It’s Almost Easter! 
In true Minnesota fashion, our weather is all over the place.  Many mornings I’ve had to turn the heat on in the house to then open the windows later in the day.  As of now, there is no sign of an impending blizzard…yet. 

Easter is right around the corner.  I can’t wait!  Even though we are not getting together with family, I still plan on making a nice dinner for the three of us.  Here is what is on the menu with a few recipes.

Ham
Our usual Easter dinner item.  I get a spiral cut ham from Walmart. I never use the glaze pack that comes with it. I cook it in our large roaster pan set on about 275 degrees until it’s done.  I top it with a can of crushed pineapple and a little Splenda brown sugar blend.

Easy Cheesy Potatoes
You can’t have ham without some kind of yummy cheesy potato! This recipe is super easy.  Everything is placed in a large 8 qt slow cooker in the morning.  You can cut this recipe in half if you want a smaller batch.  Since my husband and son LOVE these, I always make a large batch for leftovers. They do freeze nicely. Thaw slowly and warm them up in a saucepan.

Ingredients
2 cans – cream of chicken condensed soup
2 cups of sour cream
½ cup of butter – melted
1 bag of frozen diced onion
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese – divided
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp garlic powder
2 – 32 oz. bags of frozen diced potatoes – thawed

Directions
Thaw the potatoes. In your slow cooker mix together, soup, sour cream, butter, onion and 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese.  Mix well.  Mix in potatoes.  Cover and cook on low for around 5-6 hours or until potatoes are tender. (times may vary based on your slow cooker) Add remaining cheese, let cook for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.  Done!

Cole Slaw
I don’t know about you, but we are huge fans of KFC cole slaw. My husband has picked it up many times over the years for family gatherings. I’ll never forget the first time he did it. We were supposed to bring cole slaw to my mother-in-law’s for Easter and my husband forgot to tell me. He stopped at KFC the night before. It was a huge hit! Doesn’t everyone like KFC cole slaw? For us, it’s one of those side items that go with ham so well. Now that I would like to control how much sugar goes into the things we eat, I have my own copy cat recipe.

Ingredients
2 bags of shredded cole slaw mix (cabbage, purple cabbage, carrot)
(I put it in my food processor to chop it up so it’s more like KFC.)
1 medium white onion, diced

Dressing
1 cup mayonnaise
½  cup milk
½  cup buttermilk
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp salt
½  tsp ground black pepper (or more to taste)
3 tbsp white vinegar
5 tbsp lemon juice

Directions
After chopping the shredded cole slaw, put veggies in a large mixing bowl. 
In a medium bowl, whisk together all ingredients for the dressing. Pour over the veggies, mix well and refrigerate for a couple of hours.   You can make this the night before!

That’s it! There’s dinner!  I will have pictures to share from Easter in my next post.

Now for my favorite part.  Dessert!

I haven’t made an Easter lamb cake in several years.  Ok, it’s probably been about 12 years. I think it will be a nice treat to have. I really miss decorating cakes so I think this year I will break out the cake mold and make one! Here is a picture from the last one I made. It makes a cute centerpiece and a delicious dessert!

I use the Wilton lamb mold for this cake.  It takes a little over 6 cups of cake batter.  When making a cake like this you want to use a heavy batter like pound cake.  You can also doctor up a box mix by adding a package of instant pudding (4 serving size), 4 eggs, 1 cup water, and 1/3 cup vegetable oil.  It makes a box mix denser for these kinds of cakes. If you go the box route, you’ll need two boxes.  Use one box of chocolate and one box of yellow or white and make it a marble cake.  Yummy!

For the frosting, my go to is Wilton decorating frosting made with all vegetable shortening.  Adding clear vanilla and clear butter extracts make it taste like a traditional buttercream but will give you pretty white frosting. I color a small amount frosting pink, green and brown or black to create the details.  Then add some jellybeans in the grass and ta-da! Done!

You can find the Snow White Buttercream recipe on Wilton.com.

Easter Weekend Services
This coming weekend we’ll be attending Good Friday and Easter services at GodSquad Church on Twitch.  We’ve been a part of GodSquad for a little over 3 years now. Over the last year, thankfully the online services and community already existed so we didn’t run into interruptions with Covid-19.

We have two Discord servers. One that is more gaming centered, and one for the church community that has channels for prayer requests and praise reports, events, hangout chats, and so much more. We have a Women’s Ministry, Kids and Youth Ministry, Experience Groups which are like small groups at most churches from ages 13 to adult, two services on Saturdays, and lots of resources.  I lead the teen Experience Group that my son goes to and I’m one of the Women’s Ministry leaders!    Check out the website for more information or you can contact me with any questions. 

GodSquad Gaming is a place where gamers from all over the world can come and find a place they can call home no matter their beliefs or background. Our community is a place where people can come game together, grow together, and build relationships that will last a lifetime.

GodSquad Church.com

Good Friday Experience
2 PM EST on twitch.tv/souzylive
8 PM EST on twitch.tv/godsquadchurch

​Saturday, April 3rd
GodSquad Church Easter Service
1:30 PM and 7:30 PM EST twitch.tv/godsquadchurch

I hope to see you there sometime!

Happy Easter!
~Sota

Are you doing anything special for Easter weekend?