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I am so excited to be hosting an Easter Brunch this year at our house! Traditionally, we have had a big Easter Dinner, but in order to accommodate everyone's schedules this year, everyone is going to attend church with us and then come back to our house afterwards for brunch! There should be about 18 of us, including children. That is a lot for our small house, but we have done that before. But, coming up with a menu and how I want to decorate has been the things I have struggled with. Today I will talk about the food and save the decorating for another day.
When I think of brunch, I think of food items that can translate to breakfast or lunch. They shouldn't be too heavy and everything should look beautiful and appetizing! I also have had to consider many types of diets with so many people. I have come up with a mixture of home cooked and also purchased items that I think will provide choices for everyone that they will enjoy and that will make everyone feel like this brunch satisfied their Easter holiday food expectations. I hope that you can find some ideas to add to your menu! These could also translate to a Mother's Day Brunch as well!
Main Dishes
I've decided to purchase croissants and crackers and to have 3 choices for fillings:
The nice thing about all of these foods is that they can be eaten without bread by those who are gluten-free or low-carb eaters, or with crackers! Of course, there will be condiments on the side as well, like mayo, mustard, ranch and Italian dressings, salt, pepper...you know.
Side Dishes
Beverages
We will be serving a variety of juices and water. This is one of the things I've assigned out!
Pastries and Desserts
The Plan!
My plan is to shop and cook so that everything is finished and ready to put out the day before. I will also set and decorate my tables. The platters for food will be out and ready to fill. Then, when we get home, it will be easy to pop everything onto the platters and serve! We will serve buffet style around our kitchen island and counters. Here are a few tips to help everything to work well:
Those are my ideas! I would love to hear yours and what you are doing for your Easter dinner or brunch! Drop me a line in the comments! Most of all, have a blessed, wonderful, happy Easter!
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This week's What to Read Wednesday was inspired by the recent picture of a black hole's shadow. It is such a cool scientific feat. It got me thinking about other scientific discoveries and their backstories. It reminded me of a book I listened to called amzn.to/2Di6CURThe Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean.
What to Read Wednesday: The Disappearing Spoon
The full title is The Disappearing Spoon: And other true tales of madness, love, and the history of the world from the Periodic Table of Elements. The New York Times Bestseller does just that. It's a smart book that reveals the stories that filled in the periodic table of elements. It's not just for science minded people either. No, you don't need to have a degree in chemistry to enjoy this book. Anything science related you need to know is explained in the book, but it's really more of a study of the people behind the discovery or use of the elements.
I wholeheartedly recommend The Disappearing Spoon to anyone who asks for non-fiction book recs. Everyone who read it has told me they loved it and I've seen them in turn recommend it to their friends and family. Now there's a Young Readers Edition of the book, for your aspiring scientists. And if you're looking for a book that is great to listen to on your commute this is one for you. That's how I read The Disappearing Spoon and I was looking for excuses to get in the car and drive, so I could keep listening to the book. One of my favorite stories was that of the disappearing spoon. Gallium is a metal that melts at a low temperature. So as a prank chemists would serve each other tea with a spoon made of gallium. When the drinker would use their spoon to stir their tea it would melt away in the hot liquid. So will you be reading The Disappearing Spoon? Let us know in the comments below!
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In 2018, I set the goal to get back to having a vegetable garden in my backyard! Well, in 2019 I have finally reached the goal of having a small garden again. Never give up on those goals! It doesn't take a lot of space to produce quite a bit of food. See the garden box in the above photo? That was Alicia's garden behind her home where she lives in the Bay Area. (It is much greener there than it is in Phoenix!)
Since we live in Phoenix, AZ, there are a lot of strikes against us when we garden. The soil is terrible, the heat is terrible, there are weird bugs and water is expensive. Also, although my husband and I no longer have any pets, we do have grandchildren who frequent our backyard, so we don't want anything harmful or toxic in our garden. So we try to garden organically in the easiest way possible! I thought today I would share some tips with you about how we do earth friendly and child friendly things to keep our garden healthy and thriving!
Watering Tips
Amending Soil
Non-toxic Pest Control
You can see the bubbles on one of the leaves. Ha Ha.
Now our tomatoes are getting loaded with baby tomatoes! I can hardly wait! I love garden fresh tomatoes! I don't care what the current fad is about nightshade vegetables, I love them anyway! I hope these simple tips will help you have a successful garden. Let's face it, we don't all have hours to spend in the garden, but this little bit of effort can help you have some success and the results are so rewarding!
For Gardening 101 Tips for your area, check out this website called Porch! It will tell you your zone and give you some good advice!
Remember, when you are out working in the sun, be sure to take care of your skin!
Easter Week: Because this is the beginning of Easter Week, here is a simple way to help you remember the true reason for this special holiday. You can read about Sunday and Monday today, then go back everyday to see what happened during this week so many years ago that changed our hope for eternity. #BecauseOfHim
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The verdict is in! This year, in order to accommodate everyone's schedules, we are doing Easter Brunch at our house! I am actually pretty excited about it! All of the kids who live in town, and those "adopted" into our family kids and various other friends and family are going to attend church with us at 8:30 AM. My husband and I will be singing in the choir. I am going to love looking down from the choir loft and seeing so many loved ones there with us listening to the Easter message. We get done with our Sunday meetings at 10:30. Since we live across the street from our chapel, it will be easy to come home and pull out all of the food that I will have prepared the day before and enjoy a lovely brunch together!
And what will the menu be, you ask? Well, that is still in the planning stages. But one of our favorite dessert/brunchy foods is a nice cake roll! We usually make and give away pumpkin rolls at Christmas time. (I can't believe we haven't shared our recipe for those yet)! For Easter, I thought a nice Carrot Cake Roll sounded like just the thing for Spring! I've made one to try it out! It is definitely going on my Easter Brunch menu!
As I began to create this recipe, I started thinking about other cake roll recipes I've made or eaten. The nice things about cake rolls is that you get a lot of bang for your buck! They are pretty simple to make, they don't have to bake very long and they look beautiful when they are all finished and decorated and sliced! Best of all, they taste deliciously decadent! All of these thoughts helped me to decide that cake rolls would be the Friday Faves subject for this week! Not only that, I came up with a nice little surprise for our subscribers! You may or may not know that our subscribers all get a secret link to a secret page on our blog where they can download printables just for them! Today, I am giving a nice little Spring/Easter Gift of a Mini Cookbook with 3 Cake Roll Recipes, along with some tips and variations for making them to our subscribers! All you have to do to download your own copy is to subscribe to our blog! Don't worry, I only send 1 email a week. I welcome new subscribers and give them the link to the secret page and tell you about what we are up to. It's painless! All you have to do is put your email in the box at the top of this page, or on the pop-up that appears.
Now, on to the Carrot Cake Roll!
This cake roll has the traditional carrot cake flavors of cinnamon and carrot with some sweetness of pineapple. The filling is a cream cheese filling with pineapple added as well. You don't have to add the pineapple, you can make it a plain cream cheese filling. But, my husband loved the pineapple in the filling. The frosting is our regular popular recipe. Those carrots aren't fondant, I just piped them on with the frosting. I am so excited to serve this at our Easter Brunch! And you can make it and serve it as well! Just follow us here on the blog and we will send you the link to the Mini Cookbook with this Carrot Cake Roll recipe plus 2 others that are faves, with ideas for delicious cake roll variations.
I printed off my own copy of the Mini Cookbook and put it right into my Bloggelicious Baking Binder under the cake section. You can order your own Bloggelicious Baking Printables here. It is a great way to organize all of the recipes that you print from online sites. I find it so much easier to print them off when I use them often, rather that searching for them again and again online.
Now, on to the rest of my menu! Deviled Eggs are a must. Some croissants with various fillings to choose from? Do you have any great ideas for me? Let me know in the comments with a link to your recipe! I am open for some wonderful ideas! Thanks! I'll let you know the final menu soon.
I can't forget a nice tablescape as well!
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Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
April 2024
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