Catfish Out of Water

I didn't necessarily go in knowing what I was going to do or make for Easter. Easter tends to sneak up on me and be a bit of a surprise. It's always fun to look around at what you have and toss something together. Luckily, I was well stocked on eggs and have an affinity for making bread.

What to Make for Surprise Easter?

I'm one of those people who has a difficult time passing up a good deal. I have a deviled egg platter in storage. Maybe even more than one of them. But I used to have chickens, so the trays were more functional than festive. I don't even think that I ever used them for deviled eggs. I just collected chicken eggs every morning and tried to run through the abundance of them as quickly as possible. So, I finally picked up a cute deviled egg tray that was on sale after Easter 2 years ago. I've just been carrying it around and never actually using it. I forgot to use it last year, but I'm absolutely determined to make actual use this year! So, I'm definitely making deviled eggs. And bread because I make bread for absolutely everything. Which goes doubly for mashed potatoes. I pretty much lived on mashed potatoes for every holiday as a child. And then have been debating about an entrée. I have spinach, cherry tomatoes, some peppers, and eggs. So, quiche is probably going to be the easiest option!

The Surprise Easter Menu

For this year's Surprise Easter:

• No-knead Dutch Oven Bread w/ Bread Basket
• Mashed Potatoes
• Quiche w/ Spinach & Cherry Tomatoes
• Deviled Eggs w/ Greek Yogurt & Chives

Gallery

How to Get All of the Dishes Out at the Same Time

How I would ideally prepare all of these meals is not how I actually went about it. I would recommend deviled eggs and quiche prepared ahead of time and then bread and mashed potatoes on the day of. Maybe add in a dessert and a custom cocktail, if you're in an especially festive spirit! Although, like I want to say most of us? I don't always have that kind of time on my hands. Especially being in the restaurant industry, right before holidays are the busiest times of the year. No one wants to cook when they're about to cook for all of their friends and family! So, as much as I might be up for any excuse to dress up and cook a big meal? Time to actually do that is at a premium. Which does mean that I hobbled together a menu and all of the dishes in a much shorter than ordinarily recommended time frame. Also, apparently, doable.

Dishes to Prepare Ahead of Time

Deviled eggs and quiche you can prepare ahead of time. A well-prepared person would make it ahead of time. Since Easter kind of snuck up on me this year, there wasn't any way that that was going to happen. So, you can absolutely make every dish at the same time! I wouldn't entirely recommend it because I prioritized the bread. Quiche can be made at different temperatures. I'd ordinarily cook it at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45-60 minutes. Bread won't cook nearly as well at 350 degrees, though. The rise won't be timed correctly and it can absolutely negatively impact the final product. So, I upped everything to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and hoped that the quiche didn't brown too much!

You really don't want to open the oven when you're baking bread. Opening the oven, even just a little bit, lets out heat and can very rapidly drop the temperature in your oven. You can check on the bread later in the cooking process once the essential rise has happened and you're just waiting on the crust to brown. But you really don't want to open the oven before that point. So, even if my ancient oven had a light and you could check on the quiche without actually opening the oven? I wouldn't suggest it!

You can cover the quiche with a lid or aluminum foil. This would help keep the quiche from browning too quickly on the top. I decided to take a gamble with it and just hoped that it would be okay at 45 minutes 100 degrees hotter than I'd like to bake it at. But it's just a little toasty! Not actually burned.

Dishes to Cook on the Day Of

Bread and mashed potatoes I would recommend making the day of. You can make mashed potatoes ahead of time. I don't entirely like the way that they reheat. I think that they microwave well. Although I haven't had a microwave in decades, so I'm only speculating there. I would recommend adding in more milk and stirring the mashed potatoes on the stove. The added creaminess will help prevent them from burning to the bottom of the pan. Which does tend to happen a lot of the time when I try to reheat mashed potatoes because I forget to stir them enough!

Cooking Times

• Bread: 45 minutes at 450 degrees Fahrenheit
• Mashed Potatoes: 30 minutes on the stove
• Quiche: 1 hour, 15 minutes (1 hour in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit)
• Deviled Eggs: 10 minutes on the stove

Despite my own recommendations to prepare everything that you can ahead of time so as not to hog the oven space. That is precisely what I did to myself! The first thing that I do when I start a big meal on the day of is to start the bread. This can lead to the bread over proofing because who knows exactly how long it's going to take to make the rest of the dishes. But I'll never remember to make bread if I don't start it right away! In theory, it should be done proofing by the time you're ready to put everything in the oven because fresh bread is delicious.

I then started the quiche because it's the star of the show. When the quiche and bread were ready to go in the oven, I hobbled together the mashed potatoes and deviled eggs. I would absolutely recommend starting deviled eggs before this because they take an eternity to shell! But, if you have buddies to help out, it's not so bad!

Conclusion About the Meal

All things considered, Easter is a pretty low-key holiday for me. It doesn't have quite the pressure that winter holidays tend to. I don't know too many people scrambling for the week off and making big plans to traverse the continent. It's more the kickoff to the spring season in anticipation of summer vacation and holidays down the line. Half of the time I forget that Easter is on the horizon and it comes up as a surprise. Overall, it was a pretty simple Easter menu with the classics. Low stress and quite refreshing.