Easter

So Easter with my family did not happen as planned. It turned out that Mister and I got sick over the weekend. A quick jaunt to the doctor's today verified that we each had strep. This would be Mister's second bout of it in as many weeks, and my first lately.

Because of the lack of traveling, Mister and I had Easter at home. I've been pining for such feasts as my family always prepares, so I attempted to recreate it, with a fair amount of success!



Here is our lovely table set with the new china from my mother, Warwick AB9428, and a couple of vintage embroidered cloths. Mister and I had our dear friend M stop by to eat with us. Set on the table you can see: sliced ham, sliced sausage (it claimed to be kielbasa but it lied!), cottage cheese, butter, horseradish and beets, hardboiled eggs (green Americauna eggs, so they sorta look dyed :-P), and bread under the embroidered napkin.

The recipe I used for the horseradish and beets is this one. I only used 3 good sized beets in lieu of the 10-12 small ones they call for. In retrospect, I should have used far more horseradish than I used. Also, it's surprisingly difficult to grate! It flakes more than grates.



I wound up making close to 4 cups of horseradish and beets. AND I managed to do it without staining my kitchen counters, any cutting boards, or my hands! Victory!

When making the paska bread, I based it off of this recipe. I halved the recipe, but kept the same amount of eggs, added in craisins (I didn't have golden raisins on hand and I hate cooked dark raisins). I also didn't have sour cream, but I DID have that cottage cheese I bought... so I mixed a bit of cottage cheese with vanilla almond milk and a dash of white vinegar. I shaped it into a boule, not a ring. I also removed the handle of our small 2 quart saucepan to bake it. It also took it much closer to an hour to bake due to it's shape.



Here it is baking.



This is all that remains now! It was a success -- although it could have used a bit more sugar and perhaps another egg or two -- or maybe just the yolks for color? But it was a good substitute for paska bread.

Aside from that, two things remain regarding my Easter.



We bought a little pot of daffodils! When we bought it Saturday, it had no blooms. On Easter morning, it had 2. By that afternoon, it had 4. And it now has 6. It's a cute little plant.



I dyed my first yarn! Since I had to boil beets, I had all this gorgeous beet water. So I boiled some peruvian wool from knitpicks for about an hour, while I was prepping other things Saturday night. But when rinsing, it turned out to be yellow (it is much closer to goldenrod color than is evident in the picture). Who knew?

And that was my exciting Easter!