foodiefanatics

For Easter, we were pretty non-traditional, but yummy.  We started the morning with a honeyed yogurt and blueberry tart with ginger crust (Food and Wine, March 09). This tart was easy and relatively healthy (you mix 10 graham crackers with 1/2 cup chopped candied ginger, 3 T butter and one egg white and bake. On top is drained Greek yogurt mixed with 2 T honey and spread with blueberries). I used frozen wild maine blueberries that had thawed and just put blueberries on each individual piece.
For dinner, we had hunks of bread spread with olive oil and grilled then sprinkled with sea salt (really good and really easy), a salad with a homemade creamy italian and a homemade mac and cheese

Hard cheese mac and cheese

Bring a pot of water to a boil and boil about 3/4 lb pasta (gemelli, fusili, something that will catch the sauce).
While the water is boiling, head 1 T olive oil in a large sauce pan and sear 3/4lb italian sausage (I used precooked. If it isn't precooked you need to fully cook it).  Drain. In the same pan, saute 2 chopped shallots, 1 T chopped garlic for five minutes. Add 3 T flour and stir for two minutes. Add 1/2 cup white wine, scraping up the bits from the bottom of the pan.  Then slowly pour in 3 cups of chicken broth and whole milk (I used about half and half).  Bring to a boil and turn off.
Shred 2 cups of cheese. I used a mixture of Italian Pecorino and sharp cheddar. Add the cheese to the hot milk mixture, whisking until it melts.  Add 1 1/2 cups peas (thawed if frozen) and 1/4 cup chopped jalapeno.  Mix in pasta and sausage and 1 t black pepper.

Doing a birthday brunch for my sister in law tomorrow.  This is quite the cooking weekend.  We are having greek yogurt with figs (using that fig tree again!) with honey (from a local purveyor made with thistle) and pine nuts. We had a similar yogurt dish at a restaurant in San Diego for Brunch (Cafe Chloe) We are doing grapefruit mimosas (with a bit of cranberry juice in them, Sunset May 08), puffy pancake with nutty banana butterscotch (Rachel Ray, I've made it now about 5 times and we love it), lamb sausage (from our farm, deck family farm), and wrinkled potatoes with spicy chile mojo (this is xeroxed from a cookbook but I don't know which cookbook!).  My daughter is making a boxed cake and I'm going to make some kind of Indian dessert as well but haven't decided what yet.