Earliest Easter for the rest of our lives

Easter Menu March 23, 2008

Appetizer -- Veggie Rabbit (see recipe in previous post)

Leg of Lamb -- I fixed lamb for my Mother.  I found this recipe at http://www.recipezaar.com/55600 and like it much better than what I tried on my Easter 2007 post.  If I didn't cook last year's so long, it would have been much better.  

Spiral Ham (our kids haven't grown lamb tastebuds yet)

Small yellow potatoes with drippings from lamb

Karelian Rice Pastries (see recipe below)

Egg butter

Broccoflower and Carrots, steamed
Jello Eggs on bed of lettuce

Blueberry muffin bunnies

Peeps tulips
Dessert -- Strawberry Shortcake

Title: Karjalan Piirakka (Karelian Rice Pasties)

Description:
Comes from the Eastern part of Finland, Karjala, where Mummo was born. Nowadays they are popular all over Finland. Served often at our Finnish dinners. Always a part of our Christmas Eve dinner.

Ingredients:
For the Rice Filling, use the recipe for Rice porridge on this site (Dec. 2006).   Just omit the sugar.

For the crust:
1 c water
1 1/2 t salt
1 2/3 c rye flour
2/3 c all purpose white flour
Mix water in bowl, salt, stir, add flours slowly. It will be a sticky messy job. If too sticky to roll, just add a little more flour. Can make ahead and put in a ziploc bag and roll out when ready.

For egg butter:
1 cube slightly softened margarine or butter
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped,
a tiny bit of salt since butter already has salt
Mash and mix together.

Directions:
Roll out crust in a thin oval shape. Place rice porridge in the middle. 

Pinch sides of crust up around the filling. 

Place on cookie sheets close together. 

Bake at 375 or 400 depending on your ov

en, until light brown. When light brown, open 

your oven and lift up one to make sure the bottom isn't brown. They do not taste good if they are. One the stove top, melt a stick of margarine and some water in a kettle. Use tongs to remove each pastry and dunk it completely in the mixture. Prepare a couple of old towels laid out with wax paper on them. Place the dunked pastries on the wax paper and then wrap the wax paper and towel combination up over them to keep them warm. This process softens them. Mummo says to keep them under the towel as long as you can stand it. She samples them at many stages.

Serve with egg butter, or cheese or lunchmeat or plain butter on top of the rice part.

It's "Spud Harvest" so it's time to glean, bake or mash, etc. some potatoes.

The kids are out of school for "Spud Harvest"! That's the name given to the time to harvest and the vacation from school to help with the harvest.

The "Activity Days" girls are out today "gleaning" the Bishop's spud fields. Last time they made bags they'll put the potatoes in to give to local needy families.

I have fond memories of this time of year working in the spud fields. I also remember going to the high school football games and buying piping hot "baked potatoes" at the concession stand. I like baked not steamed potatoes! When you wrap the potatoes in foil, they become steamed.

I like to wash the skins well, poke a couple of fork holes in each (You must poke each potato whether you bake or microwave them or they'll explode out of their skin) and sometimes roll them in salt. To me, the best way to bake potatoes is to bake them in a 400-425 degree oven for about an hour for 6 medium sized potatoes. Where I live you can buy a box of potatoes based on their size, so you can buy a box of 90s, 80, 60s, 50s, etc. The higher the number refers to how many potatoes fit in the box. I just heard another tip about baking potatoes. Put your potatoes in muffin tins, so that you can remove all of them from the oven at once by taking out the tin. Great idea!!

Baked potatoes can be served so many ways. Growing up my brother would empty the potato out of its skin, mash it down on his plate and smear butter and corn on top of it. If I only ate half of my baked potato, he'd ask me if he could eat the other half with the rest of his meal. I like to keep bake potatoes in their skin and even eat some of the skin -- this is why you wash it well.

Names of potatoes:

spuds:
In Dec 2006, I discussed spudnuts, delicious doughnuts made with potatoes, on this blog.

taters:
I love to order tater tots vs. fries to eat, when they are available.

murphies:
I understand that my paternal Grandfather used to call potatoes this, since potatoes supposedly came to America with the Irish.

tatties:
When my husband lived in Scotland, they used to boil turnips with their potatoes and call it "nips and tatties". I really like the taste of these mashed together. I use about 2/3 potatoes to 1/3 turnips. Another variation is to add carrots. We were at a friend's house for Sunday dinner and the husband was making mashed potatoes, but he threw in some dehydrated carrots from their food storage. This combination also tasted great.

My Father tells us cream was often their gravy for mashed potatoes, since it was readily available growing up on the ranch. I like to combine red potatoes with yellow or other potatoes in the same mashed potatoes too. What do I add, whatever I have on hand -- anything from real butter to butter buds, minced garlic or garlic salt, cream cheese sometimes but always milk (if you warm it, your potatoes won't cool off as quickly). Smashed potatoes versus whipped potatoes seem more satisfying to me.

peruna:
This is the Finnish word based on the fact that potatoes came from Peru.

papas:
This is Spanish for potatoes of course, but we call my Dad's mashed potatoes Papa's papas.

"Massilan Pojat" The Massila Boys -- When my Mother was young, her Mother always read to them while they ate. Sometimes she had a hard time getting them to eat. It become a tradition to here this story about 2 magpies stealing shiny jewelry from the neighbors window as her parents got them to eat their boiled potatoes. My maternal grandfather liked his "Massilan Pojat" or boiled potatoes with just a little bit of butter on top of each bite her ate. We still call them this.

Share how you like your potatoes.