Easter Egg Hunt and Brunch

I may be a grown woman, and so is my sister, but we still have an annual easter egg hunt. Its lots of fun, and we run around like maniacs finding all the eggs. This year i was the winner (yeah me) and being as egalitarian as my family is we then divide the chocolate up evenly and by type of chocolate preference. I actually throw mine in the freezer, since i don't have that much of a sweet tooth, and eat it throughout the year. I honestly just finished last year's chocolate off a month ago.

After the excitement of the hunt has subsided, we enjoy a nice sunday brunch. This year, the weather was so lovely that we moved the plates out to the deck and ate out there. It was so nice in fact that i have a spectacular sun burn on the right side of my body, including a very attractive one-armed farmer tan. But this blog is about food - and that we had plenty of....

My mother makes this amazing mexican fritatta. Unlike a standard fritatta, it has tortillas in it, and you make it the night before so that it can soak everything up. That is also why my mother finds it convenient, because you can make it in advance and throw it in the oven. This time she made a little extra spicy, which i think everyone appreciated, and served it with organic salsa and sour cream to combat the heat.

To finish off the meal we had sausages (519 area code pork) and to keep it a little healthy a colourful fruit salad. And of course mimosas! (champers and brunch are practically a necessity in my family)



Above:


The divided spoils
I win!!!!
The table
My plate (fritatta, sausage and fruit salad)
Serving up the fritatta

Good Friday Dinner Part 2

Along with the grilled veggies we served some hamburgers. Jarred was in charge of these, since i've never made or really eat hamburgers. He did a jerk seasoning that everyone really seemed to enjoy and added some onions, breadcrumbs and eggs to bind the mixture. I tried a teeny little piece of a hamburger when it was straight off the grill - can't say i was a fan, but that's not a slight to Jarred's cooking - everyone loved them! I guess i'm just not a hamburger kinda girl.

We also had a bag of potatoes and there was initially some talk about doing simply baked potatoes, but i thought that hamburgers deserved fries. Unfortunately the knives at Mike's cottage are pretty dull, but Jarred was a champion and cut all the fries for the oven. We put them in a large roasting pan and tossed them with olive oil and some random seasonings and baked them on low. Unfortunately mid-way though, they were really sticking together and breaking apart while we tried to toss them, so they were transferred to a larger baking tray and spread out a lot more - this seemed to be a solution, and the fries were great.

When i was picking up the veggies on friday, i also passed this lovely french bakery that i drive by everyday, and have yet to go in called Ma Maison - it was open, which i considered a sign. I popped in, and it was pretty early, so everything was still coming out of the oven which was amazing. I picked up a baguette (whole wheat) and also a apricot-almond tart, which they decorated with little bunnies and carrots for dessert.

Above:

Fries!
The table
Fries ready for the oven
Jarred making the hamburgers
Hamburgers ready for the grill
Cutting the fries (thanks Jarred)
Apricot tart

Grilled Veggies for Easter Weekend

I have recently been terrible about updating and cooking - don't know what has gotten into me, but this long weekend i went out of town, and did a bunch of cooking and picture taking, so i'll have a ton of material for the next few weeks. On Good Friday, i went up to Mike's cottage and Jarred and i cooked an epic dinner - which there are so many things i realized that i would actually have to write a couple different blogs about since there were so many things and so many pictures.

I'm starting out with the grilled veggies we did for the dinner. When i was driving up on Friday, none of the grocery stores were open, and since i hadn't really been cooking, i actually didn't have that much to bring up - luckily there were a few fruit markets open on Bloor West so i picked up a ton of veggies for the meal. Now as i may have mentioned in another post, these boys are pretty serious about their meat so i always like to add some veggies, plus it gives me something to eat.

For the grilled veggies i marinated huge portabello mushrooms, a couple eggplants and of course some asparagus. We cooked them ahead of time, since the rest of the meal actually required the grill, and served them at room temperature. I dressed the eggplant and mushrooms with a light balsamic dressing before we served them, and dusted the asparagus with Parmesan.


Above:

The veggies on the table (with my favorite wine)
Portabellos ready for the grill
Ingredients
Plate of veggies
Jarred doing the eggplant