Easter menu

Last Easter we invited our friends over for lunch. I cooked the starters and main, and they brought with them a couple of desserts. I never had a chance to blog about that lunch, so here it is, our Easter menu from last year. This year it will be completely different, as my mother-in-law will be cooking, and for once I will be excused from the kitchen.
Looking at the folder of photos, we had a couple of starters - apricot bites with blue cheese and a smoked trout pate.

Apricot bites are a lovely starter, great with drinks. Serve on a pretty dish or tray and pass around while chatting to your guests.
Mash some creamy blue cheese like gorgonzola or cambozola with a bit of runny honey, place about 1tsp of the cheese on each dried apricot, drizzle with more honey and that's it.
You can add some chopped nuts too, like pistachios or walnuts, but I cannot recall now if I actually added any that time.

The second starter was a simple but delicious smoked trout pate, served with pickled and fresh cucumbers as well as sliced ciabatta bread. Remove the skin off two smoked trout fillets, and mash with a fork, season well with salt and black pepper. Add about 2/3 of a pack of cream cheese (I used light Philadelphia), 1tbsp fresh flat leaf parsley, zest of 1 lemon and juice of 1/2 lemon (add a bit at a time, don't use all juice if it becomes too sloppy) and mix well.

Our main was a roast turkey crown. It was a saffron-flavoured crown, roasted with streaky pancetta.
If you are interested in how to cook it, have a look at my old post Saffron turkey.

The roast was accompanied by roasted potatoes, carrots in maple syrup, parsnips and a gluten free stuffing made with pancetta, parmesan and pine nuts.

A fresh salad made from sliced blood oranges is a perfect palate refresher after a meat course. Red oranges were sliced and marinated in orange juice with a bit of caster sugar and ginger syrup.

Our friends also brought a homemade tiramisu (even the lady fingers were home-made from gluten free flour). It was totally divine.

If you are a traditionalist, you would probably indulge in a good serving of a Simnel cake or hot cross buns.
I have never baked a proper Simnel cake, but if you would like to try baking your own, check out a recipe for Simnel cake at Dragons and Fairy Dust or Simnel cake at Attachment Mummy.

Simnel cake, as cooked at Cogges Manor Farm

And of course a festive meal wouldn't be a feast without a cheese platter with fresh fruit, oatcakes and bread. However full you are, there is always space for a bite of cheese, isn't there?!

What are you cooking for Easter, a traditional British dinner or a mix-and-match of cuisines and dishes?