Easter Recap

I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend. We had Easter dinner here at our house. It was our first holiday that we had in our new house. My cousin (Jenna) and her boyfriend(Matt) came over as did my husband's parents. Jenna and I spent a couple of hours in our tiny kitchen cooking up a storm. We are very alike in the fact that we care about the presentation of the food and love trying new recipes. If there was anyone else working with me in the small kitchen, I'd probably have a huge fit. One of my major pet peeves is when there's too many people in the kitchen while I'm trying to cook. However, Jenna and I work so well in the kitchen, we hardly even notice that there's two of us doing different things in there. It's probably due to the fact that we spent our childhood pretending we were hosting our own t.v. food show! (Although that's a totally different post)



Anyway, we had a very delicious menu:


Grilled Lamb, courtesy of my FIL
Honey Ham
Roasted Root Vegetables
Iceberg Wedges w/ Gorgonzola Dressing
Caramelized Onion & Sage Potatoes Gratin
Buttermilk Biscuits from The Joy of Cooking



Desert was a special treat for my husband and Matt. They had previously bonded over Profiteroles (yet another story for another post), so I surprised them and made some homemade ones from Martha's Baking book. Speaking of Martha, my other dessert was supposed to be sugar cookies using my Williams-Sonoma Easter cookies cutters I found at the thrift store. However, this recipe did not turn out, so we had a sugar cookie pie instead.



Also in my crazy haze of everyone coming over, I thought it would be a great idea to make these chocolate eggs I saw on the MS website. Oh was it crazy indeed. The whole process was a pain in the butt. First, I almost passed out from blowing out 8 eggs. Then I had to boil them in hot water and pat them down. Then I had to dye them. Next I realized I was supposed to let the eggs dry out for 2-3 days. I didn't let that stop me, so I put them in the hot oven to dry out. Yesterday morning I began the process of tempering the chocolate to fill the eggs. The worst part was filling the eggs through the tiny hole (not so tiny after I was done) in the egg. I had chocolate everywhere. I must say, everyone was quite impressed, but I was left feeling it wasn't so worth all the trouble! Here's a comparison of Martha's egg and my egg.



I was, however, very proud of my "tablescape."

My cousin and I were laughing about this terminology all week when I told her that I had a beautiful table setting in mind. If you ever watch the foodnetwork, you might know how funny it is to watch Sandra Lee. Anyway, a lot of the items were thrifted. The table cloth, jars, and the glasses holding the candy. I can't believe how cheaply I found the things for:

Table cloth: $3.95

Glass Jars: .80 each

Glass: .40 each

I also made my husband go outside a find a tree to cut branches off. He was apprehensive at first saying, "I'm probably going to get arrested. Those trees are park property." I told him to just go do it and tell them that his crazy wife made him do it for the sake of the tablescape. Haha. Luckily no one was arrested and the table looked exactly as I had pictured it.

Oh, and I never finished Isaiah's jacket for Easter, so he'll have to wear it some other time. I also didn't get any great pictures of him on my camera. I think I was too worried about my tablescape! Hopefully my cousin and MIL got some good ones so I can share them with you. Oh and the Easter bunny didn't come to visit either. Thank God for Godmommies and Nanas that come bearing nice Easter baskets!

Anyway, hopefully the weather warms up soon. I did not really enjoy the 40 degree Easter weather! Today is the last day of my husband's spring break, so I'm hoping to go the thrift store for the 25% off Mondays. Wish me luck.