Easter of 2008

It was a long Easter weekend this year. It started badly Thursday night (since I had Good Friday off from work) with my daughter Catherine tripping in the bedroom and whamming her cheek on the corner of the TV table, which immediately resulted in a bruise, followed two days later by a greenish black eye. Thanks to a reassuring visit to the pediatrician Friday morning, we learned that she hadn't broken the bone below her eye. As an experienced mother of four, the injury itself wouldn't be so bad if it hadn't followed a similar one last fall where she fell down the steps from our back porch while waiting for the rest of us to get it in gear for a trip to the mall. I'm convinced that the school has labeled us child abusers who, every so often, decide to pop her in the eye. Never mind that anyone who knows me knows that (a) I don't believe in even swatting a behind (let alone a true spanking) and (b) I can't do more than skim the news websites because I can't stand all the stories where kids are hurt, either accidentally or deliberately by their supposed loved ones.

Moving on.

Generally, Mark cooks in our house. This is not because I CAN'T cook...it's because, thanks to his native personality and the Food Network, he can't resist Emeril-izing or Rachael Ray-ing any meal. I'm sure everybody thinks of the dishes from their childhood as "comfort food". My mom's lasagne is up there at #1, although I have fond memories of "Chicken & Broccoli", slathered in cheese sauce. Nowhere in these memories do red bell peppers or mushrooms appear, but according to the Tao of Mark, they're essential in any dish that isn't dessert.

Yuck. I mean, I like bell peppers, and I like mushrooms, but I also like several dishes just fine without them.

SO this weekend I decided to cook. We had baked ziti Friday night. Mark labeled it as "perfect", but I think he was just trying to make up for the disagreement we had Thursday evening prior to Catherine's injury. The ziti wasn't bad, mind you. "Perfect" might be a stretch, though.

Saturday, we had a dish which has become my favorite at the Cheesecake Factory and for which I found the recipe online. I can't name it, since it's their recipe, but it involves chicken, bowtie pasta and yes, bell peppers and mushrooms, but they're supposed to be there. Since this is my favorite CF dish, I was happy as a clam. Mark, who decided to run errands just when dinner was ready, had a few complaints about the slightly congealed cream sauce an hour later when he finally sat down to eat, but I figure that was his own darn fault.

Sunday was the real cooking effort. Catherine suggested Eggs Benedict for brunch. Since her other breakfast fave is fried dough, I was happy with the idea, and cooked up a storm of eggs & Hollandaise sauce. Then I prepped the artichoke dip appetizer, and after it was covered & in the fridge, boiled eggs for the egg-coloring we hadn't managed to get to yet. While they were cooling off, I prepped potatoes for a jammin' but very calorie-laden potatoe pie recipe from my best cookbook. After actually cooking the dip, and getting the ham in the oven, I had time to color eggs. Then, back to the kitchen to finish off. By the time we actually sat down to eat, I no longer had the appetite or the energy to do it justice.

Bananas Foster for dessert.

I feel like I've delivered a fairly gourmet weekend, during which there was also (a lot) of grocery shopping, plus cleaning, laundry, baths, compilation of Easter baskets, and dish-washing. I know that some people do all this work EVERY DAY (maybe not the Easter baskets). All I can say is, my hat is off to those OTHER people, and I was really happy to be back in the office today.

Phew.