I decided to make French Baked Eggs or Oeufs Cocottes for Easter simply for the reason that I wanted to use the new lavendar Le Creuset Signature Petite Cocottes that I had found for a steal at Home Goods a couple of months ago. I already own the cocottes in navy blue, green and brown so when I stumbled upon three of the lavendar beauties for 2/3 the price, I snapped them up.

For Easter Brunch this year, I veered off my usual Easter Brunch sort of menu. No honey-glazed ham or potatoes au gratin. No asparagus tart, asparagus terrine, or asparagus salad. No French toast or herb crepes. No, this year, I went with a super simple and super last-minute sort of menu. Why? Because I wasn’t 100% I’d be in town to make Easter Brunch this year.

My daughter, Marissa, is expecting baby boy #2 any day now. Baby boy #1, Max, arrived three weeks early and if #2 followed suit, he would have arrived on March 26th. But he, and Marissa, are hanging in there for the time being. If all goes to plan, I will be flying out to Chicago next week, until then, I’m on watch to leave at a moment’s notice. Easter shopping didn’t happen until late Saturday afternoon. Here is my last-minute super simple menu:

• Easter Harmony Board w/Crackers
• Deviled Ham-Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
• Oeufs Cocotte (French Baked Eggs)
• Watergate Salad
• Costco Carrot Cake Cupcakes

The guest list was pared down too, with only my dad, Dave, Connor, and me. The overall favorite dish of the day was the deviled ham-grilled cheese. I’ll most definitely be making it again and again. I’m so out of the habit of blogging that I didn’t get a close-up photo of the sandwiches, just a table shot with them in the center on a plate. Sorry!

A close-up photo that I did manage to get was of my April Fools “Grilled Cheese Sandwiches” that I made for my girlfriends today. We were at lunch to celebrate Amy, April and Lori’s March birthdays so I brought along a little “sample of the delicious grilled cheese sandwiches I’d served for Easter.” They were tricked and were actually happy with my pound cake/vanilla frosting creation. To fool your friends next year, simply slice a pound cake, butter one side and brown in a skillet. Set aside to cool. Add orange or a mixture of red and yellow food coloring to purchased vanilla frosting and put together your sandwiches.

It’s been a week since Easter and I realized that the only Easter thing I’ve posted since then has been the cocktail. Priorities!

It was a strange gathering in strange times. A few days prior, my dad decided he was not comfortable coming and that he’d rather stay home. He is alone, so this made me especially sad. My dad does not have internet, own a computer, and barely knows how to use his smartphone. Last year, his cellular carrier forced him to get rid of his flip phone and get a smartphone. He uses it strictly as a phone. He does not text, open a web browser, use the camera, etc. and does not want to learn how.

So early in the day, Connor and I took him plates of our Easter meal and I brought along my computer.

I set the laptop on boxes in his garage so that we would not need to go into his house. I used the hotspot on my phone to connect the laptop to WiFi and we were able to use Zoom so that he could see and talk to Marissa and Jeff in Austin. He was thrilled.

For our Easter meal, I set up three place settings using the 6-foot social distancing requirement. Connor was at one end of my 7-foot outdoor table and Dave was at the opposite end.

I had myself set up on a tray that was 6 feet from each of them since sitting in at the center area of the table would have positioned us too close together.

The guys were required to enter through the back gate into my backyard and were not permitted to go inside the house. We had a FaceTime call with Dave’s mom, brother, nieces, and nephew in Illinois. Then another Zoom call with Marissa and Jeff where we played games with the Jackbox.TV app.

I made a small Easter Harmony Board for the guys to share at the main table, the half with the yellow and green grass for Dave and the half with the pink and purple grass for Connor. Everyone had their own serving utensils, wine bottles, pitchers for the signature cocktail, etc. so that nothing was shared or touched by anyone else.

This means that I had a little Harmony Board of my own. All for me!

Before I get to today’s post, I want to give you a heads up about next week. My friend, Ronnie, had an ingenious idea for a new feature. On March 31st, she challenged me to help her create a dish with what she had on hand in her pantry and refrigerator. She gave me a list of four items and asked for a menu idea. She said, “… just use your experience and wealth of knowledge to come up with a plan.” She’s right, with all of us doing our best to STAY HOME, shop less and use what we have, this is the perfect time for such a challenge.

So yeah, challenge accepted!

On Monday I will share what Ronnie’s items were, what I suggested she make with them, and exactly how she could go about doing that. I’ll also share the photos of her process and her finished dish and exactly how she did go about doing it.

Between now and then, if you would like to send me a Pantry/Refrigerator Challenge – PLEASE DO!

Please shoot me an email at [email protected] with a list of what you have on hand and I will come up with a plan for using those items to make a dish/meal. Then you make the dish/meal and send me photos of the process and the finished dish to share here. This will be FUN!

NOTE: Please type Pantry/Refrigerator Challenge or something similar in the subject line so that if it goes into my spam folder, it will catch my eye and prevent me from tossing it in the trash.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming….

Ann asked me to show the colored and filled eggs from yesterday’s post. Ann, my pleasure!

There will only be three of us for this unusual and unprecedented Easter Sunday, so only three of the eggs were filled with egg salad.

The remaining six hold mini spring bouquets sitting in my collection of pretty egg cups.

Yesterday, I received an email from eagle-eyed reader, Jennifer, after she spotted something unusual in one of the photos from my New & Improved Zucchini Bread post.

Can you see what it is that she spotted and had a question about?

Today is my sister’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Sloane! I love you and I’m looking forward to celebrating with you tonight!

Also, this is the last post of April. If you don’t already know, there is a contest that ends today. If you’re not playing along, it’s not too late, just go read the rules HERE. You may still leave comments through Thursday evening since the winner(s) will be drawn on Friday.

If you are playing, please double-check all the April posts to be certain you’ve left a comment on each one, there are a total of twelve posts this April. The winning name(s) will be drawn and notified on Friday, May 3, 2019. Helpful Hint: To easily look at each post this month, there is an April calendar in the top right corner of this page. The dates in blue are days with a post. You can click on each of those blue days and scroll down to the comments to check and see if your comment is there. This is the page layout for a computer. On a cell phone, you’ll need to scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “View Full Site” to see the calendar in the upper right corner.

Since April is coming to an end, this is also the last post about Easter 2019. Here are photos of the Easter Harmony Board and Bloody Mary Board which I created, along with my table setting. Plus a simple recipe for the second salad I served for Easter. HERE is a link to the first salad.

I made this cake for our Easter supper and served it alongside THIS Citrus Sorbet. Since baking is not my forte, of course, there is a mishap story to go along with it. I found the recipe is a real estate magazine that my mother-in-law sent me from Illinois. Thank you, Mom!

I switched it up a bit. The original recipe was for a Tangerine and Chamomile Cake, using chamomile tea bags. I am not a fan of chamomile, so instead, I used my absolute favorite tea, Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice tea. If you love chamomile tea and want to switch it back to the original, use four chamomile tea bags instead of the two Bengal Spice that I use here.

Here’s the mishap story. On the Saturday before Easter, I had several Harmony Boards to make and deliver. The first deliveries began at 2:30 and the last was at 5:00. I made all the boards and delivered the first batch. I came home and realized I had just enough time to put together the cake batter, get it in the pans and bake them. My timing was impeccable. The layers were finished baking 5 minutes before I needed to pack up and leave. I knew better than to leave them to cool on the kitchen counter because of these two cats.

I set up the cooling racks on top of my washing machine.

I set the cakes on top and Bombay was immediately interested. I went back to my bedroom to set the alarm. I closed the laundry room door and went out into the garage. That’s when I realized I’d left the car keys on the kitchen counter. I knew I had enough time to go back in and grab the keys before the alarm was fully set. I went in and had a brief moment of panic when I didn’t immediately see the keys. I found them and hurriedly went back out the garage door.

It wasn’t until I came back home that I saw that not only had I forgotten to close the laundry room door, but that one of the cats had tried to jump up on the washing machine and in the process, knocked down one of the racks. I didn’t look to see what damage was done until after I’d gone to the bedroom to disarm the alarm. I came back and saw the rack on the floor by their food dishes. Where was the cake? I looked behind the laundry door and there it was, out of the pan, upside down, while the pan was further back in the corner behind the door. The good news is that the cake was completely intact with the parchment still stuck to the bottom, not a crack or a crumb missing. The pan was as clean as a whistle, and that is a win in my baking history! I picked up the cake, sliced a clean layer off the top, and used it.

I knew the cat or most likely “The Cat”, had not touched it after it fell. He was probably too startled from the crashing he’d caused. And I am certain it was “the he”, Bombay, and not “the she”, Bailey. I say this because Bailey was sleeping in her usual spot when I went looking for them, while Bombay was hiding in the front room, where he seldom, if ever, goes. But it is nearly impossible for me to be mad. I mean, look at that face! OK, enough about my cute cats. Recipe time.

Yup, another post about that pickle juice vodka I made that isn’t so great. It wasn’t my intention to write another post but a comment from Nancy on the last post prompted this one.

Nancy said, “Did you think about pouring some of the vodka back into the pickles to have “pickled” pickles? Maybe for Bloody Marys?”

Actually, I’d not only thought of it, but I’d already done it. Although I didn’t pour the vodka back over the pickles, I poured it over the contents of this jar of mixed vegetables I had picked up at World Market. As you can see in the photo, the vegetables are packed in safflower oil. The oil taste and smell were unappetizingly strong. Seriously strong, when I opened the jar, I gagged a little. No, the oil had not gone rancid, you can see the “use-by” date is 2021. It was just Very fragrant!

I used part of the contents in a Custom Installation of Harmony Boards earlier this month. To make them taste and smell good, I drained off the oil, patted them as dry as I could get them, and then rinsed them in apple cider vinegar. That worked. They are on the rectangular dish in the photo above.

This is the last of my Easter brunch recipes. The real reason I made these was so that I could use the adorable green mini Le Creuset Petite Cocotte (little Dutch ovens) that my kids gave me for Christmas several years ago. The green was the perfect pop of color for my Easter table.

[Read more →]

Did you know that in the last week of March you can not find fresh rhubarb in any grocery store in the Valley of Sun?

Trust me, I tried. I went to Fry’s, Safeway, Sprouts, and Whole Foods. I called Albertson’s, Bashas, A.J.’s, and Natural Grocers. I’ve never even set foot inside a Natural Grocers, so I don’t have a clue as to what sort of inventory they have, but I was desperate!

Not one of them had rhubarb. All the produce managers said they had tried to order it, but it wasn’t coming in. By the time I discovered this, I’d already bought the strawberries for this salad and I had my heart set on it. I love strawberry-rhubarb pie, so I was craving this salad for my Easter brunch.

Finally, I took a closer look at the recipe and saw that the rhubarb was cooked for a couple of minutes and then sat in the hot liquid. It seemed to me as if the frozen rhubarb would work just fine. And it did!

A bonus of this recipe is the cooking syrup from the rhubarb, you’ll have about 1 cup of it but you only use 2 tablespoons of it for the dressing. The rest of it you can save and use as a grapefruit-rhubarb simple syrup for cocktails. Mix it with vodka and soda for a refreshing drink. Oh, it is good!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Salad

• 1 cup freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups 1-inch diagonally sliced fresh rhubarb or a 12-ounce bag of cut frozen rhubarb
• 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 20 ounces fresh strawberries, quartered lengthwise (about 3 cups)
• 1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds
• 1/4 cup small mint leaves
• Mint sprigs, for garnish

In a medium saucepan, stir together the grapefruit juice and sugar over medium-high; bring to a boil, and cook, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves.

Add rhubarb to pan; cook for 1 minute. Remove pan from heat. Cover and let stand until rhubarb is tender-crisp, about 15 minutes if fresh or 10 minutes if frozen.

Remove rhubarb with a slotted spoon, reserving rhubarb syrup.

In a large bowl, stir together the orange juice, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons of the rhubarb syrup. (reserve the remaining syrup for another use.) [Read more →]