Around here, we find just about any reason to celebrate and ringing in the Spring Season is one of our favorites!
I’ve received several inquiries about my Spring Equinox Dinner for people looking to make Easter brunch so, if you want to recreate this delicious meal, follow these links for this easy to follow meal! Here is the Perfect Spring Easter lunch!
Smoked Lamb Chops with Balsamic Reduction
First, we started with a rack of lamb chops. I’ve got to be honest, Jack is the meat chef around here, creating things on his smoker that I’ve never imagined possible. For our 11th anniversary (steel), I bought him a custom smoker. Since then, we find EVERY excuse to take out door cooking to the next level.
While he marinated the chops in garlic, dried rosemary, oil, salt & pepper to prep for the smoker, I created a balsamic reduction and went to work on the accompaniments. (Is that a word? Or, did I just make that up? Lol)
A good balsamic reduction recipe is one of the easiest tricks and home chef can have. It is amazing over strawberries, caprese salad, pastries, pizza and soooo much more. Your reduction can be made ahead of time and stored for later use. We chose the balsamic reduction over the traditional mint chutney to highlight the smoked lamb chops rather than dominate the dish.
The Sides and accompaniments
As the Queen of vegetable, plant-forward sides and a CARROT fiend, I knew these lamb chops deserved a fluffy and delicious carrot soufflé. One of my favorite BBQ restaurants features a Carrot Soufflé that is DIVINE. When I inquired about its originality, I was told it was an old family recipe. When digging deeper, I learned Piccadilly Cafeteria made a similar dish and I can say, it was equally as delicious!!!
Does anyone remember Piccadilly? While most of my Sunday after-church dining adventures took place at Luby’s, I recall the Piccadilly at Greenpoint mall with my grandma and grandpa after a Sunday church service that was fueled with butterscotch candy and Brach Starlight mints. I would sit in the back pew, listening to my grandma’s big, booming voice echo through the walls of the church as she sang bass in the church choir. I remember wondering what my Gram had planned for ‘Sunday Supper’ and I was well on my way to a sugar high.
In the great state of Texas, Supper is a controversial meal. Why the controversary? Well, no one seems to be able to truly define this meal. For me, Sunday Supper, is a large meal, served between lunch and dinner that consists of a meal, sides and bread. Sunday Dinner is traditionally a lighter meal of soup, salad or leftovers. Pot Roast was usually my grandma’s go-to but we often had spaghetti, roasted chicken, pork chops and stuffing or meat loaf.
She was such an amazing cook that we often ate at home but, as a rare treat, we would visit a cafeteria or family-style restaurant. As a child, my sides of choice were macaroni & cheese and mashed potatoes but my grown up palate has evolved from the card loading that my tiny body could once afford.
Enter Carrot Soufflé
I searched high and low before I discovered this incredible dish from Louetta from allrecipes.com. The result was a light, fluffy side that made AMAZING leftovers. I considered thinning out the soufflé with some broth but the leftovers didn’t last long enough for me to give it a shot!
While asparagus doesn’t seem to grow readily in Houston, I headed to the grocery store to find the biggest, fattest stalks I could find. Thanks to the website A Couple Cooks, I decided on this easy blanched asparagus recipe and added some fresh lemon zest, salt, pepper & freshly grated parmesan cheese.
The Perfect no-Knead Spring Bread
As with every Sunday Supper, bread is a must. I LOVE this no-knead bread from the NY Times; because, let’s be honest, a baker I am NOT.
As you can see, there is no need to be a master baker to accomplish a crusty artesian-style bread that is PERFECT fresh from the oven. I added Lemon Zest, Dried Rosemary and hand-milled black pepper to the recipe in order to come up with this beauty.
Saving the best for last, deviled eggs to start the meal is a MUST for any spring dinner, lunch, supper and appetizer. Deviled eggs may be one of my favorite things. As a matter of fact, when hostessing ANY feast or cooking class, I custom create a deviled egg. While Jack has STRONG opinions when the smell of hard boiled eggs permeate the house the end result is always worth the pain of suffering through the prep.
For this occasion, I wanted a color POP; so, I immersed whole, hard-boiled eggs in fresh beet juice for an overnight soak.
Just look at that ruby red goodness!!
Delicious Deviled Eggs
I simply start by boiling eggs. When the eggs are ready and cool to the touch, I cut them in half, scoop out the yolk and build an egg salad. Honestly, the ingredients can stretch as far as you imagination can carry you! For these, I chose a simple mixture of finely diced onion, a TBSP of mayo and 1 tsp dijon mustard. Scoop the mix into the empty egg halves and you are almost there! I topped these with fried shallots and a freshly milled peppercorn blend.
Seriously, nothing fancy required! My lovely friend, Elyssa, uses an icing tip and they are BEAUTIFUL. Unfortunately, I don’t always have the will to pipe them so I use this tsp scoop from Pampered Chef in a pinch as you can see I did here.
So, there you have it! Our favorite Spring Easter Lunch!
Please let us know if you have tried this recipe and share with those you love!
