I realize this post is over a month late, but I finally downloaded the pictures off the digital camera (the card reader I usually use doesn’t seem to be working and I had to find a different way). Anyway, back in April I made my usual too-much-food Paschal dinner. Since it was just us this year, we were eating leftovers for awhile (we did freeze some).
We started with an appetizer plate to keep us fed while I finished cooking dinner. I put together a plate with some red-dyed boiled eggs (a traditional Greek Easter item), prosciutto, salami, provolone, and few other cheeses: Bulgarian feta, Brie (a favorite of one of my daughter’s), and some kashkaval (a yellow sheep’s milk cheese). A couple of different kinds of olives (Kalamata and feta-stuffed Haldiki) rounded out the plate. I actually made too many eggs this year. I made an extra dozen because I meant to take some to church to pass out, but forgot to bring them.
Easter dinner. Clockwise from top: carrots and onions (cooked with the lamb), stewed green beans, pastitsio, lamb gravy, lamb, spanakopita, roasted potatoes. Orzo is in the middle.
I spent about two days making dinner. I made the pastitisio and dyed the eggs the day before. I started cooking the rest of the dinner on Sunday (getting up a little late because our Paschal Church service is around midnight): roast leg of lamb with orzo, spanakopita, roasted potatoes, and stewed green beans. Afterward, I realized I forgot to make a salad, but hey, I guess I didn’t want to overdo it.
I “cheated” a little bit on the spanakopita. I used crumbled domestic cow’s milk feta, but I did save the imported sheep’s milk feta for the appetizer. However, I do like to use good phyllo dough, which makes it so much easier. I buy phyllo from Khoury’s Mediterranean Island in Broad Ripple in Indianapolis. I don’t where they get it from, but it seems that it is never frozen, and every sheet is perfect—not sticky, not crumbly, and not torn. If you like to cook with phyllo, I recommend finding a good source, because ordinary frozen grocery-store phyllo can be a pain to use.
We had enough leftovers to give away some to the neighbors later. We also froze some of the pastitsio and spanakopita for later (they freeze ok, but the spanakopita gets a little soggy), but it did take about a week to finish off the lamb and other food we did not freeze.
