The Lord is Risen!

... the farmgirl is pretty tired.

Edited to add, d'oh: Happy Easter to my Christian friends (and a continuing chag samach Pesach to my Jewish ones).

My potluck breakfast experiment - chile-cheese grits in my new crockpot - turned out very well.

Various functions I was doing were seriously understaffed. I was a bit testy this morning before Vigil: a combo of having a new Altar Guild person on with me, being under a bit of time pressure, some changes at the last minute, and getting some "back-seat driving" from the peanut gallery.

But everything went off fairly well (and I had a lot of pineapple upside-down cake, which I adore - thank you idasusan for making it). Mmm, mmm, breakfast of champions.

Time for a nap with Miss Ruthie, and then to go to Trader Joe's to see if they have any lamb left (or, failing that, rosemary chicken).

Easter Feasting

My parish loves food. During Lent we traditionally scale back our usual stellar coffee hour to plain crackers (and no sweets) so Easter is a big blow-out. We have a big party after our Vigil service - usually a potluck breakfast with ham, coffee, OJ, and champagne provided - and a blow-it-out coffee hour after our main service.

I bought two 4# punnets of strawberries (excellent Safeway special), two loaves of bread to use up 3 cans of chicken for curried chicken salad sandwiches, and made the peanutbutter-brownie bars that madeyou_look recommended recently. They were a tiny bit overcooked and I will use Trader Joe's Belgian chocolate instead of chips next time for the ganache, but they were worth redoing.

Everything went except one loaf of bread and a little chicken salad (which we did not assemble). I brought home one of the decoration baskets with candy and about a bowlful of strawberries with my leftovers - I was far from the only person to bring strawberries, there were two flats at breakfast alone.

My breakfast offering was something that didn't require a lot of fuss for me. It was very tasty and I will definitely do it again at some other time, maybe next Easter.

If you have a crockpot, Beth Hensperger's "Not your mother's slow cooker cookbook" is a godsend. I took her "Green Chile Grits" recipe and added buttery, cheesy goodness.

( recipe follows )

I napped till 5:30 so missed out on Trader Joe's, which closed at 5 pm today! I got something pre-pack from the fancy grocery by my house, so I going to call it a day and hit up the Trader tomorrow for catfood and other supplies.