. . . Cookin' on the Bunny Trail

As you can tell from the photo to the right, I spent most of the afternoon cooking for our Easter party tomorrow.

Before I started on that, I worked on the "presentation" of the candy.

These precious little pint-sized (literally) buckets came from the Dollar General for a couple of bucks a piece.

Last Easter, they held hyacinths, so there was still a bit of dirt in the bottoms, and they are much too big for the amount of candy that I have, so I stuffed them with plastic grocery bags, then lined them with tissue paper, then stuck clear glass custard cups in them to actually hold the candy.

Before I came up with that whole scheme and decided to put the candy in them, I was going to use a couple to hold the plasticware (we're all about the buffet around here). Since there are six buckets, and four kinds of candy (M&M "Bunny Mix," M&M "Speckled Eggs," Jelly Beans, Cream Savers) I decided to use two for utensils and the rest for candy. Simple enough, right?

I got them all set up and was sticking them in fridge, when the plan went awry. I pushed them too far back, and the speckled eggs toppled over, spilling on the shelf, and down behind the drawer. I scooped them up to put back and discovered just how - eeeewwwww - dusty and God-knows-what-else-y that fridge is.

I tried to wipe off each little candy egg, but realized that, while the milk chocolate might melt in your mouth, not in your hands, the little speckles on the candy coating were smearing right off!

I finally admitted that it just would not do to serve those to guests, dusted them off as best I could and put them back in the freezer. (They taste just fine to me.)

Of course, now I've got an empty bucket, and we can't have that. Since there are now six buckets and THREE kinds of candy, I've blown off the utensil plan, and have two buckets of each candy. Matching colors, of course.

Of course, while taking them back out of the fridge to rearrange everything, I dumped the Cream Savers in the floor. They are individually wrapped, though, so we'll just pretend that didn't happen.

I also got started preparing the decorations, including mutilating these bunny candles (50 cents, on sale after Easter last year!) while trying to get them into my candle holders.

I think I finally got them to stay put. If no one touches them.

Tomorrow, I will pick a bunch of daffodils from the yard, and go crazy with them. As you can see above, I'll be recreating my egg-filled-vase bouquet from last year. (It was a big hit.)

In addition to the whole color-coordination thing, I've also been fretting about whether we'll have enough food, and enough variety, so I've made some changes to the menu.

Last night, I took at look at the broccoli in the fridge and decided (ok, Shrike decided, what do I know? I don't like broccoli.) that it was better suited to the compost bin than the dinner table, so the whole broc-and-dip idea was out.

Then I decided that I couldn't handle the thought of losing a dish from the menu, so I'd just go buy more broccoli. As it turns out, Shrike had not picked up any ranch dip on her supplemental shopping trip a couple of days ago (diet coke, root beer, vacuum cleaner bags) so I was free to do whatever I wanted with the new broc.

So instead of a plate of trees-n-dip, I decided to really impress the relations and make Broccoli Surpise! I got some broccoli, Velveeta and - because they are so pretty, and buy-one-pound-get-one-pound-free - strawberries.

The good news is that I remembered the partially-used Visa Gift Card that's been in my wallet since Christmas. I used it and, essentially, got this stuff for free. Now, I just have to find something that's less that $2.50 to spend the rest of the card on.

When I got back from the store, I got busy with the actual cooking.

I made the cheese ball, broccoli surprise (except for baking), baked potato salad, 7-layer Mexican dip, brownies (Betty Crocker refrigerated dough - I had a coupon and a "try it free" rebate - so I will make a few cents on these. And they are de-lish!) and peanut butter cookies (same recipe as before - no catastrophes).

I also dumped a can of pork n'beans in a bowl to heat up tomorrow (figured I'd forget them if they weren't in the fridge with the rest of it), and plated the strawberries, meats and cheeses.

One minor glitch there, in that it turns out I'd bought one package of "cracker cuts" and one uncut block o'cheese. Ack! I did my best to slice it to match the cracker cuts, but they are pretty raggedy-ass. Don't guess that will hurt the taste of it any, though.

Tomorrow, I'll deal with the flowers, do the last minute set-up and decorating and, oh yeah, sweep and mop the disgusting kitchen floor.

Here are the kids' baskets that I put together yesterday. Those bunny-eggs each have some candy in them. The little bunnies dispense jelly beans.

I don't think we need to call in an expert on gender stereotypes to figure out which is for the six-year-old girl and which is for the nine-year-old boy. (Note the traditional bag-o-Easter-snakes.)