Does anyone have Easter favorites to share with me? I am especially interested in any cookies, cakes or breads...for that low carb diet, LOL. Seriously...I would love to hear what Carole and other have to share!

ok.....
Easter Dove...
a very traditional Easter cake ....

www.pastrywiz.com/dail...es/570.htm

Laura...

Yummy! I remember Easter in Italy and the traditional Easter Dove. Mom has lots of recipes. I'll get them from her over the next few days and post them here. Most are fairly easy, and oh so good. But low carbs????....uhmmm, no I don' think so!

Here's one for you to try. I was served this at two family gatherings for supper on Good Friday. I don't know if it is a tradition and I had to phone my nieces sister in law to get the recipe.
I have never cooked it - but eating it was a real pleasure.... well worth a try I would say!

Savoury Mussel Cake

Ingredients for 6 people

1kg mussels,
250 gr rice (not thin grain),
3 onions,
100gr courgettes,
1kg potatoes,
400gr peeled tomatoes,
pecorino cheese,
extra virgin olive oil,
2 cloves garlic,
bread crumbs,
parsley,
salt and pepper to tatse.

Preparation:
Wash and slice the courgettes, onions and the potatoes and dress them with oil, salt and pepper. Half cook the rice in salted water. Clean the mussels really well, and scrape the shells really carefully, passing them continuously under cold running water. Pass them for a minute or so in a saucepan with a little oil, a little water, a crushed clove of garlic and a handful of coarsley chopped parsley, enough to make them open slightly. Keep the liquid from the cooking of the mussels, and filter it through some gauze to use at the end of the preparation. Discard the half shells that do not have the mussel attached. Grease a casserole dish with a little oil and make layers, starting with the onions, potatoes and courgettes the mussels filled with the half cooked rice that, after having washed with clean hot water has been mixed together with a little oil and the chopped, peeled tomatoes. Squash (press) the layers down with a fork, cover it all with a layer of grated pecorino cheese mixed with black pepper. Next make another layer like the first and cover again with grated pecorino and black pepper, and to end sprinkle well with breadcrumbs. Cover this with the filtered cooking water from the mussels and a little oil which has been mixed with the remailing clove of garlic. Cook in the oven for approx. 50/60 minutes at 160°C.

Leave to rest for at least
five minutes before serving.

ENJOY!

Wow, those all look amazing!

The traditional Easter Sunday lunch in most of Italy is based around lamb but up here in the Alps it is lamb AND kid (baby goat). When I say 'baby' I mean both the lambs and the goats. At Easter both are a little expensive but that is because the tradition calls for very young animals.

They are usually roasted and eaten as the main course with perhaps some salad or more likely roast/grilled vegetables - preceded by the usual choice of anti-pasti and the pasta (ravioli is popular). Following all this there would be some cheese and fruit (and, if you're lucky, a quick nap too...). Then the 'colomba' appears (the Easter dove) accompanied by a nice cold bottle of spumante. THEN the espresso's, often ... caffè 'corretto' col cognac/grappa, (laced with brandy/acquavite).

Then after all that you don't need to eat for at least a year!

Some anti-pasto...


Roast goat and grilled vegetables.

Then of course later on there is the matter of the Easter eggs... here in my village there is a small family run 'chocolate factory'. They have been here for decades and have become so popular that they have built a small modern factory where the father and one daughter make and produce the hand made chocolates helped by two assistants. Another daughter runs their shop and 'Mum' helps out at weekends. But their chocolate is to die for... here is their Easter window display from last year... (stop drooling!)

Have any of you made meat pie for Easter (pizza rustica)? I have seen several recipes on the internet. Is it difficult to make? I usually buy it at our local bakery.

Here's a link to a recipe that my wife's used. Besides the meat called for in the recipe we also add genoa salami, pancetta, capicola and we use both "super" and sausage. We usually cheat by buying a premade crust. A real heart attack in a pie crust.
www.eleanoraskitchen.c...stica.html

Biff

Wow Biff!!! I could feel my arteries hardening as I was reading the recipe Sounds great!

Elizabeth,

Last year my wife made two of those for Easter. A couple of weeks later I visited my brother and Mom in Pennslylvania. The first night there we went out to eat at a local place. I had a few slices of Sicilian pizza with pepperoni and six pierogies--three in butter with onions and three deep fried which I smothered in ketchup--plus a couple or three Yuengling Amber Lagers with a shot of CC.

The next week I had my heart attack.
Must have been the ketchup .

Biff

Oh Biff!

Biff, you had me laughing...a heart attack in a pie crust! By the way, I saw one version that called for 24 eggs so your recipe must be the "lite" version

What do you think the easter pies would taste like if I used low fat or reduced fat ricotta? I have never tasted them, but the heart attack in a pie crust is making me think, especially since I will be making this for some elderly people.

Wow Biff! Guess I better lay off the ketchup too!!

Poipu04 wrote:

What do you think the easter pies would taste like if I used low fat or reduced fat ricotta? I have never tasted them, but the heart attack in a pie crust is making me think, especially since I will be making this for some elderly people.

With all the other high fat, artery clogging ingredients, I don't think it'll matter. Seriously though, we've never had much luck substituting low or reduced fat ricotta for any recipe since it usually contains much more moisture content that the high test stuff.

Biff