Easter menu: violets and some other food

It's the start of the third year of having a yard without chemicals like fertilizer or pesticide (I don't know what the previous owners did, so I'm starting from when we moved in). To celebrate, this year we're eating edible flowers that appear in the yard.

At the special Easter lunch I made for myself and my husband, violets were the stars. They are the first of the edible flowers to show up in the spring. We went out in the morning to pick a bowl of the teeny purple flowers from our backyard.

In documenting the Easter lunch here, let's start with dessert. I found a recipe for flower pudding with dates and spices in Lorna Sass' To the King's Taste, a collection of recipes from the time of King Richard II of England and Sass' modern interpretations of the recipes. The original recipe called for roses, but Sass indicated violets might be appropriate in early spring, so I tried it out. Into the saucepan go the flowers and some almond milk along with thickeners, spices, and sweeteners.

After chilling and setting and a bit of garnishing with some fresh flowers, here's the end result:

This dish did not meet expectations, but I would not call it a failure. The pudding is delicious despite the drawbacks of its slightly grayish purple color and the fact that the pudding ends up tasting much more like dates than like violets, which have a very light and subtle flavor that may have been destroyed by cooking. I'll try the same recipe again in a few weeks when the first roses bloom and see if the stronger flavor of roses holds up better in the pudding.

Violets turned up again in the first course of lunch, which was spring mix greens and sauteed asparagus with a balsamic vinegar reduction sauce.

Next year, I'm going to have to pick more violets for salads. They are fantastic with greens!

The usual main attraction of Easter dinner, the ham, was hardly an afterthought, it just didn't have the same level of novelty as the edible flowers. I've never made a glazed ham before, and Andrew and I recalled Easter hams of our growing-up years were unglazed. I pulled the basic ham glaze ideas from  Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook of 1950 and dressed it up with balsamic vinegar. It was served with buttered peas with caramelized shallots.

Final verdict from the eaters? Glazed ham is here to stay on our Easter menu, for as long as we don't mind all our ham leftovers being a little sweet. The payoff of taste sensations was definitely worth the extra effort of pulling out the ham in the middle of baking, scoring and glazing. Also, I love how the pink and green food looks so appetizing on my pink-and-white china.

Wine served: a surprisingly apt German Riesling from the Mosel, Ernst Loosen's Dr. L from 2010. Hooray to the liquor store that has everything, including good wine recommendations for ham!

Read more...

Colorful winter potluck dish

This dish garnered many positive comments at a potluck today. The original recipe comes from the cookbook Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmer's Markets by Deborah Madison. Here, I have adjusted the amounts of just about everything to make the dish for a larger group.

Sweet Potatoes Braised in Cider

Also good for winter squashes, perhaps yams, and carrots

4 medium-sized sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks (prepared weight is about 3 pounds)
4 Tbsp unsalted butter (for vegan version, use vegan margarine)
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 c or more of apple cider, enough to nearly cover vegetables in pot
salt and pepper if desired (I used none)
apple cider vinegar to taste (optional, I also used none)

Melt butter in a large pot, cook the rosemary on medium heat about 3 minutes to flavor the butter. Toss the vegetables in the butter, add liquid until vegetables are nearly covered. Cover pot with lid and bring to a boil. Turn heat down and simmer 20 to 25 minutes until vegetables are tender. If the juices have not reduced to a glaze yet, uncover and boil quickly on high heat until liquid reduces. Season with salt, pepper, vinegar to taste.

Read more...