Easter Feasts

This past Easter weekend, we had a family mini-reunion at my Aunt and Uncle's home.

A lot of Vitullos in the same place at the same time can only mean one thing:

ABBONDANZA!

On Good Friday, we dined on a feast of many fishes...

Grilled shrimp that I briefly marinated in a bit of lemon, wine, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Flounder Amandine. Aunt Margaret used corn flour instead of regular flour so I could eat this. And I'm so glad she did because it was unexpectedly my favorite of all the fishes. So good.

Pepper-crusted ahi. Perfectly cooked by the Uncles.

A giant bowl of mussels, Cousin Lucas' and my favorite. Also, two types of crab cakes. Because one type would never be enough.

We tried to make natural egg dyes...

It looked pretty, but the colors didn't really take...even after an overnight soak. So we resorted to the Paas.

The Paas worked.

Saturday, I made a Meyer Lemon Upside Down Cake.
It came from this recipe.

Prepping ingredients. The lemons I brought to DC from San Francisco. They came from the tree in my boss' backyard!

Prepping the pan.

Layering in the lemons. I love this picture. The lemons smell delicious.

Baked. Perhaps a little overbaked...

But at least the cake unmolded from the pan successfully.  That's always scary, flipping the pan and hoping the goods land in one piece.

Hmmm...

I've got to say, this is the first time Martha Stewart has failed me. The thinly sliced meyer lemons were positively bitter. I think this could be fixed by candying them first, so I'm going to try that, because I have high hopes in the future success of this recipe.

At least it came out pretty!
 

We made table decorations by stuffing jumbo cupcake wrappers with Easter grass and putting candied eggs in them. Cute and delicious!

We also introduced the cousins to the Easter Aardvark. The Easter Aardvark likes to sleep in on Easter Sunday, but when he does eventually show up, he brings candy and toys. Good deal.

Happy (belated) Easter!

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