Easter

Today we hosted our first formal-ish dinner party at our house--we had several friends over for Easter "dinner" (the kind of dinner that happens in the early afternoon). We've had a lot of friends over in the last year, but had been waiting until we got more work done on the house to have more formal get-togethers. Specifically, we've been waiting until we put back up the kitchen cupboard doors we took down to paint nearly 4 months ago, but we finally decided that we just wanted to have people over and couldn't wait until things are finished because we don't know when that will be.



In planning an Easter menu, I was challenged by the need to come up with something that was vegetarian but not too eggy, as we had a very eggy Easter brunch at church. In the end, this is the menu we served:

Spinach and Herb Torta with Potato Crust
Roasted Asparagus
Cabbage and Peanut Salad (thanks, Cathleen)
Crusty Bread (thanks, Lis)
Chardonnay
Cranberry Wine (delicious!--thanks, Kathy)
Turkish Tea (served from Lis' lovely Turkish tea set)
Pavlova with Strawberries and Kiwi



The pavlova was my pride of the day. For those of you who aren't familiar with this dessert, it's essentially a meringue topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit. It's not terribly difficult to make, if you have a standing mixer that is, as it does take about 15 minutes to whip the egg whites into stiff peaks. Here's the recipe I used. Mine did crumble a bit and the center sank down, but most of that was hidden by whipped cream and it was delicious just the same.