I hope you have had a wonderfully blessed Easter Sunday… a day to reflect on God’s love for all of us.   Our day has been full of food (which seems to be the norm with any holiday – religious or not!)   The plans for this day have changed a dozen times in the last week.  Originally, I had thought our sons would be here, and we would have our lunch out on the porch.

I had the table setting all planned out with little candy Peeps bagged at each place setting.

But as things sometimes happen, they will not be here until next weekend.   And then the good old weatherman predicted rain and thunderstorms…so I set up the table in the dining room instead.

But it was sunny as could be at lunch, so we could have eaten out on the porch anyway.  Oh well. (It is storming now.)

I decided to use little chocolate bunnies with green “grass” and white chocolate candy eggs for this place setting. (Don’t ask me why…I just liked it better. )  Kroger had these gorgeous daffodils in a bucket, and I couldn’t resist.  They are just so cheerful and really look like spring to me.  I think I am going to try to plant them in mass out in our yard at the edge of the woods next fall, so that we will have lots of  blooms next year in the spring.

With the change in number of people here for lunch, I changed our menu.  Originally, I was going to prepare a traditional Easter meal of baked ham with a variety of vegetables and a coconut cake for dessert.

I decided instead to go for something more like a brunch menu this year.

The cheese pudding comes out of the oven like a puffy souffle, and then it sinks… but it is still delicious. I am not even going to show you my biscuits.  I am absolutely awful at making bread, so these angel biscuits were the devil to me!  I was halving the recipe (and talking with my daughter) and I forgot to halve the buttermilk.  I remembered the instant I poured it into the flour though.  So I added more flour and sugar, but they did NOT look like angel biscuits when they came out of the oven.  My goal this year is to perfect those babies. (So we will be having lots of biscuits this year…the good, the bad, and the ugly.)

The carrot cake turned out nice and moist, but I missed the pecans that are traditionally in it.  I left them out of the cake since my daughter doesn’t care for them. (They only got stuck on the icing – not mixed in it – so she could pick them out.) Next time, I will make her a different dessert.  Carrot cakes need pecans.

There was a little touch of Easter in the cabinet in the dining room.

Here are the Easter baskets for our big kids.  Each basket has a “movie night” in it with a movie, popcorn, candy, and drinks.  Here is the one for our daughter…

and here are the ones for our sons.

It was a very nice quiet day, and the storms tonight make it even more cozy.  This is the beginning of my spring break, so I have a little time to slow down and catch my breath here before the last couple of months of the school year play out.  As I think about all of our many blessings on this Easter Sunday, I count all of you as a big blessing for me.  Thank you for reading, for leaving your always sweet comments, and for your kind emails.  You can’t imagine how much all of it truly means to me.  I wish I could invite you over for a lunch out on the porch.  I know it would be great fun!

So how did you spend your Sunday…lunch on a porch somewhere?  I hope it was a good day for you and your family.

Happy Easter!

A few days ago, I wrote about a bridal shower here and promised I would share a couple of the recipes from it.  If you aren’t already “acquainted” with this grape salad, it is very easy to assemble and a yummy one to make for a ladies’ luncheon or even a lunch for your family.  Please note that it makes a lot!

You will need:

2 lbs. red grapes

2 lbs. green grapes

8 oz. sour cream

8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

For the topping:  1 cup brown sugar and 1 cup nut topping (usually found on the ice cream aisle of the grocery store.)

directions:

Rinse and dry grapes.  Pull all the grapes from the stems, and place them in a large serving bowl. 

 Mix together the cream cheese, sour cream, white sugar, and the vanilla.  I normally “cheat” and mix them with the hand mixer so that there are no lumps in it.  Then pour this over the grapes and mix it through thoroughly.

Then mix together the brown sugar and the nut topping.

Live and learn…use real nut topping - not the topping I mistakingly bought  (Parlor Perfect Praline Crunch), and sprinkle it liberally all over the top of the grape salad. 

And another Live and Learn…I thought the topping looked waaaay too thick on top, so I stirred it all in.  Don’t do that.  It tends to lose its crunch.  Leave it all on top so you will have that crunchy texture in every serving.

Now for the punch recipe….Growing up, I remember going to weddings and parties where the punch was often a green slushy type drink made with lime sherbet and gingerale.  Do you remember that?  I loved it as a child, but as an adult it just doesn’t seem to mix well with finger foods – too heavy I think.  I found this recipe for Sunshine punch many years ago.  It is a good punch to use when you are serving a crowd, and you don’t want to use alcohol.  It also works very well for a brunch.  I can’t even begin to count the number of times that I have made up the base and transported it to the place of the event where I added the final amount of water and ginger ale.

I suppose it is called Sunshine due to all the citrus drinks in the recipe (from the Sunshine state, maybe?) or perhaps just due to the color of the punch.  Here are all the ingredients you need.

Mix the sugar and the hot water in a pan over low heat.  Stir until dissolved.  (This will make a simple syrup.)  Allow to cool.  Then add the undiluted cans of lemonade, limeade, and orange juice.   (This is the base and can be made ahead and refrigerated.)

Slice the orange, lemon, and limes.  Add the sliced fruit, 64 ounces of cold water, 1 liter of ginger ale, and ice when ready to serve.

Do you have a “go-to” punch that you have found works well for many occasions?  Please share!