An Easter Feast

As I was getting ready for Easter and thinking about the traditions that surround the food that we eat I realized that much of what’s for Easter dinner is based on what we have always eaten for the holiday meal. For us, it is always a beautiful ham!  It must have a beautiful brown sugar glaze and be basted in Dr. Pepper.  This year I decided to ask each of my family members what’s their favorite side.

I typically make the same meal every year for Easter, ham, mash potatoes, harvard beets, asparagus with hollandais, and rolls, finished with an angel food cake.  So, as I was putting together the menu it dawned on me that I never asked what anybody else wanted, I simply cooked the traditional food.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but it was interesting to find out what everybody really wanted.  Ham was over-whelmingly the winner for the meat.  It is the center piece of the meal and enjoyed by everybody.  I really wanted something other than mashed potatoes for the starch, so I picked mac and cheese.  My eldest daughter chose creamed spinach, and my youngest really wanted corn on the cob.  My husband wanted the beets, but we decided that fresh oven roasted beets with olive oil and balsalmic vinegar  would be a much better choice then doctoring up the canned sliced beets with vinegar and sugar!   A beautiful angel food cake with fresh berries is hard to beat, but I decided I didn’t want to make it this year.   Coconut cake that has layers of yellow genoise that have been drenched in sweetened coconut milk and covered in “light as air” frosting and toasted coconut would be the perfect ending for our feast! It was a great meal and everybody enjoyed their special additions. I hope you enjoyed your Easter and the traditions that your family have developed, but remember, don’t be afraid to take away or add to the meal to bring that new life of spring to your table!

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