An Easter feast to remember

(Blood Orange Polenta Upside-Down Cake is made in a skillet)

Whew! The Easter feast was a joy, and a lot of work, but I have to say I am glad not to have to cook for the rest of the week.
I love seeing what fellow bloggers cooked up for the holiday, especially the Italian traditions that are passed on from generation to generation. I was inspired by many of them.

The centerpiece of our meal was homemade Manicotti, preceded by antipasti that included Stuffed Mushrooms, Roasted Asparagus, Roasted Hot Peppers, Artichoke-Kale Dip, Lupini Beans, an assortment of cheeses, olives and nuts and, of course, Italian wines and Prosecco. And that was just for starters.


I started with the desserts.

The Blood Orange Polenta Upside-Down Cake recipe I found via Michele's wonderful blog, Veggie Num Nums. This lady is always baking up something special in her kitchen. That cake had me at first glance and I knew I had to make it for Easter. The recipe is from Bon Appetit, and it is definitely a cake I will revisit often. Anything with coarse-grain cornmeal piques my interest, and this recipe had it all — not too sweet with a caramelized blood orange base that becomes the top when flipped over. And it's all done in one skillet; no bowls are needed with this luscious dessert. Michele lives in blood orange country and is considering planting a tree in her own backyard. How cool is that! Check out her wonderful blog if you haven't already. She is a vegetarian after my own heart.

(Lemon Bars are light and luscious)

Nothing says spring quite like Lemon Bars, so I reverted to a recipe I made not too long ago using Meyer Lemons. I couldn't find Meyer Lemons this time around, so I substituted regular lemons and they turned out fine. I probably could have added a bit more sugar, but I like my Lemon Bars tart, so they were fine. Meyer Lemons are much sweeter than regular ones.




And what's a feast without homemade bread? I have a standard whole wheat recipe for bread I usually use, but I felt adventuresome and decided to give the no-knead method of bread-making a try. This, too, was inspired by Michele, who swears by Jim Lahey's "My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method." All this bread needs is a little advance planning — 18 hours of rising time, followed by a couple more hours right before baking. Preheat a Le Creuset pan or similar Dutch oven in a 450-degree oven a half hour before baking and you've got yourself the equivalent of a wood-fired oven in your home kitchen. This recipe is a winner. I did change it a bit by using 1 cup of whole wheat flour and two cups of white flour instead of all white flour.



It's truly amazing how this recipe works, but it does, as long as you coat the dough with coarse cornmeal (I used Wild Hive Farm's Polenta) as it rises for the second time on a tea towel (don't use terry cloth). As soon as the dough hit the hot pan, it started to blister and rise. I rushed to get it into the oven so as not to cool down the pan. I think the next time I make it I will use my smaller Le Creuset, which is about 4 quarts, rather than the 7-quart pan I used. No complaints, though — the bread had a crispy, crunchy crust and was peppered with air bubbles inside. This is an artisan loaf to be proud of.




Of course, Italians have to make the braided egg bread for Easter, otherwise something is missing. There is a slew of recipes for this one. Linda over at Ciao Chow Linda's wonderful Italian blog made a stuffed version that was new to me. She is almost as possessed as I am and made the recipe about four times until she got it right. Check out her awesome blog for a real taste of Italy.



I adapted the recipe I used from a couple of recipes I found: one at the Italian Dish, which is another incredible Italian blog, and the other from NOLA.com. I used dried currants instead of raisins and anise extract instead of oil. I also made three loaves out of the recipe instead of one. It was delicious, especially toasted the next morning for breakfast. I didn't bother to color the eggs before tucking them into the dough before rising, using fresh brown eggs instead, which looked pretty enough in their natural state.



And it's not spring unless I've had a bowl of fresh dandelion greens. It's been really warm here in the Hudson Valley so I had to hunt around for the fresh greens before they bolted. I have to admit, these wonderful, rich greens did not make it to the Easter table because M and I ate them all before the big feast. But that's OK, we still have our early garden greens which we picked and served and no one at the table knew what they were missing.

It was a feast to remember, with plenty more to think about doing the next time.