Happy Easter Savings

Special home economics edition.

Like so many people I associate Easter with a basket of colored eggs, a chocolate bunny, and some jelly beans. Yes, I know that there is a whole back story with Jesus and all that, but the ritual of coloring eggs and hiding them for kids to hunt is joyful and fun, while the idea of Jesus laying around dead for 3 days seems … unpleasant.

Sue me.

But the price of eggs, lately, is not joyful, and I’m not here to spoil the fun so we are not going to talk about who did or didn’t bring down the price of a dozen eggs - or as one internet guy described them, a 12 pack. No, I’m here to look on the bright side, of life, and to provide you a cost saving option - even if it is too late to help lower your Easter budget this year. I’ll try to be more timely for the next major holiday, which must be Cinco de Mayo, and I’m sure to have something to say about that.

In the meantime, I have personally lowered my budget, like many other good Americans, by substituting colored potatoes for colored eggs, and let me tell you, this might be a tradition that will stick! Here is a picture of my results.

Are those, or are those not, beautiful faux Easter eggs? Here is my easy, step by step, guide to making your own Easter Potato Eggs.

Step 1, I made an egg shaped die cutter. Because I can, because I have a fully equipped blacksmith shop at my disposal. Then I gathered potatoes. If, unlike me, you plan ahead you can find colorful varieties of potatoes like Adirondack Blues a which have a delightful blue flesh, and red flesh varieties, but I used russet and Yukon Gold potatoes, seen here.

Then it was just a matter of stamping out shapes with my cookie cutter. You could easily do this with a knife, first cutting the potatoes into egg-sized rectangles and then paring off the corners until you have nice egg shapes.

Remember that I am nothing if not frugal, so the scrap pieces will not go to waste! You could peel the potatoes first and throw the peels into a pot of water with some other food odds and sods to make a delicious stock, and grate the rest for home fries, or really all kinds of other recipes. Potatoes, as we know are very versatile. Jesus, unfortunately, did not know about potatoes because the New World had not been discovered yet so the current world is missing a parable about potatoes, which is a shame because I’d really love to know what Jesus would have had to say about potatoes.

I should ask a theologian about this sometime. Is it possible that before Jesus died on the cross he didn’t know about potatoes, but then after he spent 3 days in the crypt he came out with knowledge of all things, which surely would have included potatoes, corn, tomatoes, and chocolate? What a revelation that would have been! And it would have explained a lot about the Dark Ages, the time when people knew about chocolate but never actually tasted it.

And wouldn’t it be great to have another book of the Bible that was just recipes? He could have been the original guy writing recipes with ingredients that were literally unobtainable. He could have added food-influencer to his CV. Come to think of it, very possibly there is a missing book of recipes that the disciples just didn’t feel like writing down. Were the 5 loaves all the same? How were the fishes prepared? And somebody should have taken down preparation details for the Last Supper. So much good information lost to history because Jesus didn’t keep a home economist around. A little mistake that he can rectify in the 2nd coming.

Anyway, no use crying over spilt milk. Back to what I can control.

Next I die-cut my potatoes at 90°, then at 45° to that, and 90° again - all longitudinally - and using a peeler I took off the corners that were left and, violá, egg potatoes! Or potato eggs!

You can see that they already have some nice color, but I happened to have a beet from the farmers market so I made an egg out of that and used the peelings to die some of the other “eggs.” Despite staining my hands a deep purple-red, the beet dye didn’t work spectacularly on the potatoes, so I broke out the little pack of food coloring.

And just look at the stunning results below. Kids would love to get a basket of these, I am certain.

But wait! There’s more!

You can use a melon baller (I didn’t have one, so I used a spoon) to scoop a small hollow in a split egg, then cook and mash up some potato flesh with a little mayonnaise, some mustard, and turmeric for color and make little faux deviled eggs.

Isn’t that fun?

I should have sprinkled a little paprika and minced green herb over them for the picture. Oh well, next time.

So, that’s it for today, go out and enjoy your Easter, and be thankful for the things you have that Jesus never got to taste, like chocolate, and spaghetti with marinara sauce. And corn on the cob. And potato salad. Food must have been dreary in those times. I guess that was what the wine was for.

Remember, always look on the bright side of life!