I can’t believe we just haven’t put up one single post about Easter yet. What a crazy ball drop. I have been gathering up the menu items and thinking, thinking about where I will put everyone and how. My dishes will be perfect, even if I don’t know where the tables will go.
I bought my Easter lilies today, and they are still simply buds (I want them to be out on the day). I usually just cut the stem and take off the lower leaves and put the lilies in a tall white vase. It is very striking and it gets them out of the dirt. They last just as long and look gorgeous. Not that I have anything against the dirt. I just like them in a vase. I can fit two stems in one vase, so I usually have a really pretty Easter lily show that will go on for some time.
Someone suggested that we toast Easter for a full week after the fact. I’m all for that though I don’t have enough champagne in the house. But I did buy some sparkling wine to serve with dessert. We do a very simple Easter menu: ham, several kinds of salads (pasta, green, potato, and this year a cabbage and grape salad that one of the guests will bring), rolls and deviled eggs, and of course, jello of some sort or other. Rachel will do dessert for me and Heather can make a fruit platter look like it is leftover from a photo shoot.
I know a bunch of you must cook leg of lamb. Some of you may be serving prime rib. I’d love to hear your menus, so pop a comment up with your ideas. We still have time! And happy Easter planning.
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Chocolate dipped strawberries are a family favorite for Easter breakfast in our house. We eat them with croissants, ham, waffles and mounds of fresh whipped cream.
It’s a lovely and most yummy way to start the celebration!
This is year 2 of celebrating Easter at my house. We are eating saffron lamb, garlic potatoes and dove rolls, with chocolate fountain for dessert. Last year the fountain just globbed and trickled but was still a hit with everyone– automatic conversation piece. I guess its tradition now!
I can’t remember if I did this last year or the year before: I made three or four cakes, each a different fruit flavor and colored in various shades, and then mixed and matched the layers so each assembled cake had one of each flavor. When you cut the cake you get a palate-pleasing pastel palette. I think I’ll do that again this year, fill and frost with chocolate ganache, and decorate with fondant or candy.
Hmmm…guess I’d better make a shopping list!
I love Valerie’s idea of the pastel cake!
I bought little Delmonico steaks for us (and to share with spontaneous invitees on Sunday), since we recently had a grand ham for company. Accompaniments still to be determined, but I bought some melon Jell-o on a whim.
We ALWAYS have Resurrection Rolls, bread dough wrapped around a marshmallow, dipped in butter, and baked to melt the marshmallow and leave it empty inside, like the tomb on Easter morning! The butter and marshmallow make an amazing icing in the bottom of the pan.
My family loves lamb so we are having leg of lamb, couscous, roasted asparagus, fresh bread and a carrot loaf (not a sweet dish, more like a vegetarian meatloaf). This last is a new dish. I like to try to add one new recipe to each of our holiday meals so it is not always the same thing.
I think we are having chocolate cake for dessert. I am not certain why chocolate cake, but it seems to be well liked. I couldn’t do what Valerie is doing; her cakes would put mine to shame.
Last year was my first time to hostess since I’ve been married and I tried rack of lamb…..that did not go so well (took forever to cook since most of the guests would not do rare or even med). So this year I’m just going to stick with Ham, which really, who doesn’t like ham?
Ham
Creamed Corn Orzo
Honey Whipped Sweet Potato
Asparagus
Rolls
and several different desserts.
My sister-in-law will also bring an appetizer to keep everyone happy during last min prep.
We’re having our biggest Easter ever including a baby baptism. Our menu:
Grilled Lamb
Baked Ham
Potato Salad
Asian Noodle Salad
My Brother’s Amazing Rolls
Sautéed Asparagus
Fresh Fruit in some yet undecided form
Key Lime Pie
Chocolate Silk Pie
Our dining room can’t accommodate the group, so we will be setting up long tables in our oversized garage. It sounds ghastly, but my husband’s garage is his dominion and it is pretty clean. I so love sitting at one table together.
I’m enamored with the Nancy’s lilies and plan to run out this morning and get some.
I’m making puff pastry with a thickened chicken and spring vegetable soup over the top. Also vanilla scones, mini muffins and tiny brownies for breakfast with eggs and bacon (I’m making breakfast for our church) and a big, huge, chocolate cake for dessert.
I LOVE reading everyone’s menus! LOTS of good ideas here already!! Here is our menu, right now, unless I change it after reading all this. 🙂
This year we learned the idea of having a simple supper on Good Friday of hot crossed buns and applesauce before church.
On Easter we are having:
Ham
Scalloped potatoes
asparagus and parmesean in puff pastry
rolls
Green salad with mandarin oranges and toasted almonds with raspberry vinaigrette
deviled eggs
congealed fruit salad
apricot cake
rice krispy nests with jelly beans
rainbow sherbert ice cream
coconut cake
Almond tea ( if anybody has the Mitford cookbook by Jan Karon it has a fabulous tea recipe!)
wine
Another table idea: In Tasha Tudor’s book “A Time To Keep” there is a wonderful Easter table! ( Even if you can’t do it quite as “all out” as Tasha has it with live rabbits! it is still a pretty table. 🙂
Hope everyone has a Glorious Easter!
We are hosting a holiday meal for the first time this Easter, and I’m so happy to be making my mother’s traditional meal (passed down from my grandmother). It is so easy and everybody loves it!
Our menu is:
-Leg of lamb (boneless and cooked rare to medium rare), roasted with garlic slivers inside, and served with mint jelly
-Consomme’ rice
-French-cut green beans vinaigrette
-Steamed asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce
-Rolls
My in-laws are bringing a ham for the children because they don’t love lamb… yet. 🙂
For dessert this year:
-White cake with pink icing
I am trying to keep perspective this Easter. My husband will be away from us all because of work. I will be holding down the fort, getting 7 ready for church. My dearest Mother-in-law will be providing Easter dinner. I desperately want to throw all common sense to the wind and join you all in cooking up a feast worthy of the day! I believe my lovelies would be more blessed by devoting that zeal towards peace and harmony in the home – and I must not forget the Easter gifts!
For those of you with young children or grandchildren coming to your Easter table try turning your deviled eggs into chicks. I am sorry I don’t have a picture but they are fairly easy to make. After boiling and peeling the eggs trim a small bit off the larger end so that the egg will stand up. Now is the time consuming part. Taking a paring knife make small cuts about 1/3 of the way from the top (small end) of the egg. If you could cut it with pinking shears that is what it would look like. Now, carefully pop out the yoke and mix up your favorite deviled egg mixture. Fill the hole of each egg so that it is bursting out (this is the chick coming out of the egg), now place the top back on. Pull the pimento out of some green olives and cut into small triangles. Place the beak in the middle of each yoke mixture. Next take the olives and slice rings to make eyes. My girls have enjoyed making these and they are fun on the table. I just had Easter switched from my parents house to my home, so I appreciated the menu ideas.
Carol,
When you cut your lilies, just strip the leaves that will be in the vase. You can leave a few around the top. And you may need to steady your stem with a few marbles in the vase.
Hope you like it!
Here’s a picture of Cheryl’s cute deviled egg chicks.
I like the idea, but the olive eyes are a little too googly (not to mention that olives are not my favorite thing). Peppercorns would look better, but I suppose they wouldn’t be very kid-friendly. I think I’d actually be tempted to pipe black icing dots! Any other ideas?
Valerie, for the eyes on the deviled egg chicks some small capers might work well.
I am starting an Easter tradition this year! My husband is Polish, and in Poland, when the weather warms up, they serve a type of barscht that is cold and creamy called chlodnik (pronounced WOD-nik). The soup is a bright pink (because of the beet color mixed with yogurt/sour cream) and is eaten with boiled eggs. This is my absolute favorite soup ever! I decided this year that Easter would be the day that this soup is brought out again, after the cold winter.
Now I need to plan the rest of my menu…
I’ve got my Easter Day menus planned and posted on my seasonal food blog. Come check it out: http://www.toeverymeal.blogspot.com
That’s funny Katie…I was at the store earlier this evening and saw a jar of capers and thought the same thing. But I don’t think I’ve ever had capers or know what they taste like!
They are salty and have an intense flavor that I really enjoy. I always think they taste like the sea. I’m not sure what that means, but somehow that comes to mind every time I eat them. They would go well with the eggs, but you might not like them if you don’t like the taste of olives.
Here’s our favorite with capers. Instead of the butter in parsely buttered potatoes put in capers, olive oil, vinegar, dijon mustard and salt and pepper. Yum!
I just wanted to share something from the Armenian, or generally Mediterranean culture concerning the eggs. Traditionally, the eggs were only colored red, using red onion skins, to symbolize Christ’s blood. But something they do with the eggs before eating them is to have a competition whose egg is strongest. One person holds his egg wrapped in his hand with one end sticking out. All challengers tap their eggs end on his, and the one whose doesn’t break is the winner. It is fun for kids as well as adults.
Christ has risen!
We’re doing egg tapping too! And egg rolling across the (rain soaked) lawn. And “catch the bunny” (stuffed rabbit pulled on monofiliament line) and “bunny, bunny, rabbit” (dock, duck, goose) for the little ones.
Unfortunately, it’s been raining considerably off and on since last night and everything is water logged. (My valiant husband is even trying to blow icky leaves off the porch as I write.) So I don’t know how the egg hunt will go, since our home isn’t exactly suited for an indoor hunt. Good opportunity for creative thinking!
And I’m really surprised to hear how popular Jell-O is with other families at Easter. When I was a kid my mom made Jell-O eggs, and we loved them so much I make them for my kids. They’re one of the grossest things I can think of (besides marshmallow) — jigglers the size of baseballs :-0! But watching all the children play with them at dinner is such a hoot, I just can’t resist.
Happy Easter!
Valerie,
How about a couple of raisins for the eyes of the chickies?
Just a friendly suggestion: You may want to tag this as “Easter,” or something of the sort, so when people like me start scouring your website next Easter, it is easy to find! 🙂
Great idea, Debby, and it’s done!