Friday Food: Easter!

Friday 

Short version: Spanish tortilla

Long version: I brought the two altar servers to the Good Friday service, and I stayed with them. It was a long Latin Mass, but thankfully, it started at 3 p.m., so we got home around 5:30 p.m. I had made the Spanish tortilla because it can be made ahead and served at whatever temperature. 

It's also an all-in-one meal if I add some sort of vegetable to it. Which I did. Finely chopped beet greens.

Saturday

Short version: Goulash-y thing with noodles, leftovers, bread and butter

Long version: This was the night of the Easter Vigil service, which was a REALLY long Latin Mass. This time, the boys needed to be there at 4 p.m. and I didn't anticipate them getting home until after 8 p.m.

I had taken out some sirloin steak I had thinly sliced, thinking I would make stir-fry with it. But since I had paprika sludge left from dyeing eggs (I drain most of the water off the top of the spices, leaving the sludgy spice at the bottom to be used), I instead made a kind of goulash with that. I didn't add tomato this time, instead just using onion, garlic powder, the paprika, sauerkraut, and water to simmer the meat, and then adding sour cream at the end. I think we all preferred this tomato-less version, actually.

The altar boys had that with egg noddles a bit after 3 p.m. I dropped them off at church at four to get ready, although the service wasn't until 5 p.m. I took the younger two with me to play on the playground in the village after we stopped at the church. While we were gone, A. ate the rest of the split pea soup from the freezer and then went to the actual service.

When I got home with the younger children, we ate the last of the neverending chili with the bread and butter.

And then the altar servers had tortillas and cheese when they got home at 8:30 p.m. 

Quite an evening, all around.

Let's all calm down with a pretty photo of the open tulip, shall we?

That's nice.

Sunday 

Short version: Ham, scalloped potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette, green peas, chiffon cake with chantilly cream and rhubarb/peach sauce

Long version: The ham had been in the freezer for awhile, so I didn't actually buy anything new to make this meal.

I've decided my new goal for Easter is to use at least one thing from the garden for our Easter dinner. I found one stalk of asparagus and some parsley in the garden that I chopped up for the salad. 

I made the chiffon cake mostly because it uses a lot of eggs--and I still have a LOT of eggs--and is not chocolate. My kids get plenty of chocolate in their Easter baskets, so there's no sense in going overboard.

Chiffon cake is just like an angel food cake, except the yolks are used. I used this recipe, including the chantilly cream. 

Do you see the tiny little carrot on the cake plate? A. dug that up in the garden earlier in the day when we were planting green beans. It was pretty limp and sad, so I just used it as a decoration. Mostly for amusement, since it wasn't actually particularly decorative.

The cake was fine, but I really liked the chantilly cream. It had a bit of sour cream in with the heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla, which gave it a slightly more complex flavor than straight whipped cream, and also allowed it to hold up to being refrigerated overnight. Whipped cream gets liquidy if it's not used right away. This didn't.

I didn't have any strawberries to use on top of the cake, but I did get a few small stalks of rhubarb from the garden that I cooked and mashed with some home-canned peaches and sugar to make a sauce for the cake. That was really good.

Monday

Short version: Spaghetti with meat sauce and ricotta, dilly beans

Long version: I had to make ricotta because our last gallon of milk was separating. 

Draining the ricotta.

Since I was making ricotta, I made a meat sauce to put it in. And since I was making a meat sauce, I made spaghetti.

That's often how things unfold in my kitchen. And it's one reason I don't make menu plans ahead of time.

Tuesday

Short version: Cheeseburgers (with buns!), carrot sticks

Long version: I was making bread, so I made some buns for the cheeseburgers. I used some of the whey from draining the ricotta in the bread, and it made it very soft. Perfect for hamburger buns. I even had lettuce and thinly sliced onions for the top. Deluxe indeed.

Well, for our house. Low expectations, remember?

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers of various kinds

Long version: Some had sandwiches with meat sauce in them (surprisingly tasty). Some had leftover spaghetti with sauce. All had dilly beans and plain ricotta. Not together, though.

Thursday

Short version: Sausages, leftover scalloped potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: I had one package of boudin sausage and one of smoked beef sausage left from my stock-up in Texas over Christmas. I think there's one more small package of kielbasa left, and then all the sausage will be gone. Sadness.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?