vernal equinox and of course, a party

Regis and I have a reputation for finding some pretty bizarre reasons to throw a party. We didn't celebrate St. Patrick's Day (other than with corned beef and cabbage and the parade) but we saw that the vernal equinox (first day of spring) was occurring on Saturday so, there you go. This is the crew we assembled to come for lunch: Vicki, Nikki and Scott (he's from Minneota, Mom), Harvey and Kathy, me and Regis. I made the old two-cheese casserole recipe, Irish soda bread, and black and tan brownies. I made Irish coffee and Regis made black and tans with Harp and Guinness.

The party idea was hatched one Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago. The invitations said sky clad was optional which amused us no end but probably scared some of our friends. We saw it on a pagan party site and it means naked. None of us appeared at the party naked which is a darn good thing. Imagining it is bad enough.

I worked with my recipes some more this afternoon and planned the Easter meal. I think I've mentioned before that I have this "meat" thing. We've decided we want to eat less meat and better quality meat. Scott (in the picture) raises cows, pigs, and chickens for the meat. Grass-fed, no nasty stuff like antibiotics, and they get to move around on their legs, unlike the animals raised on factory farms. So, we're going to get our meat from the coop, from Schmidt's, or from Scott.

We also bought a share of the Living Land Farm here in St. Peter. It's an organic farm on the Ottawa Road. Every two weeks we'll pick up a load of vegetables and herbs from them. I have three cookbooks sitting here by my chair so we can get familiar with ways to cook these things. Regis has made a commitment to be more open minded about green things. This is probably a natural progression from my "focus on food" of the last year. I'll be posting some pictures and recipes for our vegetable adventures!

For now, the Easter menu looks like this:

Strawberry Belinni

Deviled Eggs

Glazed Ham

Mashed Baby Red Potatoes

Roasted Asparagus

Seven Layer Salad

Italian Country Bread

Lemon Curd Trifle

I found this website on foodtv that has a lot of good, traditional recipes. I thought we were going to have a small gathering, but the list is growing already. I love holidays.

On to Monday. I'm going to bed early to read.