Easter Menu

With the arrival of Holy Week, my attention goes from remembering how our Lord sacrificed, suffered, and died for our sins.....to cleaning the house to welcome Him....to taking care of three boys diagnosed with walking pneumonia.....to caring for the other three, especially the baby, who may be showing possible signs of needing to see the pediatrician like their three diagnosed brothers.....to working on the remaining curtains for the Airstream.....to another load of laundry.....to figuring out what to make for supper tonight.....to making sure all of the invites have been made to family members to come to our house for Easter Sunday dinner....to tweaking the menu since we found out in early April that my mother-in-law is lactose intolerant.

Does that mean no twice baked potatoes, green bean casserole, chocolate mousse (a dessert that I only make for Easter Sunday), or dinner rolls? What's a Mom/daughter-in-law to do?! Tweak the recipes....or make suitable substitutes so that everyone will be happy in the end.  If Jesus were to come to my home for dinner, wouldn't I go out of my way to make Him happy and comfortable?  Yes!  Since we are called to treat others as we want to be treated (The Golden Rule) and to put their needs ahead of our own (J-O-Y....Jesus, Others, Yourself) then I started thinking of how I was going to pull it off and keep my sanity.

First, the twice baked potatoes, green bean casserole, and chocolate mousse are still on the menu and will be made as they have always been.....with lots of good ingredients and tons of love. For my mother-in-law, Tim, and myself, we're going to have the dairy free foods (Tim and I have been doing Weight Watchers together for a few months now, and we want to keep our numbers on the downside, even with having holiday food) and a special dessert.  What about the dinner rolls?  My recipe, and everyone's favorite, is made with butter and milk.  Both are no-no's for my mother-in-law, so my creative hat comes on.

A friend suggested a recipe that four of my children helped to make in bread making with a 4H group. This dough can be used to make loaves of bread, dinner rolls, doughnuts, cinnamon buns, sticky buns, or coffee cakes.  And, if there should be any extra (who am I kidding?! In my house, home baked goods don't last that long, and I can always give our guests extras to take home with them), they freeze well, too!

The recipe is from "More-With-Less Cookbook," written by Doris Janzen Longacre, and commissioned by Mennonite Central Committee in Akron, PA.

I will be replacing the milk with Lactaid.  My sister-in-law told me just this morning that she has used it to make instant puddings, and a few other things and has found no significant change in the taste of the food.  This is a plus for me, since I've never used it before.  The mashed potatoes that are called for in the recipe specifically say to not add milk or butter to them.  Nice! The last hurdle is the 1 cup of fat in the recipe.  The original recipe calls for half butter and half margarine.  I will be replacing that with lard.

Here is the recipe, and when I make these rolls for Easter Dinner on Sunday, I will be sure and post pictures and the results on how they came out.

POTATO DOUGH BAKED GOODS

Dissolve 3 packages of yeast in 1 cup lukewarm water.

In a separate large bowl, combine:
     1 quart scalded milk (Lactaid)
     2 cup mashed potatoes (no milk or butter added)
     1 cup fat (half butter, half margarine)-using lard
     1 cup sugar

Let cool till lukewarm, then add:
     yeast mixture
     6 cups flour

Let stand until mixture foams up (about 20 minutes)

Add:
     2 eggs
     1 Tbsp salt
     11-12 cups additional flour

A little more flour may be needed, but dough should be soft. Turn out onto floured board and knead until satiny. Let raise in warm place until doubled in bulk.

Dinner rolls: Shape dough as desired, place on greased pans, and bake at 400 degrees starting on a lower rack and changing to a higher rack about halfway through for 15 minutes of baking time. Brush tops lightly with butter to remove any floury appearance.

Doughnuts: Roll out dough, cut doughnuts, place on trays and let raise until not quite double. Fry in hot shortening (375 degrees). When drained and still hot dip in glaze mixture. Insert a stick through holes and let a number of doughnuts drain over glaze bowl until next ones are ready to go.

Glaze.  Combine:
     1 lb. Powdered sugar
     1 Tbsp. margarine
     1 tsp. vanilla
     dash of mace
     enough rich milk to make thin icing

Cinnamon buns: Prepare a mixture of butter and margarine and a mixture of sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Roll a piece of dough to about 18x9”. Spread sough with butter mixture and sprinkle on some of the sugar mixture. Roll up the dough as for a jelly roll. Cut 1 ½ “ chunks and place in greased pans, pressing lightly down on each chunk. Cover and let raise in a warm place until nearly double. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until browned. These may be iced with doughnut glaze as soon as they are taken out of the oven.

Sticky buns: Handle dough same as for cinnamon buns, except make a mixture of brown and white sugar, cinnamon, and a little white corn syrup and water. Spread nuts in bottom of heavily greased pans if desired before putting rolls. Immediately after baking, invert pans over trays and let syrup run down before removing pans.

Coffee cake: A good way to use all the leftover bits of dough—put dough in greased pan, dab or punch holes in it, and spread leftover sugar, syrup, or butter mixtures over. Let raise and bake as for cinnamon buns.

To freeze: Let baked goods cool. Wrap or place in large plastic bags and freeze the same day.
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Have a most blessed Holy Week and may God bless you and yours abundantly!