Happy Easter!!!!

Urp.

Is everyone else out there as full of Easter food as I am??

There was much to celebrate this year... after last year, knowing layoffs were looming and having a week of furlough before the holiday, I threw myself into food prep for Easter and went nutso... so far as to make my own pierogies.

Yeah, not this year.

While there is much to celebrate, like being employeed again and having a beautiful new sink......

(ain't it purty?? The first pan I washed in it made me so excited I had to run upstairs to the computer room to tell the hubby "IT'S SO AWESOME!" I mean, seriously... I knew a 6 inch sink was seriously lacking, but I had no idea that two more inches of sink would make such a HUGE difference. It's nice to not get my whole shirtfront wet when I try to wash a pot)

... back to the story....

... this year, I'm just burned out. Don't know if it's all the work (had some extra stuff pop up in the part-time contracting job also) or what, but my whole attitude about Easter this year was "meh".

We were already committed to bringing the cheesecake that has been taking up freezer space since around Valentine's Day (someone at the hubby's work has a kid that uses them for fundraising, and while they are pretty darned good cheesecakes, that's a lot of freezer space to sacrifice!). I did want to make a Gingerbread cake from some little Cook's Illustrated special issue thingy that I bought since the hubby wanted to try that. Other than that, I was pretty content to not worry about bringing much - especially since my brother in law and his family weren't going to be eating with us this year.

But, well... sometime during the last week I got a craving for good ole Knorr spinach dip in the big old Hawaian bread bowl. Easy enough to make and bring.

Oh, and I know that my favorite part of spinach dip is the water chestnuts, so I figured I'd double up on the water chestnuts that I added. The verdict? I loved it and everyone else was "oh... this is sooooo good!"

Double water chestnuts.... good thing.

Can't find an online (free) source for the gingerbread cake. It was in a "Best of 2010" or "Best for 2010" issue thingy. I did make the decision to ditch my silicone bakeware and went and bought a real bundt pan to make it. Worked like a charm.

Hubby loved the cake, everyone else said they liked it also. If it gets made again, I might cut back on the ginger in the glaze since it crossed just over into the "too much for me" category. But all said... still good.

And now, for the late-night munching... it's frozen pizza time since the hubby walked into the kitchen and said "I want something that is not eggs or tuna or ham or polish sausage". Bring on the frozen pizza, baby.

Which does leave me in a pickle for dinner on Tuesday since the new Jim Butcher novel comes out that day and we'll each have our noses into our own copies of that book during the evening, I wager. I figured frozen pizza would be A) quick and B) easy to eat while reading. Hmmm.