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Easter Saturday 2017

By in family, parties

This is the first Easter in forever that we have not had at my parents’ house. That’s because their lovely house is currently being torn apart and turned into a two-family house, with one unit for my folks and one for our crazy gang of four.

We had our annual Easter Saturday lunch and egg hunt at my parents’ temporary gigs, where due to size restrictions we simplified significantly. My mom asked people to bring salads and she and my dad served up lots of good bread, cold cuts and other sandwich fixings.

It was not our usual savory pie extravaganza (which you can read about here, here, here and here) we’ll get back to that next year, but it was easy and perfect. And a gorgeous day to boot.

As always, there were over 100 eggs and a gang of kids who were delighted to find them. This year, the eggs were numbered and it wasn’t the kid who found the most eggs, but the kids who found the three lucky eggs with a fiver in them who won. So basically everybody was happy and every kid won.

After lunch we died eggs using tinted shaving cream in plastic bags, which was pretty weird and also lovely to behold.

Christ is risen, y’all.

xoxo

Easter Saturday

By in parties

You probably know our Easter Saturday drill by now (but if you don’t, you can read about it here and here).

Easter Saturday is a day-long affair starting with a breakfast of hot cross buns, strawberries, mimosas and bloody marys. Then there’s a big egg hunt and after we’ve gorged on candy, an early dinner. Dinner is lots of savory pies, lots of good people, good times, and of  course good things to eat and drink.

Aside from the traditional assortment of savory pies, we had roasted tomatoes with burrata, beets with pesto, asparagus with anchovy butter and parmesan, pork & fennel meatballs with grilled bread, salad (natch), ricotta with fennel and radishes, and a leg of lamb.

This year I didn’t take pictures of the pies, or most of the desserts. I guess I was too busy having a nice time. The only dessert you’ll see here today is one of the most delicious French macaroons I’ve ever had (and I’m not saying that because it was made by an incredibly gifted 12 year old baker).

You might notice there’s something else very special in that dessert photo too.

Happy Easter Saturday!

Easter Saturday

By in family, parties 4 Comments

(click on the photos for slide show view, and description)

As you might recall from last year, we celebrate Easter on Saturday. This is mostly because it’s more convenient for the people who have to drive several hours to get home, to do that the next day. Also, it means a lot of folks who ordinarily wouldn’t be able to make it due to their own family celebrations, can join us.

The menu is always a selection of salads and savory pies, and meat of some sort. For pies this year, we had Geraldine Ferraro’s Easter Pie, Torta Verde and new addition: mozzarella pie with kale and sun dried tomatoes.

The salads were barley with corn, parsley and endive, roasted beet, onion and lentil, celery with golden raisins, almonds and herbs, fennel and orange with avocado and herbs, and a delicious mixed green.

Lamb was the featured meat, both roasted (over spoons), and in meatball form with tzatziki dipping sauce.

That’s pretty much all I can tell you as I did not help out even a little bit this year, because, you know, I’ve got a baby.

Easter Saturday!

By in family, traditions

(click on the photos for slide show view, and description)

For the past several years, our family has celebrated Easter on Saturday instead of Sunday. We’re not particularly religious. When it occurred to us that Saturday might be a more convenient day to celebrate than Sunday, there were no objections. It even resolved scheduling conflicts for the Jews in our family who are married to Easter-observing gentiles.

Before dinner, which is more of a late-lunch, my aunt Gail makes Hot Cross Buns with the kids (see recipe below). The little ones adore rolling the dough and frosting the buns once they’re cooked. Then we have an egg hunt, this year there were 107 eggs to find!

Our tradition, for as long as I can remember, has been to have savory pies for Easter. Geraldine Ferraro’s Easter Pie, which is filled with ricotta cheese & Italian sausage, is a staple. My dad makes the pies with the help from my aunt Gail (or vice-versa). He says to use two pounds of sausage instead of one, it’s much better that way.

The Torta Verde was sorely missed this year. Instead, we had lamb pies which were reported to be underwhelming, but were very pretty, and disappeared anyhow.

To up the meat ante, there were Garlicky Pork Burgers with Red Wine, Prunes & Rosemary, from this recipe, but prepared as burgers instead of sausages, and made in the oven. Everyone raved about them, even the kids.

The Escarole & White Bean Salad with Fennel & Gruyere (see my post about it here), and Cilantro, Celery & Almond Salad, were both excellent. My parent’s neighbor Peggy, made her famous Eggplant dish, which I don’t have the recipe for. We also had roasted Cubanelle pepers.

Dessert was an assortment of candy and cookies, Strawberry  Shortcake, and my favorite, a Three-Tier Candied-Pecan Cake with Brown-Butter Pears, from Martha Stewart. (Note: it doesn’t come out looking like the photo in the recipe but is utterly delicious.)

Happy early Easter everyone!

Easter was beautiful

By in family, holidays, parties 1 Comment

When your kids are brand new and tiny, there are all these incredible firsts. Their first time outdoors, first time seeing the sky, first time wearing socks. Even a year or two in you still find yourself in awe over things that would otherwise seem mundane. Their first cucumber, first time riding in a shopping cart, first time touching sand.

I feel like that about my house right now. Easter was gorgeous, fun, beautiful, the best in years. I don’t know if it really was, or if we’re just so excited to be home again that it felt that way.

I think it may have been really good though. Here are some previous Easter posts for comparison.

We started the day with strawberries, cheese, crackers, hot cross buns, mimosas and bloody Marys followed by 11 kids looking for 115 eggs. Our tallying chalkboard got lost during the construction, so we used window markers on the french doors instead.

The Easter lunch tradition around here is savory pies, salads and pork. This year was particularly excellent in the salad department (some recipes below). And rumor has it Shane’s porchetta was fantastical. We also had excellent bread from Clearflour.

Once we were all stuffed the grown ups settled down to do some calming and engrossing Pysanky (wax-resist egg dying).

Also, we celebrated on Sunday this year. Weird!

• Cilantro, Celery & Almond Salad •
from Martha Stewart
super quick and easy

6 small celery stalks, thinly sliced on the bias
2 cups cilantro leaves
2/3 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup almonds, toasted and very coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Coarse salt
Morton Iodized Salt
26 oz
Find at a store

Combine celery, cilantro, raisins, and almonds in a bowl. Drizzle with oil and lemon juice, and season with salt. Toss to coat.

__________

• Thai Napa Cabbage Salad •
source unknown (except perhaps by my mom)

Salad
1 napa cabbage, shredded
2 large cucumbers, julienned
20oz edamame
2 large avocados cut and soaked in lime juice for 1 hour
2 cups finely chopped cilantro

Dressing
2 cups olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup sugar
juice and rind of 2 lemons
salt & pepper to taste

Mix all salad ingredients together, soak avocados in lime juice for one hour. Add avocados & dressing to salad, toss and serve.

Easter, finally

By in family, parties

Ok, so it’s taken me a week to get around to posting about Easter. Or has it been two? Honestly, I don’t know, but here we go. Our annual Easter Saturday party was HUGE.

In advance of the weekend, it was seeming like we were expecting a lot of people to attend. Because of that, I excused myself from any planning whatsoever.  Not to say I didn’t help, I did some prep, some set-up and a lot of clean up but the credit, as always goes to my mom and dad.

The event was orchestrated and primarily executed by my mom, with a ton of help (and the littlest bit of griping) from my dad and a lot of help from everyone else. To eat there were several pies, many salads, Gail’s famous hot cross buns, strawberries, bloody Marys, mimosas and tons of candy.

We had over 50 people in attendance and 160 eggs for the kids to find. The party went from noon to night.

The favorite new twist was Pysanka, or Ukranian egg decorating. It’s a complicated process that involves several layers of wax meticulously applied to the egg and multiple dippings in vibrant dye. It’s awesome.

Happy Easter folks. Now for more snow.

 

 

Recipe Index

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Appetizers • Soups • Salads & Dressings • Vegetables
Pasta • Grains • Beans & Legumes • Potatoes
Meat • Seafood • Poultry • Tofu • Eggs
Sauces & Toppings • Accompaniments/Other
Vegetarian Entrees (non-Pasta) • Make-Ahead Dishes • One-Dish Meals
Breakfast • Desserts

Appetizers

Soups

Salads & Dressings

Vegetables

Pasta

Grains

Beans & Legumes

Potatoes

Meat

Seafood

Poultry

Tofu

Eggs

Sauces & Toppings

Accompaniments/Other

Vegetarian Entrees (non-Pasta, see Pasta above for many more)

Make-Ahead Dishes

One-Dish Meals

Breakfast

Desserts