Host The Perfect Easter Brunch

!±8± Host The Perfect Easter Brunch

This sacred and joyous holiday for Christians throughout the world celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after his death by crucifixion. For many Christians, especially those of Eastern and Orthodox faith, Easter is the most important holiday of the year, even over Christmas.

So before I give you the best tips and recipes for your perfect Easter brunch I wanted to share the history of the Easter bunny and where the idea of decorating Easter eggs came from.

It has been said that the colored eggs we decorate and hide in our Easter egg hunts came from Germany. Since the rabbits (a.k.a Easter bunny) and eggs were symbols of immortality, fertility and new life, the Germans used to leave the colored eggs in children's baskets. This custom was brought to America in the late 19th century by German immigrants.

Here are some great Easter decorating tips to get you started:

1. When you looking for Easter decorations keep in mind light pastel colors. These peaceful colors will set the mood for your party.

2. Decorate your home with pastel balloons, streamers and plastic eggs.

3. Don't forget to put out some Easter candy either in baskets or pastel color bowls for your company to snack on.

4. Make sure you tableware match in pastels.

5. Try to find some daffodils or tulips and use these as table decorations. Either tie a pastel-colored ribbon around each flower and place them on each guests plate or pot them and place down the center of each table.

6. For place cards, hard boil a bunch of eggs and decorate each one differently. Once the eggs are dry, use a permanent maker and carefully write each of your guests on a separate egg. That way you can place each egg inside a small basket and set on each plate to let your guests know where they are sitting.

Your Perfect Easter Brunch:

Traditional Easter meals can either have ham or lamb as a main dish. These days, many families favor the salty sweetness of ham. Most ham dishes served on this holiday are honey glazed with sides of candied yams, glazed veggies and potatoes.

Below I have found some great recipes that are easy to follow and absolutely perfect for your Easter brunch. And don't worry, if you are one of those families who prefer lamb over ham I have found some delicious recipes for you as well.

Let's start off with the main course:
Easter Ham

Ingredients

1-7 to 8 lb. fully cooked smoked ham shank
1 C. maple syrup
2 Tbs. cider vinegar
1 Tbs. prepared mustard
whole cloves

Directions

Combine syrup, vinegar and mustard. Place ham, fat side up, on rack in shallow roasting pan. Pour about 1/2 C. mixture over ham and bake, uncovered, in a preheated 325 degree oven for 1-1/2 hours. Baste every 30 minutes with additional sauce. Remove ham from oven and score fat into diamond shapes. Insert a clove into each diamond. Bake ham an additional 30 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of meat registers 140 degrees. Let ham rest 15 minutes before carving.

Check out Recipe4Living.com for more ideas on Ham recipes for your Easter brunch. Just click on Holiday's on the left column and click on Easter.

Now for a Lamb Recipe:
Honey Glazed Lamb

Ingredients

1 C. Honey

1/2 C. Dry white wine

4 Tbs. Minced fresh mint

Salt and pepper, to taste

8 lbs. Boneless leg of lamb, (2 whole legs)

Directions

Combine honey, wine and mint; mix well. Season cut side of boned lamb with salt and pepper, then spread with honey mixture; roll and tie lamb. Brush outer surface with honey mixture. Roast on rack in shallow baking pan at 325 degrees F 1 to 1-1/2 hours or to 160 degrees F on meat thermometer for medium doneness. Baste every 15 minutes. Let stand 10 to 15 minutes before slicing.

Check out http://www.Recipe4Living.com for more ideas on Lamb recipes for your Easter brunch. Just click on Holiday's on the left column and click on Easter.

Side dishes are a must and just as important as the main course.

Side Potatoes Dishes
Oven Roast Greek Potatoes

Ingredients

4-5 Medium Potatoes; Cubed

1 Tbs. Olive Oil

1 Tbs. Butter; Melted

1-2 Tbs. All Purpose Greek Seasoning

Dash Garlic Seasoning

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss potatoes with remaining ingredients. Bake in 9x13" casserole dish for 30-40 minutes, turning occasionally, until golden.
Yield: 4 servings

Sides Asparagus Dishes
Oven Roasted Potatoes and Asparagus

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb. red potatoes cut into chunks

2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil

8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

4 tsp. dried rosemary

4 tsp. dried thyme

2 tsp. kosher salt

1 bunch fresh asparagus trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large baking dish, toss the red potatoes with 1/2 the olive oil, garlic, rosemary, thyme, and 1/2 the kosher salt. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Mix in the asparagus, remaining olive oil, and remaining salt. Cover, and continue cooking 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees. Remove foil, and continue cooking 5 to 10 minutes, until potatoes are lightly browned. Season with pepper to serve.

Yield: 6 Servings.

Side Glazed Carrot Dishes
Glazed Carrots

Ingredients

6 C. carrots cut into 1" diagonal slices

1/4 C. brown sugar

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 C. orange juice

1/4 C. butter

1 tsp. cornstarch

1/2 tsp. salt

Directions

Cook carrots on stovetop in a small amount of salted water until tender, drain water. Combine orange juice, nutmeg, brown sugar, cornstarch, and mix until smooth. Pour over carrots and cook for several minutes until mixture thickens. Add butter and toss. Serve hot.

Bread/Rolls
Greek Easter Bread

Ingredients

1 pkg. Dry yeast

1/2 C. Warm water

1/2 C. Boiling water

1 tsp. Cinnamon

3/4 C. Sugar

3 Eggs

1/4 C. Butter; melted

1/2 C. Warm milk

1 tsp. Baking powder

1/2 tsp. Salt

5 C. Flour (all-purpose)

1 Egg yolk; beaten

Sesame seeds

5 Eggs; hard-cooked; unshelled -and dyed red

Directions

Soften yeast in warm water and set aside. Combine boiling water and cinnamon; set aside. Combine sugar and eggs; beat well. Add melted butter to egg mixture and beat again. Skim off 1/4 C. clear cinnamon water and add along with yeast and milk to egg mixture, blending well. Combine dry ingredients and add to batter; knead dough until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Shape dough to fit into 2 greased 8 in. round pans; crisscross 2 strips of dough over each loaf. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. Brush loaves with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until brown. Push dyed eggs into bread immediately when loaves are removed from oven.

Now for the best part of the whole meal....Dessert. Have fun and create an eye popping dessert that your whole family will enjoy. Here are some different options to choose from.

Easter Angel Cake
Ingredients

1 pkg. white angel food cake mix

8 oz. frozen whipped cream topping, thawed

1 C. flaked coconut

6 drops green food color

Jelly beans

Directions

Bake and cool cake as directed on package, remove from pan. Frost with whipped topping. Combine coconut and food color until evenly tinted. Sprinkle over top of cake. Arrange jelly beans on coconut. After serving, refrigerate any remaining cake.

For more Easter side dish recipes and desserts visit http://www.Recipe4Living.com.

Have a wonderful Easter Holiday and keep your eyes open for the Easter bunny. You never know what he might leave you this year.

Host The Perfect Easter Brunch

Tumi Ducati Luggage Buy Online Bargain Sale Safes Fire Proof Order Invisible Fencing

Cooking Ham - How to make a ham that Will Wow Your Guests Cook

!±8± Cooking Ham - How to make a ham that Will Wow Your Guests Cook

Ham cooking process may seem a bit 'daunting, but it's really very simple. The key is the time to cook a ham. It is not as long as you might think. Anyone can learn to cook a ham.

If you have never baked, or if you ended up with a dry, tasteless piece of pork, you have to try this method of cooking ham.

It can produce juicy, moist and delicious ham, because wow your guests. (Translation: Take your mother-in-law of GreenEnvy!)

The choice of ham ham cooking for this technology

Basically ham is the hind leg of pork. And 'the treatment needs of ham hind legs of pigs. However, there are so many methods of processing, the journey can be confusing to the grocery store.

For our purposes we want a ham, not only tastes, but also easy to use.

Check the labels at the supermarket. They show the water content. The lower the water content, the better tasting ham.

AHam as "ham in natural juices" is best characterized.

Stay away from ham with "ham - water added," because they have added 12-15 percent water. Even worse, "Ham and Water Product", is having as much as 35 percent of water are added.

Bone or boneless? Now the bone would certainly easier to use, but the bone tastes better. Bone requires more processing power and it seems that more processing power is the worst!

A whole ham tends to great weight about 15 pounds. Somanagement, are increasingly being cut in half and sold in two parts, the butt and thighs.

They must carve a whole ham bone structure around difficult. This structure is in the back half is hard. The tree has to move only half of a bone. And if the spiral cut the better.

If half or whole, however, the differences are in the best supermarket ham bones about what, if any, were removed and the amount of water, if present, was added.

So wea trade-off. A bone-in spiral sliced, fully cooked ham half shank of natural juices is my choice.

Ham Cooking - Cooking Time for a Ham - How to cook a ham

Since the supermarket hams are already fully cooked when it is cooking our goal for our guests, this is only a maximum service temperature as gently as possible.

This technique, like a ham cooking reduces the cooking time for a ham.

Gently raise the temperature to 115 ° C. internally keeps the hamdrying out. If it is removed from the oven, the cooking temperature to bring the remaining 125-130, is the ideal temperature to drink.

So let me begin this process by raising the temperature before putting in the oven!

Leave the plastic or aluminum interior intact and put the ham in a large container and cover with hot water. You can sit there in the water for 45 minutes and then leave to drain. Cover again with hot water and set aside foranother 45 minutes.

Preheat seem that way, there is less potential for drying in an oven.

Another trick of the ham baking equipment to bake in the oven bag.

The oven bag provides a uniform method of cooking allows heat to circulate inside the bag to shorten the cooking time.

Position the shelf in lowest position and preheat oven to 250 degrees. Pack the ham and remove and discard the plastic washer for the bones.

Placebaked in the bag. Collect the top of the bag so the bag located around the ham. Tie the plastic bag and snip off the excess. Place the ham slices in large baking dish and side slits at the top of the bag 4 oven.

Cook until the center registers 100 degrees on instant-read thermometer. It is about 10 minutes per pound, which is to take a really fast time for cooking a ham.

Remove from the oven and increase oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Cut the bag and microwaveRoll back the pages that expose ham.

Brush with a third of the frosting of your choice and send it to the oven until the glaze is sticky, about 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and transfer to a cutting board. Brush the surface with another third of the enamel.

Let stand, loosely tent with foil, for 15 minutes.

While there is heat and the remaining third of the frosting with 4-6 tablespoons of juice from the bag until it forms a thick, butSmooth sauce.

Carve and serve strain the sauce at the table.

Ham Glaze Recipe

This is the best technique I know how to cook a ham, but what about the glazes?

Enamel not only make your holiday ham look great, but they also added flavor.

The glazes are usually mild and are far from being just a brush of ham cooking with maple syrup, produced by complex mixtures of sugar and spices.

Enamel should be added only towards the end of cookingHam, so as not to burn.

The cooking technique ham glaze recipe works with any work that you and your family like. Give a chance to try the technology for the next time you think of cooking the ham.

Cooking Ham - How to make a ham that Will Wow Your Guests Cook

Promotions La Sportiva Hiking Boots Shopping Keen Presidio Walnut !8!# Mock Croc Boots On Sale