Friday Food: The Easter Feast

Friday 

Short version: Fish sticks, baked potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette

Long version: Before Lent started, I bought the biggest available bag of Great Value fish sticks. That was enough for two full meals for our family of six. This was the second of them.

As always, the Great Value ones are just fine, provided you absolutely do not follow the "bake for 18-20 minutes" nonsense on the bag. I baked these for a full hour at 450 degrees and they still could have used more crisping.

The longer baking time makes it convenient for also baking potatoes for an easy side dish, although baked potatoes don't seem to go with fish sticks, somehow. I was going for low effort, though, and this certainly was that.

I didn't even make tartar sauce this time. Everyone made do with ketchup. 

Saturday

Short version: Sausage, leftover pasta or fried potatoes, collard greens or still-frozen green beans

Long version: I cooked one package of Italian sausage links and one of jalapeno/cheddar sausages. The leftover pasta was the baked spaghetti I had made with the can of chicken. There wasn't quite enough of that for everyone, but since A. doesn't eat much pasta and one child doesn't like it that much, I just microwaved a couple of potatoes for them. Those I diced and fried in the pan with the sausage.

Sunday

Short version: Lamb gyros; potatoes and onion; peas with mint; strawberry-rhubarb pie, baked custard, brownies, vanilla ice cream; French 75s

Long version: I liked the French 75s so much when we had them on Fat Tuesday that I got everything to make them again. They're very much a special-occasion drink, what with the champagne and all. The champagne also makes them something best made when there are multiple people drinking, so the whole bottle of champagne is used in one night. There were three of us drinking them this night, which worked out. (We had guests. I did not give any to my minor children, thank you.)

When we butchered the two wethers a few weeks ago, A. boned out two of the back legs. I used both of those for our Easter feast. I shoved garlic into slits all over them, then covered them all with many spices plus olive oil before rolling them up and tying them for roasting.

Not quite done.

I thought one roast wouldn't be enough meat and two would be too much, but we had two guests with us and everyone ate an amazing amount, so we didn't really end up with a lot of leftovers.

I made pita bread so we could make gyros with the lamb. Also hummus and tzatziki sauce, and then I set out lettuce, tomato, pickled onions, and feta cheese. Because more toppings=more better with gyros.

Topping table.

The potatoes were just potato cubes with onion wedges that I covered with olive oil and the same spices that went on the lamb.

Ready for the feast.

I have learned that the best part of holiday desserts for my family is quantity. For that reason, I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie, and then I also made baked custard. I hadn't made that in a very long time, and everyone was very enthused about it. I made it in two smaller casserole dishes so I would have my bigger Pyrex for the potatoes*. One of my smaller casseroles is oval, which meant I had the opportunity to make an Easter egg custard with colored sugar.

The brownies were a last-minute thing I threw in the oven with the custard because, for various reasons, the kids' Easter baskets didn't have the overwhelming amount of chocolate in them that they usually do. And just for fun, I cut the brownies into a cross.

I made a very whimsical dessert table with all of this.

Also featuring Poppy's blanket and some of the flowers I didn't want to use on the church altar.

Anyway. There was a lot of food, all of it delicious, and everyone ate far too much and was pleased with that. Happy Easter!

Monday

Short version: Leftover lamb, mashed potatoes, leftover peas, leftover brownies

Long version: The only part of this meal I had to make this night was the mashed potatoes, because there weren't enough leftover potatoes from the Easter feast.

Tuesday

Short version: Baked beans and rice, ice cream

Long version: I had some baked beans that had been in the refrigerator for some time and needed to be used. There were only two children at home, because the older boys left this day for the state FFA convention.

I also had one serving of baked beans+ground beef in the freezer. I gave that to A. over rice, and then the children had the plain baked beans. This was a very fast meal to get on the table after getting home with Poppy from her First Communion class.

They had ice cream after dinner because Poppy had her first confession at class and I figured there should be something celebratory for that. Ice cream works.

Wednesday

Short version: Salisbury steaks with milk gravy, leftover mashed potatoes or rice, asparagus yay!

Long version: First asparagus!

Right in the pan with the meat.

The grasshoppers got after the asparagus last year and we weren't sure how it would come up this spring. It's looking really good so far, thankfully. Tasting good, too. Yum.

Thursday

Short version: Breakfast sausage patties, leftover Salisbury steak, leftover baked beans, garlic bread, asparagus, raw bell peppers

Long version: I took out one tube of breakfast sausage, which was enough because only A. and Poppy ate it. The third son and I had the leftover Salisbury steak. Everyone but me had the beans and garlic bread. The adults had the asparagus. The children had the raw bell pepper.

As an aside, it is SO much easier to cook for four people rather than six, especially because the missing two are teenage boys. I am seeing my future, and it has a lot less cooking in it . . .

Refrigerator check:

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

* Making two smaller dishes of custard was also helpful because them I had a whole other one to bribe the children to get out of bed on a reluctant Monday morning. Custard is an excellent breakfast.