A Very Happy Easter!!!

A few minutes to myself!! Just thought I'd share a few Easter goodies with you. Last week's Simnel Cake went down very well and we're still eating it! Nice and moist - a little bit crumbly, but not as bad as I'd feared - and a good flavour too. Quite like Christmas cake, but more Cointreau than brandy!

Being a festive sort of weekend (I do like Easter - it's Christmas without the stress levels!!) I've been baking more than usual. I suppose I should say I'd been baking much less than usual during Lent. Not that we're particularly religious, but it didn't do any harm to go without for a few weeks. I didn't go mad on the decorations, but did buy some lovely cut hyacinths (they smell divine!) and decorated my little silver whirlygig with the hand-painted eggs Jerry and I bought in Vienna the year we were expecting Leo. I'd also stretched the boundaries of parenthood by mustering every ounce of creative energy to make a "bonnet" for the Easter hat parade at Leo's school. Not being much of a bonnet man we came up with this for him:

Anyhoo!!! Easter Sunday there were seven of us for a feast of roast duck and roast salmon, hot cross bun stuffing (a Nigella recipe - damn good!!) roast potatoes and springy veg: purple sprouting broccoli, sugarsnap peas and chantenay carrots. Dessert was the Nigella Easter Egg Nest Cake (Are we getting a theme here?) Here's my offering:

Of course it usually goes down in about three bites with my merry mob, but they were slightly daunted after scoffing 2 kilos of potatoes and stripping a whole duck bare so there is a very little left! Amazingly (huh!) we didn't have room for anything other than a small snack before bed. A good time had by all!!!!

Interestingly enough after six weeks of NO CHOCOLATE both Rowan and I felt that bog standard Cadbury's tasted bland and indifferent (Sorry you Krafty Cads! But there you go!!!) and that "real" chocolate tasted so much better than before. I'd bought the gang medium-sized Green and Blacks eggs each plus some smaller, average eggs. Hence the comparison. Jerry bought me the most wonderful Charbonnel and Walker egg filled with handmade chocs - I have had just one gloriously delicious choccie and it tasted WONDERFUL!! Unfortunately we hadn't seen the program about non-fairtrade chocolate before we'd bought all these goodies so we'll be re-educating ourselves over the next year!

Tonight is Nigella's Blakean Fish Pie (should have had it Friday, but we were at Jerry's family for the day) with more springy veg and a very special Mars Bar Cheesecake (see previous blogs) - this one seasonally decorated with tiny choccie eggs. I promised I'd make one for Rowan and he is most pleased! YUM!!! We went to the garden centre today to stock up on seeds for the allotment and some shrubs and perennials for the garden - I bought some Nigella!!!!