Easter Fixings

My Easter weekend was filled with many blessings. I spent the weekend with my Father and Grandparents. And of course, we ate very well. Over the course of Lent, I gave up meat entirely. Well, except for fish. During this time, I acted as a Catholic vegetarian or a Pacific Northwest vegetarian. It is very hard to eliminate fish too! I would find it very difficult to be a vegetarian full time. Much respect to vegetarians. And just because I can eat meat again, I still plan on limiting my meat consumption to a few times a week.

With that said, it was with great excitement to return meat to my diet on Sunday! I started off the morning with bacon. I made a simple egg frittata with spinach, tomatoes, chives, cheddar and sliced avocado. For dinner we had barbecued top sirloin steak. I sauteed mushrooms, garlic, and shallots and served the mix atop each piece of steak with crumbled blue cheese. My sides included an herb salad with marinated red onions, bacon bits, and sliced avocado tossed in a simple red wine vinaigrette. I also roasted red potatoes and mixed in roasted garlic and rosemary. I learned a valuable lesson watching TV recently that I must share on how to roast potatoes to perfection. First, cut up the potatoes and boil them in water. Cook them until they are just barely cooked through then strain. When the potatoes have dried enough with their own steam, toss them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary and lay them on a sheet pan. Place in the oven at 375 degrees for about a half hour to 45 minutes. When finished, the potatoes will not be dried out and they will still have that brown, crusty shell we all love.

Our dinner was followed by a scrumptious strawberry, apple, rhubarb crisp topped with cinnamon honey ice cream. The rhubarb came straight from the garden. So did the chives mentioned earlier. Spring is here. The sun was shining on Saturday to prove it. Even though we are back to rainy whether, the plants are growing. There will be more bounty to share in no time. Happy Easter!

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