This week we’ve got the whole gamut: traditional Easter dinner complete with ham, veggie burgers, epic s’mores, and a vegan dinner.
Mystery Dinner
The first meal is less about the food (stuff from the frozen food section of Costco) and more about the method. We aren’t pranksters, so April Fools isn’t really our thing, but the kids were really excited about it this year. Someone posted about how they were doing a coded dinner where everything on the menu represents a food dish or utensil. I googled it and found these guidelines and made a Harry Potter menu. The kids loved watching Noel lick ice cream off his “place mat” (I put down silpat mats to protect the table). It was a silly way to celebrate.
Grilled Chicken and Zucchini
Grilling is so, so easy and just what we needed on a gloriously warm Saturday. No recipe required, just your favorite seasonings and a food thermometer to make sure your meat is cooked.
Buffalo Chickpea Veggie Burgers
The flavor of these chickpea burgers was really good. We topped ours with blue cheese to give it a chicken wings vibe.
Dutch Baby
We didn’t make any plans for an extravagant Easter brunch, but at the last minute decided we wanted to do something out of the ordinary. This Dutch Baby recipe delivered.
Easter Dinner
We had a pretty traditional Easter dinner. Ham, potato casserole, rolls (great recipe if you’re short on time, we halved it), and green beans. I also made jello eggs. My grandmother used to make these very elaborate jello eggs in green jello grass. I tried to channel her, but clearly she was more of a jello artist than I am. For dessert, we had a smaller version of this lemon cake.
Cobb Salad
Since we had hard boiled eggs leftover from Easter, it seemed like the perfect time to have a Cobb salad.
Nutella S’mores
I’ve never been a huge fan of s’mores. I just didn’t like putting a gloriously toasted mallow on top of a cold, hard piece of chocolate. It just seemed wrong. While backpacking, Noel and I were talking about this and inspiration hit: Nutella. It’s creamy, delicious, and doesn’t require any melting. We tried it with our backyard fire pit and I am sold. I don’t think I can do s’mores any other way.
Creamy Butternut Orzo with Crispy Miso Mustard Brussels Sprouts
I needed a Vegan recipe a few weeks back and one of my personal training clients sent me some of her favorites. This creamy butternut orzo was one of them. It has some unusual ingredients if you don’t regularly eat vegan, but because we make some unusual things we actually had all of them other than the oat milk, which I purchased specifically for this recipe. I bought frozen butternut squash chunks and roasted them instead of steaming an entire squash. (Tip for those unusual ingredients: This delicious recipe also uses miso and nutritional yeast is really good on popcorn.) The flavor of this was pretty good. The kids were not excited, but did eat it. This recipe tastes best right after it’s made, the leftovers are okay.
Egg Salad Sandwich
Another great way to use up those Easter eggs. I kept the recipe simple: eggs, mayo, mustard, salt and pepper. Added some sprouts for crunch.
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