SHIFTING ROOTS

home, garden, food, and prairie lifestyle

Everything You Need To Know to Make Beautiful Natural Dyed Easter Eggs

Looking for a way to dye Easter eggs without food colouring or a kit? Look no further! There are lots of natural food dyes in your refrigerator and pantry. I’ll show you how the best ways to get pink, orange, yellow, blue and green eggs using vegetables and spices that you likely already have on hand.

Are you someone who likes a project with predictable results and simple directions?  This post is not for you.  Are you someone who likes surprises and is willing to experiment?  Carry on my friend.

Recently I went a little bit crazy and was determined to find the best natural Easter egg dyes.  Over 2 dozen tries later I bring to you this comprehensive, no-nonsense guide to natural Easter egg dyes.

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Old Fashioned Beet Cake

I never realized baking cakes with vegetables wasn’t a thing everywhere, until I met my dear friend Nicky. Nicky is from South Africa, and kindly informed me that this practice was indeed odd, but how did I do it because she was interested in making a cake with vegetables for her son’s first birthday.

Any prairie person worth their salt (who enjoys baking) will have a standard recipe for zucchini cake or carrot cake. Beet cake is equally delicious and a great way to use up those larger beets you grew that weren’t as nice for canning.

Related: Beet Leaf Rolls and Red Velvet Cake with Beets

This old fashioned beet cake is very similar to carrot cake, and is delicious with cream cheese icing. I took it to a recent choir rehearsal, and it was devoured by my singers.

How do You Bake with Beets?

To use beets in your baking, start by boiling or roasting chopped beets until tender. Beets always take longer than I expect to roast them–often over an hour at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. However, you might be blessed with a higher quality oven that I am and it will go quicker for you.

Put your beets into a blender or food processor and puree them with a bit of water. There’s no exact science to this. Just blend the beets until your desired texture.

If you have extras, you can always save the pureed beets in a freezer bag and use at a later date. Beets keep well in the freezer and you should have no problems using them later in the year.

Old Fashioned Beet Cake

Old Fashioned Beet Cake

Similar to carrot cake, but with pureed beets.

Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Additional Time 1 hour
Total Time 2 hours 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • Beet Cake:
  • 3 cups pureed beets
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup canola oil
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • Icing:
  • 1 cup cream cheese (a block)
  • 2 cups icing sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

  1. Cook and puree beets if you have not already done so.
  2. Beat eggs, sugars, and oil in a large bowl.
  3. Next, add in the pureed beets and milk.
  4. Finally, Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and beat until smooth.
  5. Transfer to a greased 9x13 inch baking pan.
  6. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
  7. Let cake cool completely.
  8. In the mean time, beat cream cheese, icing sugar, and vanilla in a mixer until smooth.
  9. Frost the beet cake with cream cheese icing
  10. Serve and enjoy!

Notes

The additional time is the hour or so it will take to roast or boil the beets if you don't have cooked beets on hand already.

Beet Leaf Rolls with Creamy Dill Sauce

You might have heard of beatniks (dough rolled up in a beet leaf) but have you heard of beet leaf rolls?  They’re a riff off of cabbage rolls, way better tasting, and a great way to use up some of your beet leaves.

By the way, did you know you can eat beet leaves?  Now you do.  They’re delicious in these rolls, used as salad greens, or fried up as part of a stir fry.

Or maybe you haven’t heard of any of these things.  Read on and you’ll be glad you did.

Ukrainian beet leaf rolls with creamy dill sauce will be your new vegetarian comfort food. It's an easy cabbage roll recipe stuffed with rice and baked into a delicious casserole--just like Mom used to make. #casserole #beetleafrolls #cabbagerolls #Ukrainiandishes #Ukrainiancuisine #vegetariancasserole #vegetarian #casserole
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This Is What Your Urban Garden Can Grow in One Year

Think you have too little space in your city backyard to garden?  I’m here to tell you that as long as you have decent light, you don’t.

This year I planted a small garden in my backyard in a designated garden area, amongst my flowers wherever there was space, in pots, and in three raised beds.  That sounds like a lot of space, but it really isn’t.

Here are my results.

Have you ever wondered how much you can really grow in your urban garden? It might be more than you think! I'm sharing the results of growing vegetables in a tiny garden plot, on my patio in pots, and in a few garden boxes. #urbangardening #gardening #growingvegetables #smallspacegardening #citygardening

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Triumphs & Failures in my Garden

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The harvest is underway and I’m already thinking about what worked and didn’t work this year.  There were lots of surprises this year: volunteer potatoes (that did really well despite much neglect), barely there greens and beets, peas that didn’t perform, and the wonder that is cylindrical beets.  Here’s my thoughts on what I planted.

Potatoes

Volunteer potatoes cropped up among my squash and pumpkins.  I left them until July, then took them out for an early harvest and to give my other plants the space they now needed.  I would do this again on purpose.  It’s nice to have some dedicated early potatoes you can harvest without guilt.

Beans

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So far I have picked 60 litres of beans.  I probably don’t need quite so many beans next year.  I prefer the yellow to the green, and missed having purple ones.  Even though I purchased bush beans, they still seemed to fall over. . . is that normal?  Should I put up a trellis next year?

Peas

This years crop was small for how much I planted.  I was also late to put up supports.  Some of my peas adjusted and others didn’t.  There was also definitely some creature that got to my late variety peas.  In summary, plant more peas and maybe try some different varieties than this year.

Spinach

Why oh why can I never grow spinach?  Maybe I’ll try to in my smaller garden in the city next year.

Lettuce & Kale

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My new favourite lettuce to grow is butter crunch!  It did the best out of all the varieties we tried.  We learned that we are just not fans of red lettuce.  The kale plants I grew in the city did very well and didn’t get eaten up by bugs this year.  Might be worth it to buy the plants like I did this year.

Onions

The variety I grew tasted wonderful, but had some huge greens for a very small bulb.  Maybe try a different kind next year.

Swiss Chard

I didn’t get a lot of swiss chard, but I used old seed so I wasn’t that surprised.  What I did get was lovely.  I’ll definitely plant this next year.

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Beets

None of my circular beets came up.  I have no idea what I did wrong.  A few of the cylindrical beets came up and they were good.  I will plant these again because they are much easier to harvest.

Carrots & Parsnips

My carrot crop was quite sparse this year, but on the bright side, I didn’t have to thin out anything.  None of my parsnips came up.

Herbs

Only my dill came up strong.  The basil came up much later, but ended up doing quite well.  I will try growing some indoors over the winter and hopefully do better.

Peppers

Small but mighty!!  Only 4 out of 12 plants survived,  but each of them have 3 little peppers

Tomatoes

The tomatoes had a rough start, but are looking much better now.  Hopefully I’ll get enough to make spaghetti sauce.

Cucumbers

So far the cucumbers are beyond disappointing.  I collected 5 so far and they are half yellow.  Maybe they aren’t getting enough water?

Zucchini

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Good old zucchini, you can always depend on it to produce.  Both my yellow and green varieties did very well.

Pumpkins

Not really sure if these are going to produce.  The plant looks okay, but I don’t see any pumpkins beginning.  Maybe its too early in the season?  Maybe I was supposed to pollinate them?  I tried, but I had 4 male flowers and no females.

Spaghetti Squash

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Just look at the beautiful spaghetti squash! Please ignore my weeds.

I’m very excited about my squash!  So far there are 3 nice sized ones on the vine and it looks like more to come.  However, I’m not really sure when to pick them.  Do I wait until they turn yellow, or do I pick them now and they’ll turn yellow as they cure?  Tell me if you know!

How is your garden growing?  If you have any solutions to my gardening problems, please let me know!!

Welcome!

Hi, I’m Kristen and I help new gardeners learn to grow their own vegetables and beautify their yards. I also share recipes that use all that delicious garden produce. Grab a coffee (and your gardening gloves) and join me for gardening tips, simple recipes, and the occasional DIY, all from the lovely city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

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