It's that magical time when rabbits lay multi colored eggs that are filled with caramel and chocolate. The birds are singing, the weather is finally becoming warm enough to get out and feel the sun on your face. However, if you are the one in charge of Easter dinner your challenge awaits. The pressure to make an inventive and traditional meal is very real. This year a Easter brunch is the answer to those woes. Starting with a "deviled" omelet, a breakfast style deviled egg that features sautéed breakfast sausage, tomatoes, red onions, and plabano peppers mixed in the egg filling. For the drinks to accompany this appetizer, "Southern Royalty" a lovely concoction featuring sweet tea and Crown Royal. The entrée for the day is a Boggy Swag rendition of shrimp and grits, paired with a Gulf Coast Mimosa. Finishing all off with fried PB&J wraps, we're going to serve that up with a chocolate Jameson creamed coffee.
Starting with the Deviled Omelet, and Southern Royalty gives the down home relaxing feel to the scene loosening everyone up, while feeding your guest just enough to keep them out of the kitchen.
Ingredients for Deviled Omelet
- 6 boiled eggs
-1 pound breakfast sausage
-1/4 cup diced red onion
-1/4 diced tomato
-1/4 diced poblano pepper
-1/4 cup mayo
-4 TBLS mustard
-3 TSP salt
-3 TSP pepper
-1TSP cayenne powder
-2 TSP garlic
Put eggs on to boil. As the eggs are boiling, place breakfast sausage in a 10'' skillet adding the tomatoes, onions, and peppers. Allow to simmer until the sausage is completely cooked. Strain off excess grease and allow to cool.
When the eggs have finished boiling and have cooled down, cut the eggs in half placing the yolks in a small mixing bowl. Add all ingredients except for the sausage mixture, whip until consistent. After yolks and other ingredients are whipped smooth, fold in a half cup of sausage mixture. Place the remaining sausage to the side.
Take the yolk filling and gratuitously fill each egg half.
Ingredients for Southern Royalty
-1 gallon of sweet tea
-11/2 5ths of Crown Royal
Its as simple as mix, pour over ice and enjoy.
In the south, we take grits extremely seriously. And its kind of a rite of passage for a southern cook to come up with their shrimp and grits. This is a brunch rendition of this wetland tradition, that will be served with what I like to call an Emerald Coast Mimosa.
Ingredients for Brunch Shrimp and Grits
-1 bag of yellow grits
-1 pound of peeled medium sized shrimp
-1 cup of cubed smoked gouda cheese
-1/2 cups of the green portion of leeks chopped
-1/4 diced Serrano peppers
-5 TBLSP blackening seasoning
-2 TBLSP cayenne powder
-1/2 cup heavy cream
-3/4 cup heavy cream
- the rest of the sausage mixture
-3 TBLSP minced garlic
-1/2 pound of butter
- salt
-pepper
-1/2 cup diced mushrooms
Start grits and cook them low and slow, when it comes to grits its easier to add than take away. Slowly pour grits into boiling water, while whisking. Follow the direction on the bag for water/grit ratio. Add the 1/2 of butter and stir frequently. After about 40 minutes on a slow simmer add 1/2 cup of heavy cream, and salt and pepper to taste. Continue to cook for another 10 minutes, then pull off heat and set aside. As it sits it will thicken.
Add olive oil to a hot ten inch skillet. Add peeled shrimp, leeks, mushrooms, cayenne, garlic, Serrano peppers, and blackening season. Sauté on a medium heat until shrimp is almost done, and add 1/4 cup heavy cream.
While everything else is finishing, heat up sausage mixture that was left over from the Deviled Omelet.
Right before you start to plate, take the gouda and mix it in the grits. By mixing the cheese at the end, you can create little cheese pockets. The trick is don't over mix when folding the cheese into the grits.
Ladle a happy portion of grits into a bowl, take a pair of tongs and place about six shrimp in each bowl. Take about 1/2 cup of the sausage mixture and lay it in the middle of the dish. Finally, add the sautéed leeks, peppers, and mushrooms over the sausage. Take a small amount of the cream sauce and drizzle a light portion over the top.
For the Emerald Coast Mimosa, pour 2 parts champagne, 1 part orange juice and 1/2 part cranberry juice into flutes. Pour the different parts into the flutes without stirring so that the cranberry juice and the other components are layered like a coastal sunset. Then simply garnish with a lime wheel.
For the final course its always nice to have something different. So for this desert, a fried PB&J wrap. That will be served with a chocolate Jameson whiskey creamed coffee. I will however warn you, this beast is the best kind of messy.
Ingredients for the Fried PB&J
-10'' flour tortillas
-creamy peanut butter
-choice of jelly or jam
- butter
Melt about a quarter stick of butter in a 10'' skillet on a low temperature. Spread peanut butter generously on one half, and jelly on the other half. Wrap like a burrito folding the side in slightly, and rolling it up. Place the wraps in the pan of melted butter fry on a low heat until golden brown on both sides. Remove from pan, cut and serve.
For the lovely final-final for this festive event, take 2oz of Jameson Irish Whiskey and pour into a cup of coffee. Add a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream, and top with whipped cream. Take chocolate syrup and drizzle it over the top. Sit back and relax while some else does the dishes.
