Easter Recipes to Try

We spontaneously invited 11 kids and 10 adults over for Easter dinner. Everyone brought gorgeous sides to go with my salmon and ham. I wanted to share these recipes with you: a quick and easy shrimp app I tried to recreate after eating at GT Fish and Oyster, Ina's Orange Marmalade Glaze for the ham and this simple Bittmann Roasted Salmon that I dolloped with some lemon pesto. I totally felt like a cheater this year with store-bought guacamole and pesto but so glad I simplified this time around. I also made Ina's Black and White Angel Food Cake with fresh raspberries.

GT's Shrimp Bruschetta

Precooked,deveined Shrimp, tails removed

Guacamole, store-bought

Cilantro, chopped

Lime juice and zest

Bake up some crostinis for the bruschetta. I'm sure there are store-bought crostinis around.

Toss shrimp in lime juice and zest

Chop cilantro

Assemble right before serving. Spread avocado spread on crostini. 
Top with shrimp. Sprinkle with cilantro

* for a little heat, I would sprinkle some finely diced seeded jalapeno on top. I prepped everything the night before

Orange Glazed Ham

1 (14 to 16-pound) fully cooked, spiral-cut smoked ham on the bone
6 garlic cloves
8 1/2 ounces orange marmalade
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 orange, zested
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the ham in a heavy roasting pan.

Mince the garlic in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the marmalade, mustard, brown sugar, orange zest, and orange juice and process until smooth. Pour the glaze over the ham and bake for 1 hour, until the ham is fully heated and the glaze is well browned. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Roasted Salmon with Lemon Pesto

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

Coarse salt and ground pepper

1 salmon fillet (2 to 3 pounds), skin off

Pesto

Juice and Zest of 1 lemon

STEP 1

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Place butter on a rimmed baking sheet and season with salt and pepper. Place sheet in oven until butter melts, about 1 minute.

STEP 2

Carefully remove sheet from oven and place salmon on top of butter; season with salt and pepper. Return sheet to oven.

STEP 3

Roast until salmon is just cooked through, 8 to 12 minutes, checking frequently. It will flake easily when done. Add lemon juice and zest to pesto. Dollop on top of hot salmon and serve.

Also if you get the chance, try this Chocolate Olive Oil Cake.

Nigella's Choc Olive Oil Cake

6 tablespoon(s) good-quality cocoa powder (sifted)

cup(s) boiling water

2 teaspoon(s) best vanilla extract

1 ½ cup(s) almond meal (or 125g plain flour)

teaspoon(s) baking soda

1 cup(s) superfine sugar

3 egg(s)

5 fl oz (fluid ounces) regular olive oil (plus more for greasing)

1 pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to 170°C/gas mark 3/325ºF. Grease a 22 or 23 cm/ 9inch springform tin with a little oil and line the base with baking parchment.

Measure and sift the cocoa powder into a bowl or jug and whisk in the boiling water until you have a smooth, chocolatey, still runny (but only just) paste. Whisk in the vanilla extract, then set aside to cool a little.

In another smallish bowl, combine the ground almonds (or flour) with the bicarbonate of soda and pinch of salt.

Put the sugar, olive oil and eggs into the bowl of a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment (or other bowl and whisk arrangement of your choice) and beat together vigorously for about 3 minutes until you have a pale-primrose, aerated and thickened cream.

Turn the speed down a little and pour in the cocoa mixture, beating as you go, and when all is scraped in you can slowly tip in the ground almond (or flour) mixture.

Scrape down, and stir a little with a spatula, then pour this dark, liquid batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the sides are set and the very centre, on top, still looks slightly damp. A cake tester should come up mainly clean but with a few sticky chocolate crumbs clinging to it.

Let it cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack, still in its tin, and then ease the sides of the cake with a small metal spatula and spring it out of the tin. Leave to cool completely or eat while still warm with some ice cream, as a pudding.