Easter on Lockdown

This Easter was the first holiday we have spent as a family in our own house since Easter 2013. As much as we missed spending time with family, it was nice to not have a long drive and to cook a holiday meal in my own kitchen. We worked hard to make it special for the kids, since they wouldn't be seeing either set of grandparents this year.

We started early with a special breakfast Saturday. Kevin had a sleepover with Mister P in his room Friday night, and I guess I had promised pancakes at some point. It worked out, because one less complicated thing to cook on Sunday.

I mentioned in my grocery store post that I am an absent-minded shopper...meaning that I often forget things, like whipped cream for this little bunny's tail. Luckily, I had picked up this the last time I was at Trader Joe's a few months ago - shelf-stable whipping cream! It worked out well. I added some maple syrup for sweetness, and probably could've added a little more.

Saturday was a big cooking/baking day. I started working on this Samoa Bundt Cake. It calls for dulce de leche for the frosting, which I also forgot to add to shopping list. So, I spent 2 hours and 4 cups of milk making my own.  It wasn't hard, but time-consuming, and using all that milk made me a little anxious.

Cooking down milk and sugar into dulce de leche

I also adapted the cake recipe, because it called for two different batters to be a marble cake. One of the reviews, though, said that the textures of the two different cakes were a little odd together, and since we have people in our house with strong opinions about textures, I opted to just double the chocolate batter. And then, I also only had to make one batter. 😀With toasted coconut and chocolate drizzle on top, the cake was a hit.

I also spent Saturday baking Pascha bread, an Eastern European Easter bread. We had read a book about Ukranian Easter eggs, and a lesson I found to go with it suggested making it and included a recipe. It looked complicated and time-consuming, but what else did I have to do? But, then, my cousin posted that she had also been making Pascha bread, and when I mentioned I was going to, she shared her grandma's Slavak recipe. Swoon! Passed down grandma-recipes are the best. And, while I'm not sure it came out the same as the Ukranian version would have, it was much simpler and still delicious!

The Ukranian version also called for a sweet glaze, but I figured we were having enough sweets.

The final (actually, the first, because I made it on Friday) "fancy" thing I made was Smitten Kitchen's Cacio e Pepe Potatoes Anna from her second cookbook. It's like a scalloped potato cake, or, galette, if you like to be fancy. Other than me being terrified of using a mandolin (I enlisted Kevin to help), these were actually pretty easy and came out really well. I substituted some garlic olive oil for part of the butter, which I think added I nice contrast to all the other "simple" foods we had. It really didn't need a lot, though - if I had used more, it would've been too much. The trickiest thing is that you need to flip it twice - once out of the pan onto a plate, then onto the serving plate. I took a picture in the pan, because I had my doubts that the flipping would go well, but I guess there was enough butter and oil that it slipped right out.

So, dum-de-dah-dum....here is the completed meal, with local ham from Andy's Eggs:

And daffodils and grape hyacinths picked from our yard!

Lest you think all we did on Easter was cook and eat, the Easter Bunny came with baskets and hid Easter eggs. He also brought a LEGO bunny for Mister P, and paint-your-own ceramic bunny for Miss A. Perfect projects for these two! 

I also insisted they watch the 1996 Walt Disney World Happy Easter Parade (our marching band was in it!), and remembered how annoyed I was that the hosts talked over most of the song. Oh well. Mister P was unimpressed. 

We hope that those who celebrate Easter had a beautiful day with their families, and those that don't are enjoying the blossoming of Spring and the rebirth around us. Or, at the very least, are hanging in there during this unusual time.

Adventures in Grocery Shopping

Last week, I went grocery shopping for the first time since Maryland's stay-at-home order. I had gone one other time since school's closed, but it was before the order, and at a smaller, less-popular store. This time, I went to Wegmans, which is huge and in our well-traveled shopping corridor. When I came back, I felt as though I had been on a quest to a strange land. I am typically one of those slightly-unusual people who enjoys grocery shopping, but even I felt battered when I returned. I found it so stressful to try to buy enough groceries for two weeks at one go. Because I have favorite places to get certain items, and am also an absent-minded and spontaneous cook, I often go 2-3 times a week...especially since Patrick has been in preschool. So, trying to imagine what would get us through the next few weeks was daunting.

Me, in the store:

"There's not much peanut butter here. There's no limit, but how much do I need, really? I don't want to be a jerk...Limit 4 bags of flour...that's a lot of flour...I don't need four bags of flour; I'll just get two...half and half...only two left...I should really only get one...but if I don't have half and half for my coffee, I'll be sad...really sad...ok I'll take the last two..."

Repeat for another hour and 15 minutes, substituting other items. This internal dialogue exhausted me. But, my kids were thrilled to get these giant marshmallows when there were no regular-sized marshmallows.

I am lucky that I have a hearty immune system and try to be a rule-follower, because my brain is not wired for the kind of vigilance we are supposed to have now. It seems like most people I know are good at being vigilant; I am not. I see people posting about being very conscious of how close people are at the grocery store; I only was when I remembered I should be. Luckily, Wegmans was very good at prompting me to keep my distance and sanitize my cart and hands.

I know these things, but they are not always at the front of my mind. Not to say that I wandered around, completely oblivious, but I just think I'm not as conscious of it as some others. And I won't even go into the stress of decontaminating everything when I got home.

With all that, I still forgot some things. Which is why I spent two hours on Saturday condensing 2% milk in to dulce du leche. But, more on that next time.