Easter Food for the holiday

 

Digital News Report – Easter is one week away, which gives us enough time to plan and prepare our feast for the holiday. There are several traditional Easter recipes and foods that you will find common. Some are ham, deviled eggs, eggs golden rod, potatoes au gratin, asparagus, and cake. Here are a few recipes for Easter.

Easter Ham

Ham has been one of the traditional meat served at Easter dinner. The other choice is often roast lamb. Depending on the ham you buy is how much you will want to add to it. Many of the hams are packaged with a glaze that comes with it. If you get a plain ham you can make your own glaze very easily with a cooked brown sugar and orange juice. Another popular combination is pineaple juice with orange juice and brown sugar. Cook the mixture until it thickens, then apply to the outside of the ham during the last half-hour of cooking. If you use the pineapple you can serve sliced pineaple rings with the ham.

Deviled Eggs with Ham

The Pennsylvania Dutch had a different way to make Deviled Eggs using butter instead of mayonnaise. However you can easily add the deviled ham that is minced up and ready to go from a can to create a delicious version of deviled eggs.

6 hard boiled eggs divided in halves and yolks separated
½ tsp. plain mustard
2 tsp. Butter softened
salt and pepper to taste
1 small can of deviled ham
paprika for garnish

To hard boil eggs, you need to boil them long enough to cook the insides. High altitudes have to boil the eggs for a longer time. Add a tablespoon of vegetable oil to the water and your eggs will peel easily. To cool run under cold water in the sink, and add ice if you are in a hurry. Then peel and rinse the eggs to remove any remaining shell pieces. Cut the white of the egg in half and then take out the yolk and put in a bowl. Place the whites on a plate.

After all the eggs have been halved and yolks separated. You can add the mustard, butter, salt and pepper and can of deviled ham and smash the yolks and combine until smooth. If you have a small melon baller use this to scoop the yolk mixture into the egg white holes. If you don’t have this use two small spoons and use one spoon to scoop and the other to scrap off of the spoon into the egg white half. Another option is to use a piping bag with a large tip and then fill the eggs whites this way. To garnish sprinkle paprika on the tops of the deviled eggs and move them to your serving tray. Add sprigs of parsley to make it look even prettier.

Asparagus or Spinach

Vegetables that are popular on Easter is asparagus and spinach. Since it is spring there is usually a good amount of these vegetables available fresh.

Spinach salads are healthy and quick. You can mix walnuts, dried sweetened cranberries, mandarin oranges, and top with a strawberry balsamic dressing for a great easy salad. If you don’t like salads, spinach can be made into a side for Easter by adding a white sauce to cooked drained spinach to cream it.

With the asparagus you can steam them to insure that the stay crisp. Make sure to peel the ends of the asparagus and trim of any tough steams before cooking the asparagus. Another way to cook asparagus in a different way is to sprinkle with olive oil and some salt and roast in the oven. Some people even love asparagus grilled.

Potato Au Gratin

2 – 3 pounds of potatoes
1.25 cup of thick white sauce or 1 (10.75 ounce) can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 cup of sour cream
2 tablespoons milk
2/3 cup of cheddar cheese shredded
3 tablespoons chives finely chopped for garnish.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13×9 in baking dish. Peel potatoes if desired and slice into thin potato slices. Mix sour cream, milk, and white sauce together. You can substitute condensed cream of mushroom soup if you don’t want to use a white sauce. Mix the potato slices with the sour cream and white sauce mixture and then place in baking pan. Cover the top with the shredded cheddar cheese. Cover with aluminum foil for the first 40 minutes to cook the potatoes and prevent browning on the cheese. Remove the aluminum foil and continue to cook the potatoes around another 20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender and the cheese has browned on top. Garnish the top of the Potato au gratin with chives.

Italian Braided Easter Bread

If you love to bake bread you might want to try Italian Braided Easter Bread. You make a egg based sweet dough. Then you dye 5 eggs raw and then place them on the top of the braided bread ring for a pretty display. When you bake the bread the eggs get cooked. Also you want to bake the bread at 350 degrees so that they eggs get plenty of time to cook. There are several recipes available online for the traditional Easter egg bread.

Easter Cake

There are so many different ways to go with an Easter cake. You can have fun with a pound cake that you decorate into an Easter theme. But if you are looking for something more refined you might want to make a glazed lemon bundt cake.

By Victoria Brown