Showing posts with label Recipes: Easter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recipes: Easter. Show all posts

Sunday, March 30, 2025

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2024

Easter last year was on March 31st in 2024, exactly a year ago (well, one year tomorrow). As I am planning the menu for this year's Easter on April 20th, it's a good to time to look back to the previous brunch. 

We've been hosting an Easter brunch on an Easter Sunday for over a dozen years now and it's one of the entertaining highlights for me. I love Christmas, don't get me wrong, but while Christmas is all about family, then Easter is all about friends, so they are two very different occasions. Also - while Christmas traditions seem to be more set in stone, sorry, traditions, then Easter gives much more opportunities to try something new. I think the only Easter constant is the traditional pashka dessert :) 

Here's the Facebook event cover from 2024 - we had 27 people around, including ourselves:


And here's the menu (in Estonian):


We usually set the whole table at once, so it's buffee-style or "Swedish table", as we say in Estonian ("rootsi laud"). Not the best of photos, but you get an idea. 



We started with some cold cuts and starters. We had some fish preserves from our skiing trip to Ruka, Northern Finland. Our friend Piret brought along some of her home-made and delectable cep/porcini mushroom preserves. 

I made some rye canapes with smoked tofu and cucumber (on the photo at 2 o'clock from the apples, recipe in Estonian here). A really nice vegan canapé - I used a local smoked tofu, a Fiinish fermented oat cream, some red onion, lemon and some seasoning. Tastes a bit like a smoked fish salad and looks really nice garnished with fresh cucumber and some micro greens. (See yourself here).

There was a big bowl of fresh cabbage salad with Green Goddess dressing. (Pictured on the top left corner above). I know some versions of this dressing also use anchovy, but I make a vegetarian version with either sour cream or Greek yogurt, avocado, garlic and different herbs (usually basil, parsley, cilantro/coriander). Again, you'll find the recipe in Estonian here.

Two of the dishes were inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi, as recommended in the Guardian (see here). One was vegetarian, a fennel and pepper gratin, which I served sans cheese and bread crumb topping;


(Recipe in Estonian here; in English here).

The other was a spiced Easter lamb with marmalade glaze, which was absolutely wonderful and flavoursome. We often serve lamb at our Easter brunch and this did not dissappoint. (You'll find recipe in English here and in Estonian here).


When I was still living and working in Scotland, but already dating K, we met up in Paris for a romantic getaway May 2006 - almost 19 years ago. The date went well, obviously, as I decided to move back to my homeland 5 months later - and we're still living together 19 years on, parenting our three lovely kids etc. Anyway, during that weekend in Paris, we had a delicious spinach and smoked salmon quiche at a small deli-cafe near Luxemburg garden. I later recreated that quiche and we still make it regularly - and it always brings back nice memories of that first trip to Paris. (We went back to Paris to celebrate our tenth anniversary and since then we've been there with our kids as well.)

I have shared the recipe on this blog, 


One of my favourite dishes at the brunch was this warm roast beetroot and broccoli salad with spicy chickpeas - a recipe from an Estonian food writer Rita Osa (recipe in Estonian here).


I had planned to make Nigella Lawson's cherry tomato couscous, but had run out of couscous, so used fine bulghur instead. It worked really well (recipe in Estonian here).


For sweets, I made pecan brownies, using my regular - and favourite brownie recipe.


We also had some fresh fruit and berries on the table, as well as cheese. My friend Liina brought along a curd cheese cake (kohupiimakook) and of course we had home-made pashka: 


For drinks we had Virgin Palomas (recipe in Estonian), sea buckthorn and lemonade Semusas (recipe in Estonian) and some delicious non-alcoholic drinks from Öun Drinks, a local producer of fine beverages. 

So, have you started thinking of this year's Easter menu already? What dishes are on the long list at the moment? Let me know in the comments.  

From the archives:

We've hosted an Easter brunch for friends annually since 2007 (I moved back home to Estonia and in with K. from Scotland in October 2006, so it's 'our thing'). I see I have a lot of catching up to do :)







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Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Dyeing Easter Eggs with Onion Skins, Estonian style

This was originally posted in 2011. You'll find all my Easter recipes here. 

 Easter eggs / Lihavõttemunad

We don't really 'do' chocolate eggs for Easter here in Estonia, but real, chicken eggs. Dyeing eggs for Easter is very popular, and using onion skins is probably the most popular method. Using onion peels gives you most beautiful dyed eggs, each one unique and special. Here are some photos of the process that I took few years ago.

Pille, onion skins

Here's what you need to do:

* Few weeks before Easter start collecting onion peels. Yellow ones are better than red onion skins, as they give a nice colour.

* You need white eggs for doing this (this gives the shops a chance to sell specially packaged white eggs for a much higher price before the festivities).

Dyeing Easter eggs

* Take an egg and neatly put few onion peels around it:

Dyeing Easter eggs

* Take a piece of mesh/muslin/kitchen foil or even an old nylon stocking and wrap it around the egg to keep the onion peels on place. I used foil here:

Dyeing Easter eggs

* Boil as usual. Cool, then unwrap and unpeel.

Here's the result - each egg is unique and gorgeous:

Easter eggs / Lihavõttemunad

Natasha describes a similar, though less complicated way of dyeing eggs with onion peels that's popular in Russia and Ukraine: Russian Easter Eggs. My 91-year old grandmother uses the same method - she says she's too old to "play around" with the onion peels too much :)
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Sunday, April 01, 2018

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2018

Happy Easter, everyone!


 Easter fell on April 1st this year. Here are some of the dishes from our Easter party:


Fresh pea quiche:


Some kind of salad:


Nigel Slater's sweet and sticky chicken wings:


Matjes herring bites with lemon and trout roe: 


I found this fun meatball and beetroot salad recipe from the Swedish ICA.se site:


Raisin buns:


Sweet rolls, dusted with icing sugar:


Of course, pashka:


From the archives:

We've hosted an Easter brunch for friends annually since 2007 (I moved back home to Estonia and in with K. from Scotland in October 2006, so it's 'our thing'). I see I have a lot of catching up to do :)


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Sunday, April 16, 2017

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2017

 Easter was on April 16th this year and of course we had friends over for our traditional Easter brunch on that day. Here's what we served :)

There was duck with pomegranate seeds and mint - a recipe from Nigella Lawson's book "Nigella Express" (2007; recipe in Estonian here). 



There was carrot and sunflower seed salad - a recipe from now-defunct blog "Our Four Forks", who had adapted it from "The Rose Bakery" cookbook (recipe in Estonian here):





I made a salad with sweet potato and feta cheese (recipe in Estonian here):



For our main dish this year, I baked a leg of lamb with rosemary and juniper berries, inspired by this BBC recipe:



I baked a large cottage cheese and Väasterbottensost cheese tart:


Our friend Liisa contributed this cheese quiche:


One of my staple crostini recipes for years now - and for years to come - is this little thing from Tesco UK - Brie and grape crostini. Goes beautifully with wine, by the way, and can bridge the savoury and sweet courses:


Of course, there was pashka - this time made by our friend Kristiina: 


Hope you all had a lovely Easter with your friends and family.

From the archives:

We've hosted an Easter brunch for friends annually since 2007 (I moved back home to Estonia and in with K. from Scotland in October 2006, so it's 'our thing'). I see I have a lot of catching up to do :)


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Monday, April 06, 2015

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2015

 We held our traditional Easter brunch for friends on 6 April 2015. Here are two photos of the spread:




And here are some close up photos. Our friend Kristiina and her daughter Gretel brought along this cauliflower salad:


I made a big bowl of layered salad with surimi (imitation snow crab), boiled eggs, shredded cheese and plain yogurt (recipe in Estonian here). 


Our friend Piret brough some salted wild mushroom salad:


We had some pulled lamb:


Some Georgian (not the state in the U.S., but a country in the Caucasus mountains in Eurasia) aubergine rolls/eggplant rolls stuffed with walnuts (recipe in Estonian here):


As well as some roasted fennel with Parmesan cheese:


No separate photo, but we also had some ceviche-style salmon with leeks and pink peppercorn (Vaasa ämma kuldkala) and of course pashka.

From the archives:

We've hosted an Easter brunch for friends annually since 2007 (I moved back home to Estonia and in with K. from Scotland in October 2006, so it's 'our thing'). I see I have a lot of catching up to do :)


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Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2014

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2014. Kevadpühad 2014.

Last Sunday we had a full house again. 28 people, including the kids, celebrating the Spring and enjoying the traditional Nami-Nami Easter brunch. It was a gorgeously sunny and pleasant day, and we ate al fresco.

IMG_8872.jpg

First, the eggs. To be honest, we only dyed them after the party, but they're still part of the Easter brunch in a way. We used the Estonian way of dyeing eggs with onion skins (read all about it here) for the yellow-brown eggs, and frozen blueberries for the blue eggs. I think they turned out gorgeous, and the kids loved them!

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: salmon roe appetizers
Small rye cups were filled with salmon roe and sour cream (also known as creamy caviar dressing, recipe here).

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Suitsukalasalat. Smoked fish salad.
Smoked fish salad, spiked with some horseradish (I used hot-smoked hake).

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Kurgisalat. Cucumber salad.
Ottolenghi's cucumber and poppyseed salad - always festive, yet simple to make. I omitted the sugar this time and didn't miss it at all!

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Ristemäe talu "presidendi kilud"
Marinated fresh sprats from the Ristemäe talu stand at my local farmers' market, Viimsi Taluturg.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Makaronisalat. Pasta salad.
Pasta and sausage salad, very Estonian and always popular with older kids.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Sun-dried tomato and olive nibbles
Puff pastry canapés with sun-dried tomato pesto and black olive filling.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014
Another view of the table.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Crostini with cured ham and wild garlic ricotta.
Wild garlic is in season, so I made some crostini with ricotta and wild garlic spread, served with Estonian cured pork filet.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Pulled pork. Nyhtöpossu. Ribaliha.
I did all the prep work on Sunday morning (the kids make sure we wake up rather early :)). However, I did slow-cook a huge Boston butt (2,5 kg) on the previous day, serving the pulled pork at the brunch. The recipe was adapted from this Finnish magazine.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Rosemary and garlic salmon.
Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Salmon a la In Sock Monkey Slippers. It was a huge salmon, so there was plenty for everybody.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Kiwi and grape salad. Roheline puuviljasalat.
Green fruit salad looked inviting and spring-like. I omitted the maple syrup, as the kiwis and grapes were sweet enough, and sprinkled some almond slices on top for some extra bite.

Over the years I've got better in delegating. Some friends brought imported strawberries, some oranges for the freshly squeezed orange juice, some brought wine. Some friends volunteered to bring food. And they brought some wonderful dishes.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Mutabak by Liina.
My friend Liina baked a fantastic mutabak.

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2014. Wild mushroom salad by Piret. Metsaseenesalat.
Piret brought along a typical Estonian mushroom salad (wild mushrooms, onion, sour cream, seasonings).

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Kristiina salat. Kristiina's salad.
Our friend Kristiina makes wonderful salads, here's what she brought along this year.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Paavo kardemonirullid. Paavo's cardamom rolls.
And her husband Paavo baked a big batch of Swedish cardamom twists.

Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014: Buckwheat mocha hearts. Kohviglasuuriga tatrakook.
I had also made a small cake, namely gluten-free buckwheat hearts with mocha glaze. Our son Aksel is somewhat sensitive to wheat (and hazelnuts), so I try to make sure there's something on the table that doesn't make his skin all itchy. (If you need more buckwheat inspiration, then check out my buckwheat recipe board on Pinterest.)


Here's another look at the table: Nami-Nami Easter brunch 2014

We drank Prosecco and various wines, cold-brewed hibiscus water (the bottle on the left) and black aronia cordial (the jug on the right). Coffee and tea later.

 What did you have for Easter? I'd love to hear more in the comments!

 See overviews of our previous Easter brunches:
Easter brunch 2013, featuring blood orange Mimosas, avocado and smoked salmon salad, cucumber bites with cream cheese, small tattie scone rounds with smoked salmon mousse, deviled beet eggs,  chorizo meatballs, a great carrot and cream cheese cake, roasted cauliflower, and much more.
 
 Easter brunch 2012, featuring crostini with dill-marinated pork tenderloin, Ms Marmite Lover's focaccia shots, marinated olives, Estonian mushroom salad, cold-smoked salmon, a delicious paskha, cardamon-scented apricot and curd cheese cake, and much more.

Easter brunch 2011, featuring a pretty (imitation) snow crab salad, beet quail eggs, two types of home-made Estonian cheese "sõir", smoked salmon with horseradish dip, wild garlic (ramp) pesto with almonds, crostini with white cheese and red onion jam, puff pastry rolls with feta, white bean salad with  chorizo, Limoncello, coconut and white chocolate tart.

Easter brunch 2010, featuring spinach and hot-smoked salmon salad with quail eggs, green beans and asparagus, Marika Blossfeldt's quinoa salad with beets and fennel, savory cheesecake with goat cheese and chives, Ottolenghi's cucumber salad with poppyseeds, bean salad with lemon and parsley, Baltic herring with cherry tomatoes and herbs, Estonian home-made cheese "sõir", paskha, traditional Simnel cake, and another cake with coconut, lemon curd, elderflower cream and lemon balm.

Easter brunch 2009, featuring bright green pea soup shots, zucchini rolls stuffed with goat cheese, hazelnuts, figs and mint, peppered beef fillet, marbled beetroot eggs and marbled turmeric eggs, layered surimi "crab" and egg salad, pineapple carpaccio with mint sugar, matcha madeleines, and two different paskhas.

We also hosted Easter brunches in 2007 and 2008, but somehow I didn't document their properly. I can see on Flickr what was on the table back in 2007, but that's about it.

From the (future) archives:

We've hosted an Easter brunch for friends annually since 2007 (I moved back home to Estonia and in with K. from Scotland in October 2006, so it's 'our thing'). I see I have a lot of catching up to do :)
 

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