Easter Dinner- The Short Version
So here’s the run down on last Sunday’s Easter dinner. I’ll try to keep it short since there was a lot going on and this post has great potential to get out of control. In fact, there was so much going on, that we forgot to take pictures of most of the finished products so what you’ll see is mostly procedure. Just imagine that all the dishes looked beautiful in the end:).
The Menu:
Hors d’oeuvres-
Tarragon Egg Salad with Steamed Artichokes
Port Braised Mushroom Bruschetta with Shaved Parm & Truffle Oil
Basil-Goat Cheese Bruschetta with Prosciutto & Roasted Red Bell Peppers
Fresh Mozz with Yellow Heirloom Tomatoes, EVOO & Sea Salt
Cheese & Salumi
First Course-
Fresh Pea Soup with Crab, Red Pepper, Pea Shoot Salad
Second Course-
Ricotta-Egg Yolk Raviolo with Sauteed Asparagus, Crisp Prosciutto, Parm
Main Course-
Oil-Cured Olive & Rosemary Crusted Leg of Lamb
Tomato Roasted Gigante Beans
Cucumber, Radish, Avocado & Watercress Salad
Dessert-
Lavandar-Yogurt Panna Cotta with Lemoncello Strawberries
The Pics:
Hors d’oeuvres
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| Grilling bread for bruschette |
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| Mushrooms for the Bruschetta |
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| Steaming Artichokes for the Egg Salad |
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| Composed Bruschette |
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| Tomato & Mozz |
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| Egg Salad with Artichoke |
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| Cheese Board |
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| Not quite full (yet) appetizer table |
Pea Soup
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| Onions, peas, chicken stock, mint for pea soup |
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| Peas in my Vitamix |
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| Smooth-as-silk pea soup |
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| Oh Crap! We forgot to take a picture!- Half eaten soup with crab salad. |
The vitamix makes this (or any other) soup soooo creamy you’d actually think there was cream in it. I made sure to tell the guests that there was, in fact, no cream, so that they’d feel good about eating the whole bowl. Honestly, the soup itself probably has about 80 calories in it and the crab doesn’t add much more. Yeah, I should make that more often. (See more low-cal Vitamix Juicer Recipes.)
Ravioli
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| The beginning of pasta- flour, eggs, salt |
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| Kneading the dough |
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| A beautiful soft little belly of dough. Shhh… he’s resting. |
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| Rolled dough |
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| Piping the Ricotta/Basil/Mint filling |
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| Separating an egg |
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| Adding the yolk to its nest |
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| Covering the filling |
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| Getting all the air out |
| Cutting the huge ravs |
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| Pressing out air… again |
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| Waiting for boiling water |
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| Crisping prosciutto for rav garnish |
This is only the second time I’ve done these ravs and, once again, they didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. The test batch works fine, but that’s because there’s only one. When you add a whole batch to a pot of boiling water, the temp drops which means that you end up having to cook them longer in order for the pasta to be done. By the time the pasta is done, the egg is over cooked, which is what happened here. Good pasta, hard cooked egg yolk. Damn. If I were to do them again, I’d use a huge, heavy bottom pot that would hold a boil even with a batch of cold ravs or maybe even multiple pots. Also, the pasta has to be super thin so that it’ll cook quickly (plus it’s prettier because you can see the egg inside).
Lamb
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| Smearing olive-rosemary paste inside…. |
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| …and out |
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| A couple hours later… out of the oven |
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| After resting |
The lamb turned out nicely. I’d go heavier on the rosemary and garlic since the olives have such a strong flavor. It made a nice crust though.
Salad
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| Slicing radishes on the mando |
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| Watercress Salad |
This was a nice spring salad. I dressed it in lemon and olive oil to keep it simple and refreshing. The avocado lent a nice creaminess to the overall crisp texture of the dish.
Dessert
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| Boozy strawberries….mmmm…. |
This one had good potential, but needed help. I made the panna cotta with greek yogurt and milk instead of cream. As always, I wanted to keep the calories in check, even for dessert and the idea was good but I made a couple of mistakes. First of all, I stupidly heated the yogurt which made it separate so I had to put it in the vitamix to make it smooth again. It ended up separating in the ramekin anyway.
The other problem was that the lavander I used had too many leaves and not enough flowers which gave the dessert a sort of tannic bitterness. Next time I’d bloom the gelatin in half of the milk and steep either dried lavander or fresh flowers ONLY in the other half with the sugar. Then, I’d add the gelatin/milk mix to the lavander/milk mix to melt it before adding it to the vitamix with the yogurt to puree it to a smooth consistancy. Yeah, that’s my new plan.
It was edible, just not great.
Party Stuff
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| Lovely guests aka Easter peeps |
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| The Manhattan Bar- He’s not just an excellent photographer! |
No wonder everyone seemed to have such a good time:).
This was very fun. I love doing dinner parties. Thanks to my Easter peeps for coming over! Who’s in for the next one?
The Goods
Illy Caffe
Camille on Yelp!
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