Easter Dinner

My Easter morning started off early and in the kitchen as I wanted to get the homemade quiches in the oven with plenty of time to spare. 

Some refer to cooking as  a labor of love, and I think that applies well on some occasions.   The love to create fresh healthy food for those that we love.  

We returned back from a wonderful Easter Brunch at my Aunt's house, around 2:30 and did some last minute tidying up and then began to chop.   
Chopping is an essential part of life, right?
These are leeks.   I bought 2 leeks on Saturday at the Corona Farmer's Market, (if you missed it on Facebook, I went there on Saturday because I was "in town" for work and because they had New Mexico Green Chiles for sale there, which I was notified of by new facebook friend)   Then later I decided to make a pasta which called for 2 leeks, (and my quiches needed 2 leeks) so ended up buying two more at the store.  It was a very leeky weekend.   The 2 from the Corona Farmer's Market were cheaper and much better quality.    FM on the left and regular store on the right side of the above picture.

I took a few moments of still and silence to take in the beauty of these artichokes.  Wow, they are beautiful.   I must admit that while my Mr. was at the store getting a couple last minute items he had me cut the artichokes (that he was going to be grilling later) and there was a few moments of confusion of which way to cut them, stems long, cut in half, etc.   We recovered quickly, although we had different cutting methods in mind.  My method being the guessing method, his method being the trying to copy the ones we had from the italtian restuarant last week.

These are after they have been steamed for about 40 minutes.

 

This is the appetizers that I made, details coming soon on another post.  (Green Chile Guacamole and Shrimp cocktail with Green Chile Cocktail sauce)


The recipe that I pulled out of my binder to accompany the ham was a Leek,Corn  and Arugula Fettucini.   I had the recipe pulled from Real Simple Magazine. Leek and Arugula Fettuccini Now this is not the lowest calorie dish in the world, but it passes a couple tests:  homemade and you know exactly what fresh clean ingredients you are putting in it and it was served as a side dish next to protein.  This is something I can put my fork into.

The recipe called for peccorino romano cheese, i also bough mizithra becuase I literally had not ever seen it in the store (or outside of spaghetti factory's manager's special, actually) and the price was not bad considering it was cheese.   The romano did cost a little more, but again: Easter Dinner.    Freshly graded them together.

 

3/4 of a box of noodles, cook until al dente.

 

Leeks and garlic in a little olive oil

Looking good there, leeky.

 

Add in the raw freshly cut off the cob corn.

 

And some dry white wine, reduce.

Next comes the heavy whipping cream.

 

You don't see this around our house very often, but man is there a time and place for everything.

The noodles were drained and poured directly into the heated pan.  Tossed in the arugula at the end.  Yes, those are his hands, but he only stepped in at this point because he was concerned it was too runny so he was sprucing it up a little.

Lightly toss until all parts are mixed.  We cooked a little longer to soak up some of the liquid.

 

Ta-da.

 

We had some serious ham, too much in fact.    Bone and leftovers went home with a friend, wonder if she made that split pea soup with it?

 

I would have spent more time on a better picture of the table, but I clearly had some eating to do. 

Enjoy... and remember to enjoy tasting your way through the weekend~

Check out the green in this fridge, this is a combination of farmer's market,  and regular grocery store greens.   I went to Vons this week because I needed the ready made crust, which the Safeway brand is the best.