Celebrating Easter in Quarantine
Well, I think it’s safe to say that if you celebrate Easter, you probably had a pretty different holiday weekend this year! I know for a lot of us, we’d normally spend the holiday weekend getting together with our family, having lots of food and drinks, and just generally enjoying each others company (or maybe not, for some people, hahah). Easter, just like any other holiday in my family, would usually involve all of my family getting together at my aunt & uncles for dinner on Easter Sunday, enjoying my uncles awesome cooking, and lots of good wine but of course due to the COVID-19 pandemic, things had to go a little differently this year.
Instead, this year my aunt & uncle ended up cooking an entire dinner, including dessert for all of us who’d normally be at their place for the holiday, and delivering it to everyone so we could all enjoy it as if we were together. I also decided to take it upon myself to make my family that I’m quarantined with dinner for Easter Monday, because well, let’s be honest – this whole situation has sucked, so why not enjoy two dinners this weekend? I’ve really been enjoying cooking during this quarantine time, and I’ve really wanted to try more recipes from Fraiche Food Full Hearts, so I figured this weekend was a fantastic opportunity to put a dent in that cookbook!
One thing that I’m super happy I did this holiday was place an order with a local florist for an Easter-inspired bouquet perfect for a little weekend pick me up. Nothing brings a smile to my face quite like a fresh bouquet of flowers, and supporting a local business during these tough times makes it just so, so much better. If you can afford to, I’d definitely suggest spending the money on purchasing a bouquet that’s been professionally put together & styled. It really makes a huge difference in how your floral arrangements look!
Good Friday Brunch
My family and I decided that on Friday, we’d do something we wouldn’t necessarily do, and make a big Good Friday brunch. Like I mentioned, I’ve really been enjoying doing lots of cooking, and I had a couple of breakfast recipes from Fraiche Food Full Hearts that I’ve wanted to try, so I figured let’s take the opportunity to make these dishes, put out a nice place setting, and try to forget about how awful the world is right now.
We ended up whipping up a batch of Angel Cakes (which are essentially pancakes!), as well as the Sweetheart Oven Fries from the cookbook. As a self-entitled potato connoisseur, I can safely say that the Sweetheart Oven Fries were without a doubt, something I’ll be making a lot more in the future. Not only were they delicious, but they were relatively simple to make, and they’re in the shape of hearts, and who doesn’t love cute and delicious food?!
Cooking & Baking
Since I had decided to make dinner for Monday, I thought it may be best to get as much done in advance, so I chose to start cooking on Saturday and finish it off on Sunday, so all we had to do was reheat the food when we go to eat it. On Saturday, I started off with making the Banana Coconut Cream Pie, which was probably the easiest dessert I think I’ve ever made. Honestly, I ended up using a pre-made crust this time around because I had a hard time finding certified gluten-free shredded coconut (yep, I live with someone with celiac disease), and given the state of the world, it isn’t exactly the time to go running around to five grocery stores to find what you need.
After I made the pie, I moved on to making the Maple-Thyme Parsnips & Carrots, which is something that I had made for Thanksgiving this past year, so I already knew that it was a hit, and another, a super easy recipe to make. Also, who doesn’t love the idea of root vegetables covered in caramelized maple syrup? Just thinking about it makes me so excited to have them.
I finished off Saturday’s cooking adventure with making the Biscuits Three Ways, and adding in a shredded cheese mix and chopped rosemary to make Cheddar-Rosemary Biscuits. As someone who’s never made a pastry-style/bready recipe before, I was a little nervous that they wouldn’t turn out, but once again they were super easy to make, and since the recipe made 8 biscuits, I definitely ate one… or two… just to make sure that they turned out! You know, you’ve gotta make sure you aren’t going to make anyone sick, right? ;)
Three dishes down, two to go! The last two things I whipped together the night of our dinner since I figured they’d end up tasting the best if I made them right before the dinner and they were fresh out of the oven. I started off by making the Crispy Rosemary Potatoes, which once again, easy as heck to make. I don’t know what it is about this cookbook, but the recipes are just so easy & straight forward. I wouldn’t by any means say I’m an amazing cook, so the fact that the food turned out so good and the recipes were simple to follow, says a lot about the cookbook.
While the potatoes were in the oven getting nice and crispy, I whipped up a batch of the Creamy Dill Mushrooms. I’m absolute sucker for mushrooms… and cream… and dill, so it was like this recipe was speaking to me, and was saying “Make me, Emily, make me!”, so I did, hahaha. And boy, were they amazing and delicious. If you also like mushrooms, cream based things & dill, this is a recipe I’d highly recommend trying.
Even though we are cooped up for Easter this year, we decided that even though we had to spend the holiday confined to our own homes, we were going to make the best of it, and set our dinner table up like we were going to be having a grand feast – which, well, I guess we kind of were. We set up our table both for the dinner my aunt & uncle made us, as well as the dinner I made, and it was truly wonderful. It was nice to think about and discuss things that had nothing to do with COVID-19, and try to make this holiday as normal as it possible could be.
So what did you guys do for Easter this year? Was your Easter super different because of physical distancing practices, or do you normally only spend the holiday weekend just with those you live with? Let me know in the comments below & I’ll be back on Friday with a new post for you all. Hope you all had a lovely (and physically distanced!) holiday weekend, whether you celebrate or not. Xo.
