Monday, April 09, 2012

Easter Weekend 2012

I just thought I'd share with you my Easter weekend before the insanity of year-end projects and Finals hits.

D and I went out for a brew Thursday night before finishing up our food contributions to Brunch the next day. Isn't this the cutest table for a pub? Directly to our right was a fireplace that really added to the whole decor. I had splurged and bought some Easter M&Ms to make D's favorite cookies - Safeway rip-off M&M cookies...almost have the recipe perfected...just a bit more tweaking and then I'll be ready to share with you! I ended up not going with this recipe:

It turns out that Rice Krispies are NOT gluten free..unless you buy the gluten free ones! Who'd think that there would be barley ingredients in a plain rice cereal?

Instead I chose this recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod: Obviously I had to leave the Nutella and Mini Eggs out of D's sis-in-law's, but there was still a yummy macaroon for her to eat.
Just a note for those of you who didn't know, artificial vanilla has gluten in it's coloring, so if you're ever making something for a Celiac, make certain it is with real vanilla extract.

Here was my process: I can't believe how messy my fingers got forming these nests! I wish I had been able to take a picture of them before I had to wash them. Here they are just out of the oven...if you follow their recipe, make certain that you immediately remove the cookies from the wax paper, or you'll spend about an hour (like we may...or may not have done) trying to scrape little pieces off the bottom to salvage them. Here was the finished product! I think they could have used a little longer in the oven as they were a little bit crunchy, and not nearly as dark as the ones in the original post.
But my mom loved them, and I forgot how much the rest of my family are not fans of coconut. Whoops!
They were good though, I would definitely recommend giving them a go!
Especially with Mini Eggs...they make everything delicious!

I also attempted the Bacon Deviled Eggs I had mentioned in my The Easter Bunny is Coming! post: I didn't have a dish big enough to carry them all in, so I got creative and used my cupcake caddy, it's good thing I got the one with 3 levels!
They were such a success at my parent's house on Friday that they requested I bring more on Sunday to my grandparents. SO delicious!

Friday night we hung out with a few of D's buddies and ended up hitting up one of the new bars in our area. We arrived at approximately 1:20am and had a swarm of people rush out past us as we were getting in...It was a little dead in there but we really enjoyed having our beers served to us a chalice! Here's me trying to drink mine..that is one heavy glass!

Saturday night we went over to a friends house for some homemade pizza, ice cream sundaes, and Bohnanza...if you haven't played this game, you should, it's quite the competitive party game!
Then we came home and stayed up until 1:30 in the morning peeling eggs and piping filling because I left it to the last minute. Oops!

Sunday we went to my grandparents for Easter lunch.
Here is my sister's idea of "hiding" the Easter Eggs for the boys to find...she threw them into the snow off of my grandparents deck and let them dig for them! We ended our weekend by going out for sushi which I can now cross off of my, "I was sick so I couldn't eat anything, but now that I'm better I want to eat everything" list! We walked around for a bit after that then decided to try some Tiramisu at a local dessert place....it was sadly mediocre...but looked delicious! This place did have some really awesome local photography up on the walls...these were two of my favorites:
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