This was a busy Easter season since son #2 celebrated his 21st b-day. What a grand celebration it was. Originally, I thought he was having 21 guest coming so son#3 and I marathon cooked all day making mounds of spaghetti and meatballs, lentil spaghetti, two pans of bread sticks, a huge salad, salad dressings, dips, lemon poppy seed cake, and peanut butter pie. The peanut butter pie was an experiment. It was always one of my son's fav
orite pies. The
results were fabulous as far as it tasted, but the texture was mouse-like and difficult to cut. We ended up with 15 people and over a gallon of spaghetti left.What a great time. We had so much fun. While son #3 and I cooked, the balloons he had strewn around the basement as decorations, began to explode startling us. We laughed and wondered if it was a foreshadow of what would happen at the party. Alas, it did not. It would have been so much fun.
It was so much fun to meet the young people that son #2 has talked about. What great kids. Smart, intelligent, funny, and very nice. I would keep them all if I could . . . and told them so. The party wound down at 5am -- it was suppose to end at 11pm. That was fine with me. I got to feed everyone breakfast! They were invited to eat Easter Dinner with us, but the obligations of college beckoned so we only had the usual crowd of ten.
Easter dinner was a group effort with everyone bringing a dish. I made two batches of Chef Prudhomme's San Francisco Rice from his book Seasoned America p. 257, Golden Gravy from The Real Food Daily Cookbook p. 68, Orange Oriental Salad Dressing, and two batches of Bryanna's Soy and Seitan Ham. My girlfriend brought my favorite, Tonya's Raw Carrot Cake from the book Beautiful on Raw. She even gave me what was leftover. Yummo!
Orange Oriental Salad Dressing
1 orange, zested ( about 1 Tbsp.) chopped fine
Juice of 1 orange (about 1/3 c.)
2-3 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. honey, about
2 Tbsp. sesame oil
1 Tbsp. soy sauce or tamari
1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/4 c. oil
Mix together and adjust flavors. The salad can be coated with this ahead of time.It holds up well.
