Easter Egg Hunt

On Saturday we attended an Easter egg hunt hosted by an awesome couple from our church. They voluntarily put on the hunt every Easter and even save and store the plastic eggs to reuse every year. I’m guessing there were nearly a hundred people at the park. We had a very good time. Link successfully found two eggs—one for each hand. Mommy and Daddy enjoyed eating the chocolate!

Easter Dinner

Then on Sunday we invited a few couples over for Easter dinner. Last year at the time we were visiting some friends in New York. We were invited to eat Easter dinner with some people from their ward. We enjoyed ourselves so much we wanted to recreate something like it in our home.

We enjoyed a ham dinner with rolls, salad, “resurrection” potatoes (instead of funeral potatoes. Lilly and Clark are so clever!) and “empty tomb” sweet rolls for dessert (those Biesingers are so creative). The sweet rolls were so fun! They were hollow in the middle and were made by wrapping dough around a marshmallow. While cooking the marshmallow melts making the rolls, sweet, sticky, yummy, and hollow. I’ll have to remember that for next year! I wish I would have taken a picture!

After dinner we dyed eggs. Everyone embraced their creative genius. I made my magnum opus.

Stacey should just give up on the PhD and become an egg designer. Miles won the Nastiest Egg award. He dipped his egg in every color, shell-less. Looks appetizing eh? Lilly spent her night talking about geography while she created her version of the earth, if it were shaped like an egg. And Clark made a pretty blue egg.

The newlyweds just stared dreamily into each others’ eyes and successfully dyed their eggs one-handed. The other hand was busy holding hands! : )

Ok, ok, on a more serious note. I really, really enjoyed Easter this year. Not because of the entertaining activities, but because I felt I spent much more time than usual pondering and expressing gratitude for my Savior.

I made this apple pie for a dessert night we had in our community. I got a great compliment from a very sweet man with a foreign accent who said mine was his “favorite cake.” He made me smile.

I’ll tell you right now what made this dessert so delicious. One word. Butter. Butter in the crust. Butter in the filling. Butter in the crisp. Mmmmmm.

The recipe was my own concoction. A combination of a few recipes. Because I only had one pie crust, I improvised and used a crisp recipe for the top. And for the filling I used a recipe from allrecipes.com.

Ingredients:

1-9 inch pie crust
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
8 Granny Smith apples – peeled, cored and sliced

Crisp Ingredients:

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°. Peel, core, and slice apples. Set aside in large mixing bowl.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in 3 tablespoons flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.

Pour sauce mixture over apples and stir to combine. Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, ground cloves, and nutmeg. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle crumble mixture over the apples.

Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350°. Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.

Last night I made chicken taco soup for dinner in the crock-pot. About 20 minutes before we were supposed to eat, I realized I didn’t have anything to go with the soup. We usually have quesadillas, cornbread or at least tortilla chips. I remembered a little too late that we were out of cheese, which meant no quesadillas and I didn’t have the ingredients nor the time to make corn bread. All I had were plain tortillas. After putting on my creative cap, I made homemade tortilla chips. The salted variety were so good with the soup that I made more for dessert with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled overtop. Try ‘em. I think you’ll like ‘em.

Ingredients:

Tortillas (corn or flour work)
cooking spray
kosher salt or cinnamon & sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Using a pizza cutter, cut tortillas into triangles. Spread in single layer on baking sheet. Spray tortilla triangles with cooking spray. Sprinkle a pinch of salt (or cinnamon & sugar) over chips to taste.

Bake in oven 10 minutes or so until chips are golden brown and crispy.

Last night while watching 24 I got a craving for something sweet. I think this happens just about every night. You’d think I was pregnant or something (which I’m not by the way. I’m very un-pregnant, which is the way we want it right now). Anyway, I wanted a goody. We didn’t have anything simple around like ice cream or cookies, so I thought I’d make this crisp. Once I got the idea in my head I couldn’t get it out. So even though it was like 9:30 I still made it. And it was good. Goodness it was good. Miles and I stayed up late talking and eating. I love those nights. Then I had the left-overs for brunch. I couldn’t help myself. I was taking pictures, and before I knew it, it was all gone. Good thing I’m running 4 miles a day!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup fresh blackberries
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
(or 2 cups frozen mixed berries)
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a medium bowl, gently toss together blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and white sugar; set aside.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cut in butter until crumbly. Pour berries into baking dish. Sprinkle crumble mixture over the berries.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until fruit is bubbly and topping is golden brown.