spring brunch
Easter brunch. Not a celebration of a religious holiday in our home, but a little celebration, nonetheless. An excuse to bring out the fancy china and a new bunny table cloth given to us by Shawn’s sister.
We feasted on cheezy broccoli quiche, roasted carrots, fresh berries, red flannel hash, sausage, gravy and molasses cake. We followed up brunch with a few rounds of Carcassonne.
Afterwards, I did a bit more painting to confirm my color choice for the living room. I’m still undecided. The shade I like seems perfect in the evening but possibly too light during the day. I’ll have to think on it some more. Meanwhile, Shawn rearranged some furniture, making our living room feel much more open and streamlined. Now we just need to find a cute bar cart.
easter brunch
Well, we managed to pull everything together and put together a lovely Easter brunch. We even managed to snag an amazing dining set, including a beautiful hutch and a buffet, from Craigslist and pick it up on Saturday. There was a lot of cooking and moving of furniture and cleaning (as we still haven’t quite moved in 100%) but I’m proud to say it went off without a hitch.
We reused the wonderful moss centerpieces from our rehearsal party along with a few pieces we have in our china collection. I am totally in love with this bunny.
We also used the cloth napkins that we got for our wedding (which you’ll be seeing in action, in the next few days). Clearly I have a thing for bunnies. While we do have a lovely set of spring themed dishes, we were one setting short. This mismatched mushroom plate fit in nicely though.
I even tried my hand at flower arranging for the occasion. I obviously chose a vase that was much too large, for my flower selection, but I was really happy with the extra color.
I had to get a little fancy and make these french toasts with asparagus and orange beurre blanc that I found on Martha Stewart. Of course, with a few simple substitutions, I was able to veganize the entire recipe. They were a lovely addition to the brunch, slightly decadent, but not too sweet or overwhelming of the other dishes.
I’ve never had a beurre blanc sauce before so I’m not sure if I made it quite right but it was extremely tasty.
Cooking in our new kitchen is a dream. For the first time, I have sunlight in the kitchen. It’s an amazing thing.
Shawn’s one request was a deep dish quiche filled vegan bacon and daiya cheese. I used the broccoli quiche recipe as the base from Vegan Brunch
Alicia brought some delicious roasted Brussels sprouts and a carrot ginger soup with cashew pesto. So good. I also made some roasted spring vegetables but forgot to photograph them. Oops!
My mom made an orange quinoa salad. Definitely an orange theme this year.
Nine of us fit at our new table! I still can’t believe we found it.
With so many different dishes, we had to fill our plates many times with small servings. Here’s round one with the french toast, quiche, soup and veggies.
Mochi really wanted to be part of the party.
I made some molasses candies as a treat. Having never made them before, I’m pretty pleased with how they came out. I think I could take another crack at it though. I used blackstrap molasses so they were particularly strong. Ideally I’d prefer them to be a bit more subtle and less chewy. Of course, they should also be coated in chocolate. Making candy is like making magic.
Luckily my mom brought an assortment of chocolates from Xan confectioners.
It was a wonderful day filled with family and friends. It definitely showed me how much it takes to host a good party. Thank goodness I had help with the dishes. Now I’m just glad I have the rest of my Sunday to relax.
Bunnies and chicks oh my!
Springtime means cute little creatures come out to play. Instead of filling the Easter baskets entirely with candy, although there was a great deal of that as well, a few little critters snuck in. Plans were made to make a bunny cake and some mini-mango cheesecakes but each endeavor was vetoed as everyone had had their fill of sweets for quite a long time.
These little fluff balls were made fairly quickly and assembled even faster thanks to my trusted hot glue gun. In the end, these are even better than chocolate critters as they last much longer than the time it would take you to eat the candy. Not to mention they’re adorable. I also made some little origami bunnies and furry bunny ears. Oh I think I would be happy making all things bunny forever.
Another very exciting thing is that I finally shelled out the money to buy myself a stainless steel bento box. Okay, it wasn’t that much money, but I’d been holding out. I try to bring my lunch to work with me most of the time, but throwing a sandwich or leftovers in some tupperware just isn’t that inspiring. Having an adorable metal bento box to put my food in, on the other hand, makes me want to fill it with delcious meals. It’s rare that I make a meal thinking about having it for lunch the next day but I was excited to fill my new little lunch box with rice, toasted seaweed and teriyaki baked un-chicken. It tasted great and was that much better since I knew there wasn’t any chemicals leaching into my food from a plastic container. Yay!
Spring Eggs
I’m gonna first put out the disclaimer that I’m not a fan of Easter. I’m not religious and most of the related celebrations just don’t excite me. On the other hand, I am a fan of springtime and bunnies. I also like having an excuse to experiment and make new treats. Here’s to trying to make something great out of something you’re not into.
After having a taste of some vegan Cadbury creme eggs made by Vegyogini of Hugger Food, I couldn’t stop thinking about making some of my own. I think this is a pretty strange obsession considering that I didn’t even like Cadbury eggs when I wasn’t vegan. While I tried to put the idea out of my head, I found myself reading all about the fondant filled eggs. When the topic of Easter baskets came up, I finally decided it had to be done, along with some peanut butter eggs.
I started out with the peanut butter eggs, as I’ve made peanut butter cups before and thought it would be easier to try out the egg molds on something I was familiar with. I melted some chocolate chips in a double boiler and thickly coated the insides of the mold. The mold I used was made of silicone and was super easy to just pop the hardened eggs out when they were done. Another option would be to use plastic eggs and line them with aluminum foil. The important thing is to make sure the top edges of the eggs are well coated in the mold as this is the area that will seal to the other half of the egg. I let the chocolate set in the fridge for about half an hour while I prepared the peanut butter filling.
Peanut Butter Filling
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
2 tsp vanilla
Simply mix the peanut butter, sugar and vanilla together to form a smooth sweet peanut butter filling. If your peanut butter has been sitting around for awhile, refrigerated or just otherwise dry, add peanut oil back into the mixture to soften it.
I filled the hardened chocolate shells with the peanut butter filling and refrigerated again for about half an hour until they were firm enough to handle easily. Next came the experimental part. I popped the eggs out of the mold onto a cookie tray. I then took a knife and heated it on the oven. I then melted the outer edge of the chocolate egg with the hot knife and pressed it together with another egg half. The key to this process is keeping your hands clean and the eggs cool.
For the creme eggs, I went with a basic poured fondant recipe. There are a number of different ways to go about this: cooked fondant, food processor fondant, quick fondant… Ultimately I went with the one I thought would have the right semi-liquid consistency. I prepared the chocolate shells as above, making them slightly thicker to accommodate the warm fondant filling.
Poured Fondant
3 cups confectioners sugar
1 Tbs corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
Mix the sugar, corn syrup and water together in a small sauce pan over high heat, stirring constantly. Using a candy thermometer, heat the mixture just above 90 degrees but do not let it get to 100. The fondant should be smooth and pourable but not too thin. Remove from heat, add extract and stir to combine fully. Let cool slightly and spoon into the chocolate shells. Refrigerate to harden and assemble the same as the peanut butter cups.
The consistency of the fondant creme eggs came out surprisingly like the actual thing, but perhaps a touch firmer. They were sugary sweet chocolate treats, and if you like the original, you’ll definitely like the veganized version. I personally liked the ones made by Vegyogini better as they didn’t have a pure sugar taste because of the Earth Balance. The peanut butter cups came out wonderfully though. Next time I might make them half eggs as it’s quite a lot of sweetness.
Despite my initial disclaimer, I really enjoyed making these and there may be some more Easter treats on the way. Happy springtime!
