Easter Dinner

Hopefully you all had a wonderful Easter, celebrating the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ!  We had a lovely Easter - with a meal specially requested by my husband: ham and sour cream potatoes.  Not the healthiest meal in the world (though I did add a salad) but we can get away with unhealthy meals once a year.

My Easter boys!  Grandma made the bow tie for little Isaac.  It stayed on for over half of church - that's pretty good, right?

Not pictured is the adult's sweet potato.  My lovely husband took this picture for me but didn't know how much potato we got for dinner and how much needed to be saved for baby food.  Unlike baby, our sweet potato was not pureed and we added a touch of salt, pepper, and butter.

Ham Glaze (this is a very runny glaze.  Geoff thinks I should find a way to make it thicker but I quite like the glaze's flavor so I haven't played around with consistency):

Combine 1 can crushed pineapple (the small size), 1/2 C brown sugar, 1/4 C honey, and 1/4 C orange juice in a sauce pan.  Heat for 10 minutes.  Pour over ham and bake until ham is heated.

Sour Cream Potatoes:

30 oz hash browns (or 4-5 C diced potatoes)
1/4 C onion, chopped
3/4 C sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 C shredded cheddar cheese (if you use extra sharp cheddar, you can get away with cutting this amount back but still getting plenty of cheesy taste)
2 C cornflakes
1/3 C butter, melted

Mix onion, sour cream, soup, and cheese.  Stir in potatoes and mix well.  Press into a greased 9x13 baking dish.  Combine cornflakes and butter.  Evenly spread the cornflakes on top of the potatoes.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

And since the oven was going to be running for 1+ hours, I obviously needed to take the chance to cook up some sweet potatoes for us and the little guy.  And he ate those sweet potatoes like a champ!

Baby Sweet Potatoes

Wash, prick, and cover 2 sweet potatoes with foil.  Bake until very soft.  Remove foil.  Cut open potatoes and use a spoon to scoop the flesh of the potatoes into a blender or food processor.  Blend with water until smooth.  Use as much or as little water as needed to reach desired consistency for your baby's age (I didn't measure, but I would guess I used 1/2-1 C of water).  Spoon puree into ice cube trays.  Cover with plastic wrap and freeze.  Once frozen, pop the sweet potato cubes out of the trays and store in a labeled freezer bag or container.  Thaw as needed.

Two sweet potatoes made me 2 full ice cube trays of puree.  And cost me a mighty $1.20 to make.  Take that Gerber.

Grilled Pineapple - Finally

Remember when the baby was the size of a pineapple?  And I promised a delicious grilled pineapple recipe?  Well, we had this pineapple a few weeks ago and it was delicious, I was just a blogger slacker and never got around to posting the recipe.  Forgive me.

1/3 C molasses
1/4 C rum - we used pineapple-orange juice that we had on hand
 1 Tbsp lime juice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 Tbsp butter
Pineapple, cut into thick wedges or rings

Combine molasses, rum/juice, lime juice, and spices in a saucepan.  Bring to boil.  Cook until reduced to about 1/3 or 1/2 C.  Remove from heat and whisk in butter.

Place pineapple on grill grated coated with oil.  Grill until nicely marked (3-5 minutes per side).  Brush with glaze during last 2 minutes of grilling.  Remove from grill and brush with any remaining glaze.

Original Recipe from Mastering the Grill by Andrew Schloss and David Joachim

The Size of a Pineapple

33 weeks and we're the size of a pineapple - well we were 33 weeks last Friday (Sept 23rd) but it took a few days to get to the store and buy a pineapple.  Wild guess here, but I'm thinking this comparison is not supposed to include the leaves of the pineapple - that would be a pretty big child that still has 6 1/2 weeks to bake.  Now we need to wait for the pineapple to ripen but once it does - grilled pineapple galore!  Tune back in for the recipe and pictures!

Zucchini and Tomato Side

Once upon a time my husband did not like zucchini or tomatoes.  Now he happily eats this side dish and has even been known to take seconds of said dish.  Plus it's super easy!  Win - Win.  (Good thing, because I have a serious amount of zucchini growing - at least 6 big yellow flowers right now just waiting to become delicious and in my stomach.)

Throw sliced zucchini (can combine with other squashes) in skillet with olive oil.  Cook until yummy looking.  Throw in tomatoes and crushed garlic for ~1 minute.  Season with freshly ground salt and Italian seasoning.  We've been known to garnish with feta or fresh grated parmigiana cheese.