Happy Easter!
Easter is such a happy occasion. You can
feel a lightness, an excitement, a joy in the air. Many people have long-held family
traditions for this holiday...the holiest of holy days. How do
you celebrate Easter?
My
family used to have traditions, but as relatives passed away, moved
and so forth, the traditions sort of dissolved. But it's still
always a happy day. I do miss my big family and the homemade
(gigantic) raviolis, homemade pasta, ham, and of course, the Italian
Easter pie (a savory dish, not sweet), but we still always manage to
create a tasty meal to celebrate the day.
This
year we are doing ham, but not as a hot meal. We are serving it
room temp, with rolls, pickles, olives, chips and dip, carrots and
hummus, potato salad, and deviled eggs. In addition to a
variety of fresh, soft rolls from the bakery to have with the ham, I
am also trying a recipe from the Kings Hawaiian website, using their
dinner rolls. Check it out...
http://www.kingshawaiian.com/recipes/ ~ Scroll down their page
and check out their ham sandwich and ham slider recipes....don't
those look good? I'll come back later and let you know how they
came out.
For
dessert this year we have my favorite carrot cake ever....with my
favorite cream cheese frosting ever... It's my mother's recipe and
it's the best. Of course, I could be partial to it since I grew
up with it. I'll be posting the recipe in my Spring
page, click
here to get to it.
It's not a light cake. You know how some cakes are light and
airy, and then there are others that are more dense, like a pound
cake? Well, this one is like the pound cake of carrot cakes.
It is very heavy and dense, with a delicious batter packed full
of finely grated carrots and walnuts. It gets a nice crispy
"crust" as it bakes (almost two hours!). We haven't
had it in quite a few years, and as I was making it yesterday, just
smelling the grated carrots, then the cinnamon, oh, it smelled just
like my childhood! Then of course I had to test (taste) the
batter. Oh ~ so ~ good!
My
husband is not a fan of nuts (other than peanuts and cashews) which
is one of the reasons I haven't bothered making the carrot cake in
years. So I made him one of his all time favorite desserts ~
peanut butter pie. I'll be posting that in the Everyday
Recipes page here on my blog (just
scroll down to find it). It is a pie recipe you can easily whip
up, and I've made it for him for Thanksgiving before, for his
birthday...any time he mentions being in the mood for it. It
seems to work for just about any occasion. Even "just because."
Hopefully
you got a chance to experience some of the traditions from your
childhood Easters, from recipes, to coloring eggs, or to watching
your favorite Easter specials.
P.S. The Kings Hawaiian Rolls ham slider recipe was a hit! That might very well become a new Easter tradition.
