{"id":4869,"date":"2011-04-25T20:35:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T00:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.relishments.com\/blog\/?p=4869"},"modified":"2013-07-07T18:03:47","modified_gmt":"2013-07-07T22:03:47","slug":"easter-eats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.relishments.com\/blog\/easter-eats\/","title":{"rendered":"Easter Eats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every once in a while I feel like I have a day or a weekend that makes up for any lack of serious cooking that has occurred during the week.\u00a0 This weekend was one of those weekends:\u00a0 I made a dish to bring to our church\u2019s sunrise service and my in-laws came to our place for Easter lunch.<\/p>\n

There was a time (3 months ago?) when I got really stressed out about cooking for other people.\u00a0 The stress has diminished, but I still worry about providing what other people like to eat<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 What\u2019s the point in cooking for other people if they\u2019re not going to like it? Brian and I have been together for almost 8 years (crazy, I know) so I have a pretty good idea of what his family likes.<\/p>\n

Coming up with a dish to bring for the sunrise service was a little more stressful.\u00a0 I sent out a message on Twitter hoping to get some good suggestions.\u00a0 My mother-in-law, who does not have Twitter but follows my tweets anyway, sent me a recipe for baked French toast with pecans<\/a>.\u00a0 Despite not winning any awards for being healthy, it was super easy to make and popular with the other attendees.\u00a0 Next year I\u2019m definitely making a quiche or some other egg dish though because there were 3 French toasts this year and the couple of egg dishes were gone really fast.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been planning our Easter lunch for a while.\u00a0 I realized a couple of weeks ago that I\u2019d be cool with serving the traditional ham for Easter lunch, if I could find one from a local farm.\u00a0 I posted to the Berkshire Grown Online Farmers Market<\/a> on Facebook asking if anyone had ham steaks available and received one reply.\u00a0 I sent that farm an email.\u00a0 The next day I had 2 emails in my inbox: one from the farm letting me know that they did not have ham after all, the other from our CSA letting us know about a farmer\u2019s market that was happening the next day.\u00a0 Perfect.\u00a0 We ventured to the farmer\u2019s market and successfully procured 2 ham steaks.\u00a0 Beyond that semi-last minute trip, I decided to keep things simple.<\/p>\n

Easter Lunch Menu:<\/span><\/strong>
\nHam steaks (from the farmer\u2019s market)
\nPotato, Spinach and Goat Cheese Gratin<\/a> (made Saturday afternoon)
\nGreen beans (from the supermarket)
\nBread (picked up at our CSA on Saturday)<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4041\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking at this tablescape makes me really happy.\u00a0 I just feel like it looks so nice (maybe because Brian and I rarely eat our meals at the table).\u00a0 We even broke out the cloth napkins for the occasion.\u00a0 It makes me very excited for the days when we\u2019ll have a house and I can accumulate more serving dishes and place mats and such.<\/p>\n

Dinner was pretty good.\u00a0 One of these days I\u2019ll learn how to not overcook meat, but we eat it so rarely I never quite know what I\u2019m doing.\u00a0 Still, it was more than edible.\u00a0 While prepping the gratin, I went into a brief panic because I\u2019d forgotten that it contained parmesan cheese, which my father-in-law doesn\u2019t like.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t come up with an immediate substitution, so I added it anyway.\u00a0 Turns out he\u2019s changed his mind about parmesan, so it all worked out.\u00a0 My mother-in-law brought a couple tasty desserts (and left us with leftovers!)\u00a0 The whole thing was very low-key, which just makes me want to host people for meals even more.\u00a0 As far as hosting holiday meals is concerned, this Easter was definitely a good place to start and a success.<\/p>\n

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