I get you Martha.

Did you read Martha Stewart back in the late 90's and early aughts? Do you remember your reaction to her seemingly effortless execution of projects that clearly took hours of work and exacting detail and thinking, "who has the time and patience for this? I mean, I love my family and all but there's no way I spending the next three weeks working on a table setting for one meal."

Do you also remember the first time you did one of those projects and, when seeing the results, were overwhelmed by the fierce sense of accomplishment? Suddenly all of that work seemed perfectly reasonable to achieve the exceptional results. And, after all, it wasn't that much work.

Welcome to naturally dyes eggs. No, this is not the 20 minute egg dyeing with boiling water, vinegar and those colored tablets that you do with your kids because that's exactly how long their attention span is. And yes, if you are really busy with work, family or reorganizing your sock drawer, this is far too much effort to consider.

But, if this seems like fun I can promise a delightful experience. There is a alchemical magic in seeing cabbage turn water a deep purple and then see your eggs emerge bright blue after 8-10 hours. There is a sophistication to the subtler, natural colors you get with these dyes. So, if you are ready, here's how you do it. Have fun!

Hard boiling eggs: Place eggs in a single layer in pot and cover them by 2" with cold water. Place the eggs over high heat, partially covered, and bring to a boil. Turn off heat, cover pan and let eggs sit in hot water for 10 minutes. Drain and transfer to an ice bath for 10 minutes longer. An ice bath is a large bowl with half ice and half water. After 10 minutes, drain the eggs and let dry. They are ready to dye!

TIP: Use eggs that are at least two weeks old. Most of the eggs at your grocery store are at least that old by the time they hit the shelves, but if you buy fresh eggs from the farm market you'll want to buy them a couple of weeks ahead of time. Really fresh eggs are nearly impossible to peel after hard-boiling.

Creating dyes: Most ingredients require extraction to make a dye. This is done by boiling the ingredients in water for 20-30 minutes. Remove the solids, reduce to 2 cups and let cool. Combine 2 cups dye with 1 tbs white vinegar (or cider, or white wine). Your dye is ready for the eggs.

Natural materials for dye: Cook the following ingredients in 3 cups of water. The resulting 2 cups of dye is enough to color 6-8 eggs in a quart plastic container. The following colors are for white eggs. Brown eggs will give you richer browns when dyes from coffee to chestnut. The one exception is the cabbage dye which gives you a deep jade color on a brown egg.

Beets: Pink to red. Use 4 large beets, cut in 1/2" pieces. NOTE: The lighter pink you see on the labeled photo came from using 2 beets. The deeper red in the photo at the bottom of this post came from 4 beets.

Red cabbage: Blue. Brown eggs turn deep jade green. Use 1/2 of a medium cabbage, shredded. Use 2 tbs vinegar to 2 cups water for this dye.

Yellow onion skins: Orange. 6-8 medium onions.

Red onion skins: Red-brown. 6-8 medium onions

Grape juice: Mottled grey/black. Use the grape juice and vinegar without cooking.

Turmeric: Yellow. 1 cup ground turmeric boil in 3 cups water and reduced to 2 cups. Find the most inexpensive product in the grocery store. Badia can usually be found in the international aisle with Latin American ingredients.

Saffron: Soft yellow. 1 tsp mixed with 2 cups boiling water. This isn't cheap but the color is lovely.

Dying eggs: Place eggs in room temperature dyes. The colors will intensify the longer they stay in the dye. I like to take them out in stages to get a range of colors. Keep eggs in the refrigerator while they are being dyed. Transfer them directly to a cookie cooling rack without wiping and let air dry for about 1 hour then transfer to egg cartons and return to refrigeration.

Displaying eggs: To display your eggs, drizzle vegetable oil onto a paper towel and wipe the eggs for a shiny finish. You can safely display the eggs for about 2 hours. After that, return them to refrigeration. If you display them longer than 3 hours they are no longer safe to eat.