Easter recipes you crave all year
I've carried a soft spot for the Easter holiday and Easter recipes ever since I was a little girl in pastel smocked dresses, lace socks, and bunny ears. It wasn't because he hath risen, exactly ... for me it was more about the food, family, and the happy spring flowers. OK, just the food and flowers. Fine! Twist my arm. Just the food.
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Growing up in Virginia, Easter was generally full of warm sunshine and fun Easter egg hunts -- not that I would really know anything about those parts. I was in the kitchen, waiting for supper to be ready, sneaking Reese's out of my sisters' baskets and blaming it on my dad. I just had to hover around the stove and the cooks, I was desperate for a piece of whatever was even remotely safe to be eaten. Easter, simply put, is delicious.
Let's start with breakfast. You've got to have something a little hearty that will stick to your bones for the duration of church, and then possibly a drive to Grandma's house. We'd have homemade orange muffins with scrambled eggs with chives. So springy! And I'm craving both things right now. Super.
Then there was the egg hunt. Sure, why not have a hard-boiled egg while on the prowl for its hidden comrades. They're fun to peel and eat. Throwing the yolk at cousins is optional.
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Then it's time for the 2 p.m. Easter Supper. The best meal of the year, outside of Thanksgiving and the McDonald's pit stop on the way to the beach every August. It goes something like: Chilled pea soup served in cup and saucer; lamb, cooked to perfection with rosemary and thyme; small white, skinless potatoes baked in the lamb juices; fresh asparagus from the farmers' market; and creamed onions. Add in a fluffy white dinner roll and you're set.
Easter dessert was always a conundrum. Where to start? We "opened" our Easter baskets after supper and had plenty of pink, yellow, and light blue Reese's cups, Cadbury Creme Eggs, and peanut M&Ms to feed a small village, but there was also cheesecake in the fridge and raspberries with creme fraiche. I didn't know this acronym back in the '80s, but it was a real FML decision. So hard. Chocolate bunny now, or room for dessert later?! Age old question that may never be answered.
Post-Easter snack around 8 or 9 p.m. would be a nice pick with your fingers at the lamb ... or more chocolate. Definitely no hard-boiled eggs, you have to draw the line somewhere.
Great, now I'm starving.
What are your favorite Easter recipes?
Photo via Amy Loves Yah/Flickr
Written by Lindsay Mannering for CafeMom's blog, The Stir.
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