How was everyone's Easter? If you made or enjoyed a special Easter meal, how did that go?
I find I learn something new with the food preparation for every special occasion. This time, I tried Live and Learn's suggestion for spinach squares. I found a recipe online and made a batch for my family. They were well-received by everyone. I will be adding these to my variations on using leafy greens. Thank you, Live and Learn. I think these could also work well with kale, Swiss chard, and broccoli in addition to spinach. They reminded me a bit of Impossible Pies in texture and use of eggs (also a great brunch or supper dish), without needing the prepared biscuit mix.
I wanted to show you a great trick for turning radishes (and other firm veggies) into blossoms. It uses a tool that many of us have in our kitchens, an apple corer/wedger.
After washing and trimming the tops and tails from radishes (this works best with larger radishes), I cut each radish in half. Placing the trimmed end (top or tail) down, I gently press the apple tool onto and through the white of the radish, not quite all the way down (that would break the radish into pieces). The result is a little flower.
I used about 12 radishes, making 24 flowers, then placed them all into a lined clay flower pot for the table. Each flower took seconds to make and are beginner-easy.
As you may recall, I themed this year's Easter dinner table and dining room decor to a spring garden. So, radish flowers served in a clay flower pot seemed just about right.
Not only do radish flowers look pretty on a vegetable tray, but they also make a lovely garnish for main dish salads. These would be an especially nice addition for platters for bridal and baby showers or ladies' luncheons, I think. The stem and blossom end of both cucumber and zucchini can also be turned into "flowers" using this technique. Cucumber flowers make a pretty garnish for a tossed salad or a sushi plate and zucchini flowers are lovely on top of casseroles or bowls of soup. Use about 1 1/2 unpeeled inches of the blossom or stem end of either cucumber or zucchini to make those flowers.
So, back to my original question, how was your Easter? Anything new to you on your menus?
Those are beautiful flowers! I changed my entire menu from the original. I made a pork roast instead of meatloaf, green beans instead of green bean casserole, mixed veggies, mashed potatoes and a lemon dessert. Easy but delicious. I did make the meatloaf later because I needed something premade for a busy work week. Something to heat and serve during the next few days. I shared half with my kids and everyone got a meal to take home to enjoy today (even my dad!).
ReplyDeleteAlice
Thank you, Alice.
DeleteYour Easter dinner menu sounds delicious. I'm glad it was easy, as well. Good for you to also make a meatloaf for busy evenings this week! I cooked a lot of food, so we do have some leftovers both for last night and tonight, but I didn't prepare anything else to get through the week's dinners.
I have made radish roses before, but never flowers like that. That was fun addition to your meal. I got rid of my apple slicer because it didn't work that well unless you had just the right size apple. I never looked into other uses, but I don't think I will get another one. My kitchen drawers are full enough. I'm glad you like the spinach squares, and they would be good with other veggies, too. I had spinach squares and deviled eggs for lunch, welcome leftovers from yesterday. It was a good day, with warm weather, family, friends, and my nephew's 7 mo. baby who was the center of attention.
ReplyDeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteI think everyone appreciated the little extra touch of the radish flowers, and as I said, they were easy and quick for me to do. I love when something that is easy for me also pleases my family or guests.
Thanks again for mentioning the spinach squares. I'd never heard of those before, but can appreciate how great they could be for brunches or even weekday suppers. I baked mine on Saturday, and they reheated nicely on Sunday.
I'm glad you Easter meal was so much fun for your family and friends.
Many people eat them cold at appetizers, too.
DeleteI made Pavlova for the first time ever. I made a meringue base, which I then topped with homemade lemon curd, whipped cream, and blood orange slices. It was delicious, and actually wasn't too expensive to make. It was a variation of this recipe.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.realsimple.com/winter-citrus-pavlova-8580341
- Tina
Hi Tina,
DeleteYour Pavlova sounds fantastic! I will check that recipe out. Thank you! I'm thinking this might be a lovely dessert for Mother's Day, which is right around the corner. I'll have to show my two daughters the recipe in the link to see if they would want to make this, perhaps with strawberries in place of the blood orange. (I love strawberries and will find any occasion to use them in special meals.)
Thanks for sharing, Tina.
Like Live and Learn, I haven't found my apple wedge cutter to be very useful. Not only is size and angle a potential problem, if it's not pretty sharp, it bruises the apples. But I betcha it WOULD work well for big radishes. What a pretty and fun idea! Sara
ReplyDeleteHi Sara,
DeleteI used to find that the apple wedger/corer didn't get the whole seed pockets on commercially grown apples. But it does work well on our smaller home orchard apples. I've used it to quickly make apple filling for cobbler with our tree apples. But I think I like its use as a decorative vegetable tool more. It worked well not only with the larger radishes, but with the medium-sized and almost all of the smaller grocery store radishes. The smaller the radish, the shorter the petals in comparison to the flower center.
Good to know about the smaller radishes. You never know what you'll get around here, and I'm not sure if I'll be planting any this year. The other reason I don't use the apple wedge gadget as much is because I have one of the heavy-duty hand-cranked peeler-corer-slicers that suction-cups to the counter. We had a big orchard at our last home, so we processed a lot of apples for sauce, pie filling, butters, etc.; and I've always loved apple crisp; so DH bought it from Lehman's or somewhere years ago. I'm not much of a gadget gal, especially food processors and things that take longer to set up and clean up than it's worth compared to just getting out a knife. However, this is super-easy to use and to clean, and I've used it a LOT over the decades I've owned it. It has a prominent spot in an upper cabinet where it's out of the way, but also easy to pull out and use. :) Sara
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