderful tea jars and covered them with plastic wrap. Everything went into the refrigerator for 24 hours.

This morning we pulled all of the eggs out of their dye bath and these were the resulting colors.

From left to right: beet, blueberry, pomegranate juice, cabbage.

I was really disappointed with the beets this year. Last year the beets dyed the eggs a beautiful shade of pink this year they came out a kind of yellow brown. But the blueberry and the cabbage more than made up for my beet disappointment.

Turmeric, Chili powder, (2 broken eggs)  beet, and plumb

as the eggs dry the color changes slightly. I then rub them with a little olive oil to make them super shiny and took them outside for the top photo. As always this is a fun project. If you would like to see last years eggs you can see them here. Have a Happy Easter everyone!

Can you tell which cookies Simon decorated?

Since we last year we dyed Easter Eggs with only natural pigments I thought it would be fun to try and make our own natural food dyes and use them to decorate our Christmas cookies. I learned a lot in the process and I will share my processes and then what I learned and what I would change next time. First some cute pictures of Simon Decorating our cookies : )

I bought Simon these nifty little icing containers thinking they would be perfect to cookie decorating and containing some of the mess. They proved pretty difficult for him to be to squeeze, he just doesn’t have the dexterity yet. I decided he would be better off just with icing in bags.

it quickly turned into this…

Next time I will know just to put the icing in zip lock bags and cut the corner off. By the end of this project pretty much every surface in my house was sticky.

The pigments we used in the icing were made from the following foods; strawberry, wheatgrass, cranberry, spinach, beet, and seaweed. I was trying for a Christmassy red and green. By far my favorites were the beet and wheatgrass. They both produced bright vivid colors and tasted wonderful. I loved the strawberry for flavor because it was really flavorful – packed with strawberry taste but the color was pretty pail (I would use this for a strawberry cake though). The seaweed was a big mistake. It tasted like minty fish – it was disgusting! Just don’t even try it. I knew from the moment that I opened the lid on the food processor that it was not going to turn out well but at that point I was committed so I just tried to cover up the fish flavor with peppermint extract – it didn’t work. All the other flavors tasted great – especially the beet which surprised me since I thought it would have that typical earthy flavor but instead it tasted like a vaguely familiar berry.

The natural red food coloring ingredients

the natural green food coloring ingredients

Here is how I made our natural food colorings

Cranberry
1.    Boil down one bag of cranberries with about 4 cups of water – boil until all cranberries have popped and sauce is thick.
2.    Puree cranberry sauce in the food processor
3.    Push cranberry sauce through a fine mesh sieve

Strawberry
1.    Put store bought freeze dried strawberries in a food processor process until a fine powder
Seaweed (Nori) – NOT RECOMMENDED
1.    Put store bought nori sheets (for sushi) in a food processor process until a fine powder

Spinach
1.    Steam 2 -3 cups spinach leaves until bright green
2.   Combine in food processor with 1 tablespoon peppermint extract and 3 capsules Ascorbic Acid – blend until smooth

A note on the spinach – I thought that the spinach flavor would be to strong so I added peppermint extract to cover up the spinach flavor – it worked a little to well and combined with the taste of the vitamin C it sort of tasted like tooth paste – not a bad taste but not my favorite either. next time I would leave out the peppermint

Wheatgrass
1.    Puree about 1/3cup wheatgrass with 3 capsules ascorbic acid and 3 tablespoons water.
2.    Push puree through a fine mesh sieve to make wheat grass juice

the ascorbic acid is used as a natural preservative to help keep the plant leaves from turning brown. I learned this trick from a pest recipe years ago.

Beet
1.    place beets (tops removes) in glass dish with  about 2 inches of water. Cover with foil and bake at 400 for about 45 min (up to an hour for very large beets).
2.    Let beets cool, remove from beet juice.  ( at this point you may want to make this tasty beet salad with the beets)
3.    Move beet juice to a pot and boil until juice is reduced to a thick syrup.

Once I had my  coloring additives I used this recipe for royal icing. I cut the recipe in half for each color since I was making so many color I didn’t think I needed 4 lbs of icing.

The process for the wet dyes was as follows :
Combine confectioner’s sugar and meringue powder in the mixer, stir to combine
Add liquid coloring one tablespoon at a time until icing reaches desired consistency.

The process for the powdered dyes was as follows:
Combine confectioner’s sugar and meringue powder, and about 1/4cup powdered coloring  in the mixer, stir to combine
Add water one tablespoon at a time until icing reaches desired consistency.

This recipe made for very thick icing and since I wanted it a bit more runny so it would dry smooth I ended adding about 2 more tablespoons of liquid per batch.

Here are photos at each step of the process.

1.    cranberries being cooked down into “cranberry sauce”
2.    Completely cooked cranberries
3.    cranberries after having been run through the food processor, being pushed through a sieve
4.    finished cranberry sauce
5.    freeze dried strawberries in food processor
6.    powdered freeze dried strawberries
7.    crumpled sheets of nori in food processor
8.    powered nori
9.    steaming spinach until bright green
10.    pureeing spinach with peppermint extract
11.    pureeing wheatgrass with water
12.    my secret to keeping greens green – vitamin C.
13.    beets being prepped for cooking
14.    cooked beets in “juice”
15.    boiling down beet juice
16.    finished beet juice reduced to about 4 table spoons of syrup.

Here is what the finished icings looked like

Here are the colors that the icings dried to

(Simon messed up a bunch of my frosting job by poking his fingers into the half dried icing)

All but the seaweed tasted and looked wonderful. I only iced the one cookie with the seaweed for demonstration purposes and I gave it to Myles. When he first bit into it he said mmm – minty.  After he had eaten about half of it I asked him if he really liked it – he said the mint flavor was really strong and that he thought there was another flavor in it but he couldn’t nail it down. Then he said “Why!? what’s in this?!” (I am known for a bit of experimental cooking – I have bade brownies with black beans and grasshopper pie with avocado – Myles is often the guinea pig) I asked if he thought it tasted fishy at all and at that point he got really grossed out and stopped eating the cookie. (I don’t know how he ate any of it,  it tasted disgusting! – Simon thought so too)

So this was our experiment – we had a lot of fun and next time I think we will branch out and try other colors. My synopsis is that the beet boiled down juice method was the most successful at getting a bright color and easiest method. I would stick with that. I also liked that to make beet juice I ended up with tasty beets for dinner – nothing was wasted. Next time I would like to expand on this method to try other colors from pre-juiced fruits and vegetables. I think buying store bought juices would save a lot of time and I can imagine the colors that would result from juices like blueberry, carrot, and pomegranate. It’s simple to boil a cup or two of juice down to a syrup so if you try it and make icing send me a note!

Until next time

-Emily
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• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1.4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 4 bone-in chicken breast halves skinned (I used boneless skinless chicken breast.)
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 small red onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup dried cherries
• 2 tablespoons capers
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
• 1 to 2 hot chile peppers, such as cayenne, red jalapeno, or habanero, seeded and minced ( I used 1 habanero and it was TOO hot).

preheat the oven to 400 *F

in a small bowl, combine the paprika, salt, and black pepper. Place the chicken in a large shallow roasting pan. Brush with 1 tablespoon of the oil and sprinkle with the paprika mixture.

Roast for 45 minutes, or until a thermometer inserted in the thickest portion registers 180*F and the juices run clear. Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook the onion for 5 minutes, or until soft. Add the broth, cherries, capers, honey, cumin, and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the cherries are plump and the sauce has thickened. Stir in the chile peppers.

When the Chicken is cooked, for extra flavor, if desired, drain off the pan juices and stir them into the cherry sauce. Remove and discard the cinnamon stick before serving. Place the chicken on a serving platter and top with the sauce.

enjoy!

I got the idea off the Z recomends and I just haad to try it myself.

I used the following ingredients to make my dyes; yellow – turmeric, pink – beet, purple – black berry, blue/green – store bought pomagranet juice.

I started with hard boiled eggs following Martha Stewart’s instructions.

Purple Dye
I used about 1 cup of blackberries and pulsed them in the food processor with about 4 table spoons white distilled vinegar.

Yellow Dye
I made a paste out turmeric and vinegar using just enough vinegar to make the paste spreadable. I then coated the eggs in the paste and wrapped them individually in plastic wrap.

Pink Dye

I cooked some beets per the Betty Crocker instructions and reserved the left over juice which I reduced in a sauce pan until it was about 1 cup of liquid. I then added 2 table spoons white distilled vinegar.(I made Dilly Tomato and Beet Salad with the cooked beets)

blue/green dye
This was simply Trader Joe’s brand pomegranate blueberry juice. The first ingredient listed is pomegranate juice.

For every color but the yellow I put 3 eggs in a glass and covered them with the juice/dye. I then covered the jars with plastic wrap and refrigerated them for about 16 hours. I checked the liquid dyes at this point and realized that a film was forming around the eggs. I pulled them out, rinsed them and then returned them to the die for another 8 hours. At this point I simply removed the eggs and put them in their carton to dry. The beet dyed eggs were a brilliant pink – much brighter than pictured above. The pomegranate dyed eggs were a deathly shade of gray and looked horrible. At this point I actually took one of the gray eggs and ran it under hot water hoping to wash some of the gray off. It got a bit lighter but really didn’t make much of an improvement  so I just put all of the eggs in their carton and put them back in the refrigerator to dry. I pulled them back out 24 hours later and the eggs had totally changed colors again. The colors really mellowed. The  pomegranate eggs turned the beautiful blue/green shade above (top picture center egg), the turmeric eggs turned a pale yellow and the beet eggs a pale pink. The blackberry eggs had the littlest change. I polished the eggs up with some canola oil and took the above pictures. I love how they turned out, I really like how the color is not at all even – each egg has it’s own individual texture. It is probably not necessary to leave the eggs in the dye so long – probably 4 – 6 hours would achieve the same effect.

So why go to all the effort of making your own dyes? Well according to Organic.org, “Many food colorings contain color additives such as Red No. 3 and Yellow No. 5, which, according to a 1983 study by the FDA, were found to cause tumors (Red No. 3) and hives (Yellow No. 5).” In addition many food dyes have been linked to ADHD and other behavioral problems. And food dyes are made from things like dried cochineal beetles and coal tar (I’m not making this up). Not really something I want Simon eating. Puls it’s fun to make your own.

These were so good! They actually have cooked millet in the batter (not millet flour) so they have a very interesting texture which I liked a lot. There is also no white sugar in the batter, you use maple syrup instead (directly in the batter). This was an awesome wholegrain recipe.

This recipe is from the book

Simply Organic: A Cookbook for Sustainable, Seasonal, and Local Ingredients by Jesse Ziff.

I received this book for my birthday this year. I have been hung up on the idea of cooking an entire cook book all the way through and I think this is going to be my project for the next 2 years or so.

There are 148 recipes in this book that means I would have to make almost 3 a week if I wanted to finish the book in one year. This was an inexpensive recipe but a lot of them involve expensive cuts of meat and wine (Zinfandel-Braised Lamb Shanks for example) and I don't think that we could afford to do the whole book in one year so I am shooting for a 2 year plan.  This book is arranged by season and the meals are made up of ingredients that would be found in season for that particular time of year. I think that fact alone will actually make is possible to cook through this book – your not going to run into some recipe that calls for blood oranges in the middle of summer. This recipe was from the deep winter section. Even considering that most of the produce I bought was from California. Pretty much the only truly local produce (grown in WA or BC) that can be found right now are leeks, onions, potatoes, shallots, and mushrooms.

Don't worry I am not turning this into a food blog. I just thought it would be interesting to do a little blog post about some of the good recipes and this was one of them. We are giving it 4 stars. The flavors work really well together but since the book is copyrighted I can't actually post the recipe here (sorry).

If you had asked me last year I would have said that I didn't like beets but last summer we received some in our CSA box and I went to all-recipes.com (my default recipe book) and found this recipe for beet salad. We loved it an that salad has now become one of our favorites – (we use fresh beets instead of canned beets though).  Simon, on the other hand, hates beets. Its the only food that he truly hates. We tried feeding them to him when he was about 7 months old and he would gag, choke and spit it them out. It's actually quite a comical production. I tried again last night to get him to eat some and he chewed for awhile and then just spit them back out. This is really an improvement over the last time he tired them so we may make a beet eater out of him yet.