Easter 2013

This Easter weekend was great! My brother Kevin was here, so I spent almost the entire weekend with my family. We ate good food, saw a movie, and watched a lot of basketball. I had been looking forward to my church's annual Easter Eve concert at the Levitt Shell - everyone picnics and it's a lot of fun. But the weather was crummy this year (seriously, WHEN will spring get here??). I dithered about it all morning before deciding not to go sit in the cold rain by myself. By the time I heard that the concert was moved to the church, we had already made dinner plans, and I didn't want to break up family time. I was bummed to miss, but apparently the turnout was good, so that's the important thing.

Early last week, my domestic urges kicked in big time. I thought of a whole menu plan for Easter. My parents agreed to break tradition and let me cook our Easter dinner this year, as long as we ate it at their house on my mom's china. We had Mustard-Crusted Pork Roast with Shallots and Wine Sauce, with sides of Parmesan polenta, green beans that my dad prepared, and cranberry sauce from a can (I love it). For dessert I made a Meyer lemon pound cake. The cake was very pretty, but I used Splenda instead of sugar so my pre-diabetic mom could enjoy it, and it turned out dry. Lesson learned. My mom and Kevin liked it, but I was a little disappointed.

Anyway, I recommend this pork roast recipe for any occasion. It's easy and adaptable - I used a boneless pork loin roast and was short on shallots, and no harm was done. You can even cut the cooking time in half by cutting the roast in half lengthwise (which we did so Kevin could get back to Indiana by a decent hour).

This is going to sound cheesy and cliche, but my family talked a lot about the Bible and Jesus this weekend, and it made me really happy. These past few days have reminded me how endlessly interesting Jesus is. He's always more than you expect, and there's always another layer to uncover. I'm thankful that He's my Savior, Friend, and go-between.