We had a lovely Easter holiday weekend together with our entire family minus Luke who had to stay in Rochester to work. My home town is a very small town but is very good about sponsoring city-wide activities for the both the youth of the town and the offspring of former citizens home for the holidays. Local businesses get involved and often times the proceeds go towards the upkeep of the town pool. Not many towns of this size can boast a local grocery store let alone a municipal pool. The city hall was also open for the annual Boy Scout Pancake Feed and the library and meeting rooms were also open for raffles. It was very good to be home and to able to show Dave a little of where I grew up.
Mom and Dad returned last week from a trip to the Czech Republic where they enjoyed the Easter markets. I was so jealous! She brought home over a dozen painted real chicken and goose eggs. These are not Ukrainian style eggs in that they are not dyed with wax in a reverse dye technique and are actually painted. She gave me three eggs for my collection of egg cups and I brought out my most Slavic cups for this picture. I got the cup on the far left in the Czech Republic years ago, the one in the middle last year in Russia and I think it is actually meant to be a
khokhloma vodka shot glass. The one on the far right was picked up in Bratislava during my short time in Slovakia.
As far as our own Easter eggs, this was the extent of our homemade eggs. I dyed these eggs raw in the shell at my apartment and brought them home for baking. I am a great fan of
Father Dominic Garramone and his bread baking shows and years ago wrote down his sweet bread recipe and idea for egg nests. You take basic sweet bread dough (anything used for cinnamon rolls would be fine) and divide a bun/roll's worth of dough into three pieces. Roll and flatten one piece into a base and then roll the other 2 pieces into 10 inch ropes and twist together. Lay this braid around the edges of the base into a nest shape. Let rise for 30 minutes and place a raw in the shell egg in the center of each nest. You can use plain white eggs but dyed eggs on Easter are much more festive! :) Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes or until the bread is golden brown. Place egg cups on the table and serve hot from the oven and you have a lovely warm sweet roll that is delicious with butter and jam and a perfectly cooked medium egg. We're snobs in our family but you might need to instruct people how to eat a cooked egg in the shell: lay the egg lengthwise on your plate and use a table knife to quickly chop off the top 1/3 of the egg guillotine-style. Salt both ends to taste and then use a small teaspoon (ideally an egg spoon) to scoop the flesh out of the top and then the remainder of the egg, salting as needed. Ever since my parents went to Norway where they saw real-live Europeans eating eggs in eggcups, we've eaten hot soft-medium-hard cooked eggs in shells like this. On almost every trip to Europe I've ever made where breakfast is served in the hotel, you will find a basket of hot eggs with a stack of egg cups next to them.
Mom and Dad returned last week from a trip to the Czech Republic where they enjoyed the Easter markets. I was so jealous! She brought home over a dozen painted real chicken and goose eggs. These are not Ukrainian style eggs in that they are not dyed with wax in a reverse dye technique and are actually painted. She gave me three eggs for my collection of egg cups and I brought out my most Slavic cups for this picture. I got the cup on the far left in the Czech Republic years ago, the one in the middle last year in Russia and I think it is actually meant to be a khokhloma vodka shot glass. The one on the far right was picked up in Bratislava during my short time in Slovakia.
As far as our own Easter eggs, this was the extent of our homemade eggs. I dyed these eggs raw in the shell at my apartment and brought them home for baking. I am a great fan of Father Dominic Garramone and his bread baking shows and years ago wrote down his sweet bread recipe and idea for egg nests. You take basic sweet bread dough (anything used for cinnamon rolls would be fine) and divide a bun/roll's worth of dough into three pieces. Roll and flatten one piece into a base and then roll the other 2 pieces into 10 inch ropes and twist together. Lay this braid around the edges of the base into a nest shape. Let rise for 30 minutes and place a raw in the shell egg in the center of each nest. You can use plain white eggs but dyed eggs on Easter are much more festive! :) Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes or until the bread is golden brown. Place egg cups on the table and serve hot from the oven and you have a lovely warm sweet roll that is delicious with butter and jam and a perfectly cooked medium egg. We're snobs in our family but you might need to instruct people how to eat a cooked egg in the shell: lay the egg lengthwise on your plate and use a table knife to quickly chop off the top 1/3 of the egg guillotine-style. Salt both ends to taste and then use a small teaspoon (ideally an egg spoon) to scoop the flesh out of the top and then the remainder of the egg, salting as needed. Ever since my parents went to Norway where they saw real-live Europeans eating eggs in eggcups, we've eaten hot soft-medium-hard cooked eggs in shells like this. On almost every trip to Europe I've ever made where breakfast is served in the hotel, you will find a basket of hot eggs with a stack of egg cups next to them.
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