Easter 2011 Recap

In addition to the warm weather on Sunday, there were a lot of things that made my Easter weekend special.

A beautifully decorated table with tons of chocolate treats waiting for us:

Did I mention the chocolate? Traditional bunnies as well as special edition Lindt chocolates, Ferrero Rocher chocolates (including my absolute favorite the coconut version) and Ghiradelli chocolates:

A sneak peek in the kitchen revealed the source of the good smells wafting through Andrew's parents' house - Charlotte's world famous egg casserole (which usually only makes an appearance on Christmas morning) and french toast casserole to provide the "br" in our Easter brunch:

And nothing beats traditional ham to round out the dishes - yum!

Here's a look at the full brunch spread - we enjoyed biscuits, fruit salad, roasted potatoes, sugar snap peas and hot cross buns as well:

As you can see, I didn't skimp on my portion sizes - after all, Easter only comes once a year!

The nice thing about brunch was the blended group of family and friends - Amanda was home for the weekend (before jetting off on a whirlwind trip of Asia), and Amy, her roommate Merissa and my uncle Rich:

The rest of the family was filling their plates - Andrew and his parents:

Then, there were the desserts. Full confession, while I was originally planning on baking something for Easter, we ended up going out to watch the Bruins playoff game on Saturday night.  So what did we end up bringing?

An ice cream cake from Peaceful Meadows, an ice cream shop in Plymouth (fun fact: Amanda used to work at Peaceful Meadows in high school):

Rich brought a beautifully decorated chocolate cake from his favorite bakery in Taunton:

And my favorite dessert, Charlotte's homemade spice cake with Frangelico-infused frosting:

Poor A.J. was relegated to the downstairs family room for most of the meal but was allowed upstairs once we cleared the remnants of our feast away.

I know it's the wrong holiday but this weekend left me feeling thankful once again that Andrew's parents are so generous in opening their hearts and home to a motley crew of family and friends.

2010 Easter Dinner

Andrew's parents graciously hosted us, Phu and Magali for Easter dinner this year. As I promised Tom and Charlotte, we're due to have them over once we actually have a dining room table and chairs for everyone to sit on!

The scene: a beautifully set table with bowls of candy for each of us at each place setting. No Easter bags with tinsel this year, since it would end up in A.J.'s mouth!

Charlotte took the time to match each napkin to the napkin holder, the origami crane set that we got her as a Christmas gift:

The entertainment? Literally hours of watching A.J. scamper around things, on people and into shoes:

The best part? The food, of course. Ham with a tarragon mustard sauce and a roasted spring vegetable mix of radishes, asparagus and sugar snap peas:

With scalloped potatoes and caesar salad with homemade dressing on the side (with delicious fresh romaine in the salad):

A close-up of my loaded plate (yes, there are potatoes underneath that big heap of salad and I had seconds of both!):

With fresh pineapple salsa as a garnish for the ham. I thought the overall meal was perfect for a warm spring day, since each bite of the meal brought a fresh, light taste of fruit or vegetable with the ham representing Easter tradition:

A.J. was going nonstop the whole time and finally passed out on Andrew's lap:

Dessert was a bit rushed since we had to make it back home for an unexpected delivery (more to come on that in a later post). Oreo ice cream cake (our contribution, sadly not homemade), a chocolate macaroon torte by Andrew's mom and some of my Cadbury creme egg cookies from the other day:

Since poor Amy had to work today, she was the beneficiary of the meal's leftovers and she assured me that everything tasted just as good hours later, so she felt as though she was there in spirit.

I think Andrew and I may need to hold off on buying furniture indefinitely since his parents always do a great job of bringing everyone together and stuffing us full of good things.  Here's hoping that your Easter was filled with as much family, friends, fun and food - everything good!

Hoppy Easter!

The title of this post was inspired 1) by Marie Elizabeth's shirt and 2) a text from my sister today.

One of the things I love about Easter is how excited kids get about it.

Case and point.

Marie Elizabeth's delight in her Easter basket loot - I'm loving the cute Easter pajamas and that adorable smile as she examines her eggs - I can only imagine how much bigger that smile got once she realized there was candy in the eggs!

And for those of you too old to remember the thrill of the hunt, just look at Cody on his Easter egg hunt. I love that "spring" in his step and the joy in his face as he spots the egg.  Too cute!

Easter Dessert - Baked Alaska!

After visiting Cabot's last month, eyeing their Baked Alaska's in the display case and commenting on the fact that I had always read about them but never had one, Andrew's mom Charlotte made it as a special treat for Easter dinner dessert.

Amy and Andrew helped out with the ice cream scooping...

...which included a mishmash of chocolate, strawberry, coffee and chocolate mint (replacing pistachio due to the recent recall), mounded high onto a pie crust:

In the meantime, Charlotte worked on the meringue topping:

To get it perfectly whipped, you can't allow a hint of yolk (or any other type of fat) into the egg whites:

The meringue then gets added to the top of the ice cream:


It is spread around so that it covers every inch of the top, acting as an insulating layer. In addition, Charlotte pointed out that the meringue needed to be formed into peaks to help fashion its usual, distinctive look:

Next step was to place the pie/ice cream/meringue combo into the oven, fulfilling the "baked" portion of the dessert's name:

The quick time spent under the broiler toasted the meringue to a deep brown:

Finally, the Baked Alaska was picture perfect and ready to eat!

Andrew had the responsibility of cutting and serving the Baked Alaska:

Each slice was placed onto a plate that had homemade chocolate sauce drizzled on it:

The mishmash of ice creams resulted in beautifully-colored slices, topped by delicately flavored meringue, yummy!

This is what everyone's plates looked like afterwards:

Easter Dinner

Andrew's parents graciously hosted Amy, Phu and I for Easter dinner at their house in Plymouth today for another delicious meal and dessert.

Phu and I had enjoyed Easter dinner here last year, and we had all crowded their house for Thanksgiving, but this was Amy's first time spending Easter here:

We feasted on ham, a jello mold (with lime jello, cottage cheese, pineapple and pecans),

Ceasar salad with homemade dressing, green beens, rolls and macaroni and cheese:

One of the things I love about spending holidays with Andrew's folks is the way the house is decorated to reflect the season. This included spring rabbits, Easter eggs and Easter napkins at the table:


And pastel-colored Easter M&Ms on the table to tempt us:

Plus, we had Easter bags waiting at our seats, featuring traditional treats such as Cadbury creme eggs and Peeps:

The best part was dessert - which deserves a post of its own!