I am not a very crafty person. I love drawing, painting, writing and photography, but don’t care much for anything that requires glue guns, glitter or more involved hardware. One place I do enjoy being creative is in the kitchen.

Today’s mini-mission isn’t just about Easter eggs and ice cream sandwiches, but those are two recommendations to get creative in the kitchen.

Make your own Easter egg dye. It’s so much more fun than traditional artificial dye tabs in vinegar. With natural dyes, you can use whatever you have available or pick up spices, fruits and veggies that you think may produce interesting colors. While there are recipes available, today’s mini-mission invites you to abandon the plans and recipes and just get creative in the kitchen, because you never know what you are going to end up with, and that is what makes it so fun.

Try ingredients like:

• turmeric and curry in water or vinegar
• blueberries and vinegar
• red wine or cranberry juice
• boiled greens (spinach, kale and other dark leafy greens)
• purple grapes and beets boiled in water

You can see from the images above that you can forget about are consistency and certainty. Drop your eggs and let the beauty unfold.

Other ways to get creative in the kitchen:

• Make or purchase pizzelle cookies or graham crackers and a pint of ice-cream. I used hemp vanilla ice cream for my treats. Unwrap the pint of ice-cream. Slice in 1/2 inch circles and place an ice-cream disc between two cookies. Wrap them in parchment paper and tie ribbons or raffia around each one.

• Try one of Heidi’s Easter inspired Favs (you can’t resist the bunny cake or the carrot top hat for kitties)

• Hold the bacon and invite me over for a handcrafted beet-infused Bloody Mary. It’s time to bring back hand-crafted cocktails if you haven’t already. Virgin versions are great too.

• You knew I’d find a way to work in the greens. I am making these lovely salt and vinegar kale chips today.

• Try one of my four favorite simple vegan recipes for spring.

• Skillet vegetables on cheese toast sounds so good. You could make a vegan version and leave the cheese off or try a vegan cheese.

• You could skip the dye all together and create these beauties. 

• For more creative ideas, search “Easter” on Pinterest and check out what I’m pinning too.

Keep it simple and have fun with this mini-mission. This is the perfect time of year to embrace beautiful blooms, baby animals, walks in the sun, and getting creative in the kitchen.

What’s your favorite way to get creative in the kitchen?

For more experiments to simplify your life, read Mini-missions for Simplicity. It’s available on the Amazon Kindle store, but you don’t need a Kindle to read it. Kindle books can also be read using the Free Kindle Reader App for your Web Browser, PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android.