Easter Basket Deviled Eggs

My youngest brother, Matt, works on Sundays and was unable to get Easter Sunday off to join us for a family meal.  This year, he requested Palm Sunday off and it was approved, so 15 of us joined together to celebrate Easter a week early.

In order to get this up quickly, in case you would like to make these cute deviled eggs for your Easter meal this weekend, I won't be posting how to make deviled eggs, just how to decorate them to make them look like a basket of Easter eggs.  I will let you know, however, that when preparing the yolks, I add mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish, and mustard to make mine.

As you can see above, I used a wavy cutter I purchased from Pampered Chef years ago to cut the eggs.  Somehow I thought that would give them more of a basket look.  After removing the yolks to a bowl, where I added the ingredients listed above, I used a plastic bag to pipe the filling into each egg white half.

Then I added a pinch of alfalfa sprouts.  I was hoping they would stay more contained to the yolk area, but those little sprouts have a mind of their own and there were 24 of them to prepare, so I refused to fight them.

Using five different colors on each egg, I added some candy-coated sunflower seeds, which became the eggs in the basket.  I found the colorful sunflower seeds at Trader Joe's, but I've also seen them at party stores.  I kept my eyes open for them when shopping since the first of the year.  By sticking them into the yolk mixture a little bit, it ensured they would not roll off the egg when picked up by the consumer.

The final step was to add the "handle" of the basket using a short piece of chive.  I thought they would be a bit more rounded in appearance.  But, they preferred to bend instead of curve nicely.  There wasn't time to fight them into submission, so each one is a bit different.  I will try to perfect this before I make them the next time.

All in all, I was pleased with how they turned out.  The were a cute addition to the table and they tasted good too!  Enjoy!

Welsh Rarebit

I attended a Royal Ladies' Tea Society tea the other day where we were honoring our mothers.  Each attendee was asked to bring a dish to complete the meal.  My mom was born in Ireland and some of my favorite dishes of hers she learned to make at her mother's side.  This is one of those recipes, which she made often as I was growing up.  I have made it for my boys and they love it, too.  They've even request it for lunch every once-in-a-while.  It seemed the perfect choice to honor my mom at the tea.

This was usually served at lunch time on top of buttered toast, but sometimes we'd eat it on Ritz crackers, which is how I chose to serve it at the tea.  There are only two ingredients and it's fairly simple to make, but it tastes great.  

I begin by cracking my eggs into my saucepan (I use a pan big enough to allow room for stirring).  I always use extra-large eggs.  Hint:  One way to check to see how fresh your eggs are is to drop them (in the shell) one-by-one into a glass of water.  If they sink, they are very fresh, if they float, don't even crack them as they are bad; throw them out immediately as you don't want that smell in your house!  If the eggs bounce a little before settling on the bottom of the glass, they are still good; only the floaters are bad.  I'm not an Alton Brown or scientist, but I understand that as eggs go bad, the little pocket of air under the shell becomes a gas (which is lighter than air), thus causing the bad eggs to float!  This test works so well, I don't pay any attention to the expiration date on the box the eggs come in!

You'll notice that I don't  use any type of oil or butter in the pan, as the cheese provides enough oil so the mixture doesn't stick to the pan.  Using either a whisk or a fork, I beat the eggs until the yolks and whites are combined.

After I grate the cheese, I add it directly on top of the eggs.  I always use extra-sharp cheddar cheese when making this dish.  The sharper the better as that's what gives Welsh Rarebit it's great flavor.  One of my favorite brands is Cracker Barrel.

Once I mix the cheese into the eggs, I still see mostly cheese, but it is all covered with egg.  Up until this point, I can leave the stove if called away.  Once I turn the heat on under the pan, I'm committed to standing there and stirring until it's done!

At first, it seems as though nothing changes as I stir and stir.  But the cheese does melt completely into the eggs; I just have to be a little patient.  You'll notice the deeper color and that it has a thin layer of froth at the sides.  If you don't stir constantly, the eggs can begin to cook before the cheese melts and then you'll just have scrambled eggs with cheese.  It's also important to cook it over medium-low heat, otherwise you risk getting cheesy scrambled eggs.

I'm sure a chemistry major could probably tell you why, but I think it's interesting that, as long as I keep stirring the mixture, it doesn't begin to cook until all of the cheese is melted.  I know it's cooking when I start to see some of it on the edge of my spoon (or Pampered Chef spoontula).  As it cooks, I keep scraping the pan in different areas as if I was making scrambled eggs.

When it's finished it has a finer texture than scrambled eggs.  It's ready to serve either on buttered toast (being of British descent, we used a knife and fork to cut a piece before eating it) or crackers (of course, everything tastes better if it sits on a Ritz! - sorry, I couldn't resist that).  When I took it to the tea, I put it in a small crock pot to keep it hot.  I used the smallest Pampered Chef scoop to put it on the crackers for the ladies.  It is best hot, so I wish I had let them serve it themselves so it wouldn't cool down on the platter.  It's a simple dish, but oh so good.  Enjoy!

Welsh Rarebit

6 extra large eggs

12 oz. extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated

In a medium saucepan, combine eggs and cheese.  Over medium-low heat, cook this mixture, stirring constantly, until the cheese is melted.  Continue stirring and scraping the pan, as if making scrambled eggs, until fully cooked and the mixture has a fine texture.  Serve on buttered toast or crackers.  Best when served hot.

Easter Celebration Eggs and Peanut Butter Cup Trifle

 The Tuesday before Easter, my mom had open-heart surgery.  We knew she'd likely still be in the hospital on Easter, so I offered to have lunch at my house, then we'd all go to see mom.  My cousin, who grew up down the street from us, and her family flew from Virginia to be here for the week.  There were 18 of us in all.  My aunt contributed the Honey Baked ham and my niece, Jessica, brought scalloped potatoes in a crock pot.  I put together a simple salad and a side dish of Broccoli Supreme.  I also decided to try something I saw on Pinterest, colored deviled eggs.

Also on Pinterest, I had seen an alternative method to hard boil the eggs and decided to try that also.  This method had me cooking the eggs in the oven as opposed to in a pot on top of the stove.  Apparently Alton Brown says this is the best way to cook them.  He puts them directly on the rack in the oven and cooks them at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.  Immediately they go into ice water for 10 minutes before peeling.  Someone else suggested putting the eggs in a mini muffin tin, so I did that as it seemed to be an easier way to get them in and out of the oven.  The advantage to cooking them in the oven is that the house didn't get that cooking egg smell.  However, the egg shells got brown spots and some of those spots were also on the egg whites.  The frustrating thing, and I assume the method of cooking was in part a reason for this, was that they were extremely hard to peel.  After that, the rest of the process was easy!

I cut the eggs in half the long way and put the yolks in a small bowl.  The egg whites were divided among four glasses where I had colored water.  To each glass of water,  I added 5 drops of food color;  one each in red, blue, yellow and green.  I left the whites in the water for approximately 5 minutes.  The longer they are left in the dyed water, the darker the color becomes.  (I suggest you check them frequently to get the shade you want.)  Then I removed them and place them upside-down to drain/dry.  In the meantime, using a potato masher, I broke up the yolks, adding some mayonnaise, yellow mustard and sweet pickle relish.  I apologize for not having amounts, I just put them together by taste.  I placed the colored whites on my egg platter and pipped in the filling.  My husband said we couldn't call these eggs deviled on Easter, so we started calling them Celebration Eggs.  With the pretty colors, they look more like a celebration!  My cousin was thrilled to learn how easy it was to dye the eggs as she will be hosting a shower soon and will use this method to match the colors of the theme.

For dessert, I made the Lemon Cheesecake Tarts (I shared the recipe for before - see Valentine's Tea).  I chose to add this picture to show you how different they can look, depending on the fruit you choose to put on top.  In this case, I used a quarter slice of kiwi and a raspberry on each one.  I also added a dollop of mint jelly.  This is a pretty combination to use at Christmas.

The big hit in the dessert category was this Peanut Butter Cup Trifle.  This recipe was also found on Pinterest, but it originated at the-girl-who-ate-everything.com.  It uses a store-bought brownie mix for a 9x13-inch dish and 20 regular size Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  You really don't want to scrimp on this  ingredient!  I found the Mini Reese's at Target and thought they would look best on the top.  This is super easy to make and assemble.  The thing that takes a long time is waiting for the brownies to cool, so give yourself plenty of time.  This can be prepared the day before as mine was.  I added the Cool Whip and mini Reese's just before serving.  It was a major hit.  Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cup Trifle

1 (9x13) pan of baked brownies, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 (5.1 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding

3 cups milk

½ cup creamy peanut butter

2 tsp vanilla

1 (8 ounce) container thawed Cool Whip, divided

20 peanut butter cups, crumbled (do not buy bite sized; you could get away with less...but why?)

6-8 peanut butter cups to garnish.

Combine pudding and milk. Beat for 2 minutes. Add peanut butter and vanilla, beat until smooth. Gently fold in 2 cups Cool Whip.

Layer in trifle dish ½ the brownies, ½ the crumbled peanut butter cups, ½ the pudding mixture. Repeat. Top with cool whip and peanut butter cups. Chill at least four hours until serving.