Easter Celebration

I sang at the Easter Vigil last night which was lovely. There was a good turnout from the choir and our cantor was magnificent. So I took myself off the roster for Easter Sunday mass so that I could prepare for our festive dinner at 1:30 today with Z's cousin and family, and our niece visiting from Montreal. The rest of my family went to the 8:30 mass this morning, and brought home some hot cross buns for a mid-morning snack to tide us over to our late midday feast.

Dinner was a lovely, relaxing meal, once all the prep was done. We couldn't fit all nine of us around our table, so we set up a separate table for the four teens in the family room.

We started with some proscuitto, salami, peppered pate, and salmon mousse with homemade crusty bread and a Pinot Grigio.

My first roast leg of lamb was a success. It was 3.5 kilos and I rubbed it with a mixture of seasoned salt, pepper, cardamon, dry mustard, and marjoram, stuffed a few slices of garlic into slits cut into the meat, and basted it with some melted butter and olive oil. Julia Child suggests sealing the roast by broiling it for 15-20 minutes, so I did that, and then roasted it for 2 hours at 350 degrees. We put some carrots, onions, and fennel around the roast and tossed them with Italian salad dressing. Other sides included creamy mashed potatoes and green beans sauted in butter. Gus and Elaine brought a Greek salad. We served this with a California Shiraz

For dessert, we had a traditional English trifle made with (homemade) pound cake spread with cherry jam and sprinkled with sherry, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, custard, whipped cream, and toasted almonds. And Nanaimo Bars. And Creme Caramel that Gus made and surprised us with.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon drinking tea and chatting, occasionally taking a stab washing a few dishes. Magali had to leave around 6 pm to catch her flight back to Montreal, and Gus and Elaine and their kids left about the same time. It was a very nice day, spent with family with some great food and conversation.