A Girly Lunch, or an Easter Brunch Menu
Because of Valentines Day I always think of February as a feminine month wrapped in lace and strawberries. We had some unseasonably warm days this February, and it fooled us all into thinking spring was here and I found myself putting together a girly luncheon menu featuring strawberries and asparagus. Something very simple, and elegant. This menu is easy on the cook, lots of it can be done ahead, and none of it is complicated. I made the entire menu in under 90 minutes.
The entree is Cream of Asparagus Soup with a drizzle of Smoked Olive Oil, dotted with Pistachios. I wanted something crispy to offset the silky texture of the soup so I chose biscuits. I made cheesy Gruyere Chive Biscuits which were delicious with butter and smoked honey. For dessert I made Strawberry Panzanella. In the past when I’ve made dessert panzanella I’ve made it with poundcake, but this time I wanted to try it with bread which I cut into small pieces and tossed with butter and sugar before toasting in the oven. Just eating toasted sweet buttery bread cubes was addictive on it’s own, let alone combined with strawberries and cream. Recently I ran across a recipe for Black Olive Cookies on Food 52 and had to try them, so I added them to the menu, and they were a big hit. These cookies are not a sweet cookie, they are an olive oil shortbread with salty bits of olives.
As always my guests are fabulous about contributing to the menu. Teri brought her signature Pastitsio, and Laura brought a fabulous sangria recipe from Food 52 with pineapple and lemon. What would we do without Food 52! Marilyn brought Ina Garten’s recipe for Madeleines, and Maureen brought Lemon Squares, a family favorite as long as I’ve known the family!
This menu was a fun Girly Lunch with guests staying into the evening to chat, but it would also be perfect for Easter. Add a ham or baked salmon as the entree and you’re all set!
Cream of Asparagus Soup
Recently my cousin Lyn gave me two products from Holy Smoke, olive oil and honey and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed using both. Using the olive oil in this recipe adds a delicious smoky flavor reminiscent of bacon.
You can make the soup well ahead, either several days ahead and store in the fridge, or longer in the freezer. If making ahead add the cream, chopped pistachios, and olive oil right before serving.
Gruyere and Chive Biscuits
These biscuits should be served hot out of the oven. If you can find smoked honey it really adds to these cheesy biscuits.
Strawberry Panzanella
I used Challah for this recipe but Brioche would be excellent as well. I like the large crunchy crystals of Turbanado sugar, but regular sugar will work too.
The bread can be toasted the night before and stored room temperature in an airtight container. The strawberries can be mixed with the raspberry sauce, and stored in the fridge over night as well as the cream which can be whisked together and chilled overnight.
Black Olive Cookies
In Dorothyland, green olives go with orange zest and black olives go with lemon zest, so I used lemon zest instead of orange zest in the recipe. These cookies surprised me by being better the day they were made than the next day. They lost some of their crisp overnight, most likely because of the olives in the cookie. Not that that stopped me from eating them!
