Hosting A Yummy Easter

I have to say for me to pull off a near stress free holiday event at my home is a huge feat for me. Growing up as an "only child" in my parents home, we had not family relations anywhere near us. My parents never hosted ANYTHING at their home; unusual as it sounds I guess. Maybe it had to do with my mothers background of being a professional chef who would cook for a restaurant and cater; It possibly burned her out with the idea of having something in our home. That's not to say she never cooked for people as we celebrated our holidays with my parents best friends who lived across the street from us. My mom would also cook for the majority of the neighborhood kids as well because my home was the place to go.

 

I try to be a good hostess as I love to prepare great food and experiment on friends and family with new recipes and creations, yet I always seem to find it very stressful and can not figure out how people make this seem easy. This Easter was a bit different for us. We really thought with how our finances were, we would have to skip the holiday or at least postpone it; somehow my amazing husband managed to sell some fairly valuable items within his Ebay store and it allowed us to not only pay some looming huge and potentially devastating bills but afforded us to also host the holiday as well. I especially felt excited about this as I could repay the debt of my sister in law doing the same for Christmas, when we were in the hole (so to speak).

 



 

 My wonderful mother in law helped with making some food as well and I am so happy to say she left me the left overs (don't fall down... I know I hate leftovers, but these I LOVE). She made her famous potato salad (I will add the ONLY potato salad I will eat) and my love- deviled eggs! She also made some scalloped potatoes as well.
I not only made the ham because I really wanted all the left overs I could to freeze and use up, but I could cook off the bone for my husbands favorite split pea soup at a later date. I made homemade lemonade for everyone, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole and a couple deserts.... OK, when do I not go overboard?! Yes, I made several deserts! Made fudge brownies with cinnamon toast crunch frosting 

 I tried a cake recipe I found on Pintrest from justapinch.com called Easter Bundt cake. This recipe seemed to be missing something totally in the details on what it was that filled the center of this cake. I was not going to make this but realized I had mini-chocolate chips and Heath bits of Toffee in the cabinet and thought it sounded great!

 

At the last minute I decided to make something else with make something I would want to try (yea, I really don't eat chocolate- I'm a salty kinda gal), and I also found it on Pintrest thanks to flourmewithlove.com, called Stuffed Cinnamon rolls. I still have not tried them as I ate way way too much food yesterday, but I am looking forward to it tonight! Yum!

 

I am very happy to say all went off with out a hitch and everyone had a great time, including my 20 month old who went w/o a nap and was still my sweet angel. She loved finding Easter Eggs!