Easter Bees

Yesterday started off as any other Easter sunday, drinking coffee and getting dressed up for church.  I’m a little sad to say that there are no excited kiddos bouncing out of bed like bunnies, ready to hunt for eggs at home anymore.  The odd thing about egg hunts is the kids don’t give a flip about eggs, they want chocolate or money or candy.  Why don’t we just hide Hershey bars, jelly beans, Skittles, and Peeps around and let them hunt for what they really want? Ha! Miss T did have a basket filled with chocolate covered gummy bears, her favorite, along with some assorted “girlie” stuff.  Easter madness – done!

I’d planned on sharing our entire Easter menu with  you.  Herbed grilled salmon with papaya-serrano salsa, deviled eggs, grilled asparagus, grilled green tomatoes, fluffy rice, lemon meringue pie and chocolate macadamia nut cookies.  Early in the day I made the eggs and prepared the salmon to marinate along with chopping the salsa ingredients.  My mom was bringing the cookies and I’d made the pie the day before.  It was perfect as all I had to do was throw the food on the grill and sit back and sip a glass of wine or two.  Exactly what I’d hoped for, a relaxing late afternoon-early evening Easter celebration.

My mom arrived and Miss T immediately began to eat those chocolate macadamia nut cookies, with me warning her mealtime wouldn’t be too far off and not to spoil her dinner.  Some things never change no matter how old kids are.  We walked out to take a peek at the bees, happily carrying on in their new easter egg colored hives, poured a glass of wine and plopped down in the big white rockers on the back porch, ready to visit, sip and relax.  About a half glass into the crisp, cold chardonnay, my phone rang….Mr. F, “I had a bee call…”.  At first I replied that I wouldn’t be able to help him as my mom was over for Easter dinner and all…But then Dan popped up and said, “I can go”.  We set that up and I knew we’d be drinking more than one glass of wine as we waited for him to return from the bee capture.  As I sat there and sipped and thought about bees I felt antsy and fidgety.  Not my plan for our Easter celebration.  I finally said, “I can’t stand it – if you go I’m going too.  I am after all, the head bee keeper here”.  We loaded up my mom, our suits and headed to meet Mr. Floyd.  The rest is history.  You can read about the swarm removal under the Bees & Honey page – Bee Thinking – Easter Bee Thinking, if not later tonight by the end of the week.  Luckily my mom is easy-going and was more than happy to watch from the safe confines of my car.

By the time we arrived back at home we were famished and all my meal preparation paid off. We struck up the grill, filled it up with salmon and veggies and we enjoying a delicious Easter meal before you could say Easter Bees!  I did manage to shoot photos of the eggs and pie.  Frankly, I’d have been quite satisfied to eat deviled eggs and pie.  I have a fondness for deviled eggs, and not just at Easter.  I’ll eat them anytime they are served. That’s one of the wonderful things of spring and summer meals.  Pot lucks, picnics and church suppers almost always have at least one or more platters filled with those delicious, deviled eggs.  The pie was a Lemon Meringue.  It is, with no doubt, my favorite pie of all.  I relish the zing of lemon, the creamy filling meets crunchy crust mouthful with every bite and the light, sweet meringue.  It takes all my strength not to devour the entire pie by myself.  All day today as I write and go about my business I force myself to wait until after dinner to enjoy that last piece – it does have my name on it!

The pie recipe is the most simple one you’ll ever find.  My mom has always made this exact pie and of course she shared the recipe with me.  Thanks Mom!  The deviled egg recipe, well it’s really not a recipe.  It’s one of those things where I mix this and that until I like the taste and that’s that.  I’ll list the ingredients below and I’m sure you, my readers can make do to come up with a delicious filled egg!

Enjoy!

Linda’s Deviled Eggs

Boil eggs, cool and peel.  Halve peeled eggs, scoop out yolk and mash in a bowl.  In a small bowl mix 2-3 spoonfuls of mayonnaise, about a tablespoon of prepared yellow mustard, 1-2 chopped scallions, 1/2-1 teaspoon of minced capers and mix well.  Add mashed yolks to mayo mixture and mix well.  Fill eggs with mayo mixture, sprinkle generously with paprika, cover and refrigerate until serving time.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Ingredients:
8″ graham cracker crust – we only use Nabisco
1 1/3 cups canned sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 egg yolks (save whites for meringue)

Preheat oven to 350*.  Set eggs out on counter to attain room temperature.  Mix above ingredients starting with milk through egg yolks together.  Set aside.

Meringue ingredients:
2 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons sugar

Place egg whites in a medium bowl; add cream of tartar and vanilla; with an electric mixer at high-speed beat until frothy but not stiff.  Add sugar a little at a time, beating well after each addition.  Continue to beat until stiff peaks form.

With a spoon mound meringue around edges of filling and spread so it touches the edge of crust all around, this helps prevent shrinking.  Heap remaining meringue in center of pie and cover entire pie with meringue.  Using the back of a spoon pull up points of meringue to make an attractive top.