We had Easter at our house this year, which was really fun! I always enjoy spending Easter here in Raleigh because we’re able to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior with our local family of faith with whom we worship with the rest of the year. I even did something I haven’t done in quite a few years-sunrise service! Okay, so…maybe it was more like a little past sunrise because I was running late, but I did see the sunrise on my way there ;-).We were blessed to have my parents and this newlywed couple join us for Easter dinner-I love how they have become not only close friends, but family over the past couple of years.

Easter Dinner

Speaking of Easter dinner, lets get to some food photos!

Our main meal consisted of:

  • ham
  • deviled eggs (with bacon)
  • pimento cheese pinwheels
  • broccoli & cheese casserole
  • sweet potato casserole
  • couscous salad
  • desserts

Unwilling to spend $60-$80 on a ham from Honey Baked Ham, I tried my hand at a copycat recipe and it turned out wonderful! If I had it to do over again I would have added more sugar mixture to create a thicker crunchy crust, but the flavors were spot on. I mean hello, how can it not be good, there was a blow torch involved! Then there were THE DESSERTS! Now when I say desserts, I don’t mean any kind of desserts. I’m talking about the oh so good, slap your momma, you really should work out for the next week kind of desserts.

Jason and I created the lemon dessert (pictured on the right) that started out as a Paula Deen White Chocolate Lemon Trifle but ended up being a single-serving, delicious goodness, using lemon cookies instead of pound cake and some other creative substituions. Thanks for the inspiration Paula Deen (this is where the whole “you really should work out for the next week” part comes in).

Lastly, we had a flourless chocolate cake. The idea for this cake came when I asked my friends at Savory Spice Shop if  they could get in raw cacao nips, boy did they ever deliver. I had little idea what I wanted to do with the nips, other that just snack on them, but I figured I better use them in some kind of recipe. I started racking my brains of what I could make, and thought back to my time at Johnson and Wales. I had made a few flourless chocolate cakes while in school, but somehow most of my recipes that I worked on are MIA. After searching high and low in the black hole known as our garage, I went to work trying to create one from what I remembered, while adding some new touches. I’ll be posting the recipe shortly after this post!