Green eggs, and Ham, and Beets, Oh My!

Easter dinner at my mum's house was so much fun, and we had my Uncle Rosaire's beer ham, famous in our family, and the smell when you walk in the house has you drooling until you get to sit down and eat it. Not everyone loves ham, but this is always so good. The eggs came in the form of pavlova, which we had AGAIN, with CREME BRULEE too, my two favourite desserts in one evening, and yes I did eat them both. How could I resist? And we really had green eggs.....read on.


My contribution to Easter dinner was a three-colour scalloped potato concoction. The flavours were inspired by one of the best meals I've ever had, at  the restaurant at Inn on the Twenty, in Jordan (home of Cave Spring Cellars, which is an amazing pairing as far as wine and food dining go), I highly recommend a visit there, not even if you're driving by the area, but on purpose. Go. Just to have wonderful food. Actually, if you look up their websites, there is often a food/wine duet of vineyard exploring and a meal afterward. Sounds like a recipe for bliss..... (And if you ever follow Canadian Food Network Chefs, Anna Olson (who is maybe the only famous person I follow on Facebook), from Sugar (and now with a new show "Bake" coming soon, once was the pastry chef there....I like to think she was there when I went there the first time many years ago, but I don't really know...she is so fabulous, I love her, I could be her best friend, and we could eat brownies and pavlova, and OMG I just looked up her recipe archive and she has lemon thyme ice box cookies.... Lemon and thyme are the star ingredients in the recipe I'm about to talk about!!! See? We could totally be BFFs, lol, it has nothing to do with the fact that lemon and thyme is a classic combination).

So, since I'd love to recreate this meal in another post, I will just move on to the recipe I made. I'm going to call it Scalicopped potatoes, see how I cleverly inserted the word "calico" inside scallopped? you know how calico cats are three colours? See? I'm trying too hard, aren't I?!! Anyway, I like it.

"Scalicopped Potatoes"

2 bunches of beets (I only had one and it was not enough)
5 sweet potatoes
5 white potatoes
olive oil
fresh thyme
sea salt

3 T butter
3 T flour
3 cups milk
1 lemon, squeezed
fresh thyme

Method:
Peel all the vegetables, toss in a drizzle of olive oil, and a generous sprinkling of fresh thyme and sea salt, roast for about fifteen or twenty  minutes, so that the flavours can absorb but firm enough that you can slice them nicely.(Is par-roasting a word?)

I finally used my fancy mandolin that was a gift from Steve for mother's day last year (I think), which he bought at Homecoming.... If you have one, it makes beautiful thin slices of potato, and beet. (And if you think you don't like beets, pleaaaaaaaaaaase try them again. This is not your grandmother's beets. You know, plain, in a bowl on the table. Cold. Yucky. Inn-on-the-Twenty reintroduced beets into my life, and Barb introduced sweet potatoes, since I had tried them once and found them revolting. Now we regularly toss them in olive oil and rosemary and roast or barbecue them, and it is one of my favourite things to eat.) So even as a grown-up I am still learning to like more veggies.....

I found that the sweet potato was a bit overcooked than the other two veggies in the final product, so I would consider next time only roasting them for five or ten minutes first. While the veggies are roasting, make your bechamel sauce, by melting butter, adding flour, stirring it, adding milk, and thyme. Taste it and add a bit of salt or pepper if you like, but I wanted it to be very simple and delicate, and so it was :) Stir it frequently while it thickens up, and then add the juice of one squeezed lemon.


I got pretty fancy since I knew I would be posting pictures, but you can layer your veggies however you like, adding a layer of bechamel sauce in between. I considered using a bit of parmesan on top, but just wanted the flavours of the beets and sweet potatoes to come through and not be overwhelmed by other flavours, and the lemon and thyme cream sauce was such a great combination. Everyone loved it (I know they meant it, because I think everyone ate seconds)!!! And the sauce turned pink, as I thought it might, as it absorbed the beet colour. It was still beautifully light and delicious though, with the sweetness of the beets and sweet potatoes singing in harmony with the lemon thyme cream sauce. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.....


Here is my Uncle Rosaire's Beer Ham recipe:

1 ‘ugly’ ham that will fit into a covered saucepan you have, (that is the plainest, non-smoked ham you can find), you will
also need a trivet of some kind to keep ham off bottom of pan
1 pint beer
1 C sugar
¼ t cinnamon
¼ t ground cloves
1 T vinegar
water to cover

- put all in saucepan on a flat trivet, fill with water to cover or almost cover the ham
- bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer
- simmer, covered about 3 hours on very low
- check fluid level and top up with water if it goes below half

My mum used maple syrup instead of sugar this time around, but unfortunately you couldn't really tell. Maybe next year, we can try boiling it all in sap instead of water....umm, I don't know....That might be really good though. She also roasted pepper squash with butter and maple syrup....

My brother Martin made creme brulee for dessert and my mum had made pavlova, so it was difficult, but we all managed to eat all of our dinners and two desserts too. I will have a separate blog on creme brulee, because of course, I want to get all fancy with it, and try a few flavours..... Here is a photo of Martin bruleeing the creme, with the kids most interested in the process. (Yep, I like the bubbling sugar caramelizing). Caramel is such a lovely word....

My mum had obtained some farm-fresh eggs, in different colours....these are not painted (and not as vibrant in the photo as they were in reality). White eggs come from chickens with white feathers and earlobes, brown eggs from chickens with brown feathers and brown earlobes, and green eggs come from chickens with green feathers and green earlobes.....just kidding, wanted to see if you're awake.

They really come from chickens with black feathers and black earlobes, called aruquanas (the chickens are called that, not the earlobes). And like you, I had no idea chickens had ears which thereby provide them with earlobes. Well, maybe you knew, but really??? I'm impressed. Or maybe I'm dumb. But I'm not. I just didn't know. Anyway, we all thought they were pretty cool, and maybe this is where coloured easter eggs got their beginnings....but I am not looking that up, lol. :)