What to Do With Left Over Easter Eggs

What to do with all those hard-boiled eggs?

       All the traditions connected with the Easter egg, its decoration, cooking and eating, are, of course, decidedly old world, and yet there is some myth among the legends of the Inca Indians which tells of a magic egg and how it may be found in some mysterious spot, and of its wonderful power. Whether or not this is one of the superstitions of the far east which Manco Capac brought with him from the other side of the Pacific is altogether unknown, but certain it is that in Asia, Africa and Europe feasts were kept in most ancient times when the egg played a prominent part. The Jews used eggs in their feast of the Passover long before the coming of Christ. In Persia colored eggs are presented at the celebration of the Solar New Year's, and extremely ancient custom with this people.

       From Germany comes the singular connection of a rabbit with the Easter eggs. It is believed that this little animal steals into the house when all is quiet and hides a store of pretty eggs in most impossible places, giving the children, who must search for them, a great deal of trouble and excitement in finding them. The house mother prepares by procuring a quantity of eggs and colors them herself by wrapping them in colored calicoes, some plain and some figured.

       To the country boy or girl of America Easter or "Paas," in rural vernacular, resolves itself first and foremost into a contest to see who can accumulate the greatest store of eggs, and secondly, who can eat the most.

More Egg-cellent Recipes: Video: 

• Dyed Deviled Eggs - use very pale pastel colors only!
• How to make Easter Chick Deviled Eggs - These eggs look like little chicks still in their shells!
• Red Hot Deviled Eggs - Make sure to use eggs that have been dyed red or purple previously for this one
• Scotch Eggs make marvelous use of left over eggs for any holiday
• Baby buggy deviled eggs? 

Planning Menus for An Easter Luncheon

An Easter Luncheon in 1916

      The decorative possibilities of Easter time are numerous as tradition makes hares, doves, chicks and butterflies, as well as lilies and spring flowers, appropriate attendants upon the festival. Of late years little kittens, squirrels and ducklings have been added to the list and are sometimes given for variety's sake as favors at Easter luncheons and dinners instead of rabbits and chickens. Butterflies, emblematic as they are of the awakening of spring, make particularly appropriate favors, says the New York Tribune.

Bunnies prefer cake eggs for Easter dining.

      large yellow butterflies as favors, with a centerpiece of spring ferns and catkins, make a delightful color scheme, for Easter time. The catkins are usually a mass of feathery yellow blossoms. As far as may be, a pale green should be the predominating color, the yellow in the favors and catkins being merely attractive high lights. The china may be white and gold or white, with delicate decorations on it in green.

      The menu should as far as possible be suggestive of spring or, in other words, seasonable and not in any pronounced color that will be out of harmony with the green and yellow tints. Lamb loaf, decorated with squares of mint jelly, makes an attractive piece de resistance at a simple luncheon, or slices of lamb may be masked with mint aspic allowed to harden into a nice mold and then served upon boiled "artichoke bottoms," seasoned with French dressing, and finally arranged around a mound of peas or asparagus dressed with mayonnaise. Tiny sprays of mint may decorate the dish or if preferred, the mint sprays may appear in a plate of mint sandwiches. 

      For a dinner a stuffed breast of veal with watercress is attractive or a crown roast of lamb with mint jelly. A salad of spinach, peas or asparagus may be served in paper cups. 

      A pistachio ice cream, tinted a delicate green and ornamented with snowy whipped cream, may be used. At this season some hostesses may not care for a dessert. In that case a delicate grapefruit sponge may be served. It is made by adding a beaten white of egg to a grapefruit jelly just before it congeal. The pale green of the jelly may be brightened by adding a little green coloring matter. Add a little extra sugar, so that it may be appropriately served with ornamentations of whipped cream, cream hardly being appropriate with a sour jelly.

      A genuine diplomatic pudding is also an attractive dessert. It is like the ordinary diplomatic pudding except that a white Bavarian cream is masked by a green jelly, each flavored appropriately. The dessert should be prettily decorated with pistachio nuts and angelica and whipped cream.

 Stephanie Rose presents Balducci's

 Easter Lunch Demo for WUSA-9 TV.

Easter Menu from Balducci's, 2007

Creamy asparagus soup 

Crab cakes

Slow Roasted Chicken in Wine and Herbs

Fingerling Potatoes Tossed with Garlic and Rosemary

Three Pea Salad

Beet Salad

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• Citrus Aspic with Honey and Mint
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Lemon Ice in Lemon Cups

      This is an ideal way of serving lemon ice. Cut off the tops of large lemons to form a lid for the cups, scoop out the pulp and place it in a saucepan, adding five cups of water with a cup of sugar. Grate the peal of one lemon into half a cup of fine sugar, add to it the juice and melt to a syrup. Cool the syrup, place in the freezer and freeze to a soft pulp. Fill the skins with the lemon ice, put on the tops, insert a straws and serve at once.  El Paso Herald, 1917.

• This Easy 3 Ingrediant Lemon Italian Ice is Childhood In a Paper Cup

Aspics for The Easter Table

      Aspic is a dish in which ingredients are set into a gelatin made from a meat stock or consommé. Non-savory dishes, often made with commercial gelatin mixes without stock or consommé, are usually called gelatin salads.

      When cooled, stock that is made from meat congeals because of the natural gelatin found in the meat. The stock can be clarified with egg whites, and then filled and flavored just before the aspic sets. Almost any type of food can be set into aspics. Most common are meat pieces, fruits, or vegetables. Aspics are usually served on cold plates so that the gel will not melt before being eaten. A meat jelly that includes cream is called a chaud-froid.

      Nearly any type of meat can be used to make the gelatin: pork, beef, veal, chicken, turkey, or fish. The aspic may need additional gelatin in order to set properly. Veal stock provides a great deal of gelatin; in making stock, veal is often included with other meat for that reason. Fish consommés usually have too little natural gelatin, so the fish stock may be double-cooked or supplemented. Since fish gelatin melts at a lower temperature than gelatins of other meats, fish aspic is more delicate and melts more readily in the mouth. Vegetables and fish stocks need gelatin to create a mold.

An aspic with chicken and eggs.

      Historically, meat aspics were made before fruit- and vegetable-flavored aspics or 'jellies' (UK) and 'gelatins/jellos (North America). By the Middle Ages at the latest, cooks had discovered that a thickened meat broth could be made into a jelly. A detailed recipe for aspic is found in Le Viandier, written in or around 1375.

      In the 18th century, Marie-Antoine Carême created chaud froid in France. Chaud froid means "hot cold" in French, referring to foods that were prepared hot and served cold. Aspic was used as a chaud froid sauce in many cold fish and poultry meals. The sauce added moisture and flavor to the food. Carême invented various types of aspic and ways of preparing it. Aspic, when used to hold meats, prevents them from becoming spoiled. The gelatin keeps out air and bacteria, keeping the cooked meat fresh.

      Aspic came into prominence in America in the early 20th century. By the 1950s, meat aspic was a popular dinner staple throughout the United States as were other gelatin-based dishes such as tomato aspic. Cooks used to show off aesthetic skills by creating inventive aspics.

      Aspic can also be referred as aspic gelée or aspic jelly. Aspic jelly may be colorless (white aspic) or contain various shades of amber. Aspic can be used to protect food from the air, to give food more flavor, or as a decoration.

      There are three types of aspic textures: delicate, sliceable, and inedible. The delicate aspic is soft. The sliceable aspic must be made in a terrine or in an aspic mold. It is firmer than the delicate aspic. The inedible aspic is never for consumption. It is usually for decoration. Aspic is often used to glaze food pieces in food competitions to make the food glisten and make it more appealing to the eye. Foods dipped in aspic have a lacquered finish for a fancy presentation. Aspic can be cut into various shapes and be used as a garnish for deli meats or pâtés.

Chicken "jello" Traditional Easter 

Food from Polish Your Kitchen.

The Religious Symbolism Behind Pretzels

      A pretzel (known as Brezel in German, sometimes also Brezn or Breze) is a type of baked food made from dough in soft and hard varieties and savory or sweet flavors in a unique knot-like shape, originating in Europe. The pretzel shape is a distinctive symmetrical looped form, with the ends of a long strip of dough intertwine brought together and then twisted back onto itself in a certain way ("a pretzel loop"). Pretzels in stick form may also be called pretzels in the English-speaking context. For seasoning and decoration various glazes, salt crystals, sugar and various seeds or nuts can be used. The size varies from large enough for one to be a sufficient serving, to much smaller.

      A bread pretzel popular in southern Germany and adjoining German-speaking areas, as well as in some areas of the United States, is made from wheat flour, water and yeast, usually sprinkled with coarse salt, hand-sized and made for consumption on the same day. It is relatively soft, rather than brittle. To avoid confusion with any other kind of pretzel, German speakers call this variety "Laugenbrezel" (lye pretzel) because it is dipped in lye solution (NaOH) before baking. Sweet pastry pretzels with many textures, toppings and coatings, are made. Crisp hard pretzels, e.g. pretzel sticks and a variety of shapes basically made from the same ingredients, have evolved from the lye pretzel by baking out excess moisture, thereby increasing shelf life and crispness.

Variety of south German lye breads (Laugengebäck)

      There are numerous accounts on the origin of the looped pretzels, as well as the origin of the name; most agree that they have Christian backgrounds and were invented by monks. According to The History of Science and Technology, by Bryan Bunch and Alexander Hellemans, in 610 AD "...an Italian monk invents pretzels as a reward to children who learn their prayers. He calls the strips of baked dough, folded to resemble arms crossing the chest, 'pretiola' ("little rewards")". However, no source is cited to back up these details. Another source locates the invention in a monastery in southern France The looped pretzel may also be related to a Greek ring bread, derived from communion bread used in monasteries a thousand years ago In Germany there are stories that pretzels were the invention of desperate bakers. Meyers Konversations-Lexikon from 1905 suspects the origin of pretzels in a ban of heathen baking traditions, such as in the form of a sun cross, at the Synod of Estinnes in the year 743. The pretzel may have emerged as a substitute. The German name "Brezel" may derive also from Latin bracellus (a medieval term for "bracelet"), or bracchiola ("little arms").

      The pretzel has been in use as an emblem of bakers and formerly their guilds in southern German areas since at least the 12th century. A 12th-century illustration in the Hortus deliciarum from the southwest German Alsace region (today France) may contain the earliest depiction of a pretzel.

      Within the Catholic Church, pretzels were regarded as having religious significance for both ingredients and shape. Pretzels made with a simple recipe using only flour and water could be eaten during Lent, when Christians were forbidden to eat eggs, lard, or dairy products such as milk and butter. As time passed, pretzels became associated with both Lent and Easter. Pretzels were hidden on Easter morning just as eggs are hidden today, and are particularly associated with Lent, fasting, and prayers before Easter.

Blessing The Easter Baskets in Poland

Modern ceremony in Poland

      Święconka, meaning "the blessing of the Easter baskets," is one of the most enduring and beloved Polish traditions on Holy Saturday. While originally observed by Poles in the U.S., it has become increasingly mainstream in the U.S and is starting to grow in the U.K. as Poles go there to live. Catholic churches, being observed by a wide cross-section of parishes.

      For example, the Chicago Tribune reported Francis Cardinal George of the Archdiocese of Chicago performing the blessing in a church on Chicago's Northwest Side on Holy Saturday of 2007. In 2008, a similar service took place in the Chicago archdiocese at St. Alphonsus Liguori Roman Catholic Church in Mt. Prospect, Illinois.

      The tradition of food blessing at Easter, which has early-medieval roots in Christian society, possibly originated from a pagan ritual. The tradition is said to date from the 7th century in its basic form, the more modern form containing bread and eggs (symbols of resurrection and Christ) are said to date from the 12th century.

A typical "Święconka" basket of Polish Holy Saturday tradition.

      Baskets containing a sampling of Easter foods are brought to church to be blessed on Holy Saturday. The basket is traditionally lined with a white linen or lace napkin and decorated with sprigs of boxwood (bukszpan), the typical Easter evergreen. Poles take special pride in preparing a decorative and tasteful basket with crisp linens, occasionally embroidered for the occasion, and boxwood and ribbon woven through the handle. Observing the creativity of other parishioners is one of the special joys of the event.

      While in some older or rural communities, the priest visits the home to bless the foods, the vast majority of Poles and Polish Americans visit the church on Holy Saturday, praying at the Tomb of the Lord (the fourteenth and final Station of the Cross). The Blessing of the Food is, however, a festive occasion. The three-part blessing prayers specifically address the various contents of the baskets, with special prayers for the meats, eggs, cakes and breads. The priest or deacon then sprinkles the individual baskets with holy water.

      More traditional Polish churches use a straw brush for aspersing the water; others use the more modern metal holy water sprinkling wand. In some parishes, the baskets are lined up on long tables; in others, parishioners process to the front of the altar carrying their baskets, as if in a Communion line. Older generations of Polish Americans, descended from early 19th century immigrants, tend to bless whole meal quantities, often brought to church halls or cafeterias in large hampers and picnic baskets. The food blessed in the church remains untouched until Sunday morning.

 Easter Blessing of Food St. Therese Church,
 April 7, 2012 by Rev. Vidal Gonzales

The foods in the baskets have a symbolic meaning:

• eggs - symbolize life and Christ's resurrection
• bread - symbolic of Jesus
• lamb - represents Christ
• salt - represents purification
• horseradish - symbolic of the bitter sacrifice of Christ
• ham - symbolic of great joy and abundance.