Easter Sunday

I spent Easter Sunday with Jim’s family. Apparently, ham is quite the Easter tradition for people, but being from a non-Easter celebrating vegetarian family, I didn’t realize this until rather recently. Anyway, I obviously wasn’t going to partake in the consumption of the little oinker, so I flipped through Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone book to come up with a main course for me. I decided on a spinach and potato tart thing which surprisingly used all ingredients I had on hand. I sliced up two potatoes crosswise and one lengthwise, drizzling them with EVOO and pepper and baking at 375 until crispy (well, in reality, slightly overly so). I sauteed green onions, parsley, and cilantro together, using all of the remainder in Jim’s fridge and then mixed in two boxes of defrosted, squeezed dry spinach, a cup of low-fat cottage cheese, about 2 ounces of low-fat goat cheese, two eggs (one yolk), lemon zest, salt, and pepper. It wasn’t supposed to be quite that low-fat, but it was a) what I had on hand and b) pretty healthy with the modifications. The end result was not half bad. With a little reworking, I could have something. I'd probably use the called-for feta instead of goat cheese, but it'd still be low-fat. I think I'd also add mushrooms.



Jim's dad is always trying to feed me, and this time he went out and bought marinated mushrooms from Safeway. I happen to love mushrooms, but I do NOT like them marinated. To be polite, I ate one, and to my surprise, actually kind of liked it. It wasn't great, but it wasn't half bad, either--very Italian dressing-like flavored. Then I tried the other type, which was teriyaki and those were some good 'shrooms. His dad was quite happy to see me eating them.

For dinner, they served the aforementioned ham, cornbread muffins (instant), green bean casserole, candied yams, and Betty Crocker scalloped potatoes. Yes, Jim belongs to a convenience food family, which I'm beginning to suspect is simply a WASP-thing. I have never eaten canned yams before. Not so pretty. The flavor wasn't horrible, but the texture was so mushy and gross. The green bean casserole was of course made with canned green beans. Mushroom soup masks a bit of the texture and flavor, but there's only so much camo possible. I was not into the potatoes either, but compared to the other veggies, it was delicious. At least instant cornbread is pretty good.

The thing is, I'm really not into instant food, partially because of my upbringing and partially because of how much I love to cook. But despite my non-love of the food itself, I truly do enjoy dinner with Jim's family. And that makes choking down canned food all worth it.

Dessert was cheesecake from Safeway. It was a variety platter (chocolate, cinnamon, apple caramel, and strawberry) and I tried the apple caramel kind. I actually liked it quite a bit. It wasn't overly rich and had a nice flavor and texture. I am pretty picky about cheesecake. I don't care for plain--I like it flavored, with oreos or fruit or something. And it has to be super creamy and silky. None of that crumbly crap. I was very pleasantly surprised with how good it was. Apparently Jim's family loves cheesecake. Since I've always wanted to take a crack at it, I guess I now know it will be popular. Of course, Jim hates the stuff, so I'll have to try something different for him, but at least now I have a reason to make one. My mom would probably kill me if I made an entire cheesecake for my dad, so it's definitely something I have to make for others.