Egg Day

Today is Holy Thursday. We used to refer to this day, when my kids were younger, as 'Egg Day;' on this day we would boil and color eggs but also, I would pickle eggs too, in a brine of beet juice and red wine vinegar along, of course, with the usual pickling spices. These are very tasty, very pretty eggs.

We no longer dye eggs but I think I will pickle some later. This is what they look like, after pickling for a couple of weeks:




Today I am also going to to butcher's shop to pick up a five to eight rib, standing rib roast, which becomes, when the bone is removed, prime rib. I'll get the thick end. This is for our Easter dinner and I'll cook it according to Julia Child's recipe; I'll cut 'tunnels' throughout the meat prior to cooking, stuff those with garlic soaked in olive oil. I'll rub the outside with thyme, cracked pepper and sea salt and roast it in a pan on top of quite a bit of carrots and onions, in a slow oven for several hours until it is cooked to a medium rare. after that, I'll crush the veggies in a pot with some broth and cook it down to make a sauce. Sometimes I use this broth to make a Yorkshire pudding, but I won't do that this year.

Along with the prime rib I'll steam some asparagus, topped with a homemade hollandaise sauce, and make a traditional Italian 'Easter Salad,' which is simply an antipasto made with alternating sliced hard boiled eggs, orange slices, ham slices, mozzarella slices, covered with olive oil and crushed black pepper (this is made the night before so that all the ingredients develop a slight orange tang.)

For dessert, a home made strawberry shortcake, made with my mothers sweet biscuit recipe.

Who needs chocolate on Easter when all this is here for the eating?