Passover/Easter

We had a lot to celebrate this weekend! This past week was Pesach, this Sunday was Easter, and it also happened to be Rory's birthday!

We decided to push our religious celebrations into one party, for a combined Passover/Easter party. It worked out quite nicely. We started with the Seder, which was not a kosher meal, by choice. Since everyone was contributing dishes, we decided to just keep it simple.

 The Seder plate with the Haggadahs. 

I don't have a Seder plate with me in Texas, so I had to improvise. Brandon said it looked a little "Fischer-Price." Whatever, it did the job. 

 Behind, we have the Charoses, the stand-in cup of Elijah, and the matzohs are covered by paper towel.

The meal was great. I think everyone really had a good time.  The Seder itself was super fast. I think my edits were a bit hap-hazard, so I'm going to have to put more thought into it for next year.

We did brisket in the crock pot, which worked out really well. It was mostly gone by the time I thought to take a picture. 

Rory made a salad with a delicious aioli dressing, which I need to learn how to make!

I tried my hand at noodle kugel (forgetting that noodles count as leavened bread). It turned out a bit dry - I need more practice. 

I always try to make note of all the components of the Seder, even if we don't include them all. Something we did include was reclining! Although my mom will probably still complain that I need to buy a second chair for Christine.

For dessert, I found a flourless chocolate cake recipe online. The cake turned out AMAZING (I'm adding it to my dessert repertoire), but the icing sort of got a bit weird. Lately I'm in a piping phase. I want to learn to pipe icing - I want to make little roses and leaves and other designs. My piping is fine, so far, but the icing I use is too runny - especially in hot, humid Texas.

The piping got a bit... drippy.

 For those of  you who can't read Hebrew, the top says "Pesach," and it's about as legible as the "Easter" at the bottom. 

After dinner, we started the Easter part of the celebration. First, we had a combined Easter egg/Afikomen hunt!

"Brandon? How do I take pictures of an Easter egg hunt? Here, hold up the ones you've found already and look triumphant."
"No, Amanda, I should be puzzling over where to find the rest!"
"... Rory, hold up your eggs triumphantly."

Rory is a bit more willing to play along.

Everyone complained that I hid the Afiokmen too well. Christine only found it after I gave multiple clues. Then, she insisted that I take an awkward victory photo, so that everyone would know that I hid it too well:

In my defense, I was hiding it for a bunch of grad students. You'd think it would need to be hidden pretty well.

Anywho! After the Easter egg hunt (and sugar headaches from all the chocolate hidden in the eggs), we then dyed eggs!

I'm hoping someone will see this and say "Amanda, your walls are awfully bare," so that I can complain to Brandon that I want to put my posters and paintings back up. 

The finished products. It's hard to tell, but the one at the bottom is polka-dotted. Brandon worked on that for a while.

After egg dyeing, we played Settlers of Catan! It was a surprisingly fierce game (i.e. everyone kept ganging up on me!)

It was a really fun party. We all went to bed early, super full of food.

We hope everyone had a lovely holiday!!