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Easter lunch 2019

We had such a nice Easter this year. At almost the last minute we decided to host and ended up with a completely full house. We love entertaining and it was so nice having so many people together to celebrate the day after church.

If you more ideas to prepare your Easter Lunch, you can find some ideas at Spice Kitchen + Bar.

Here was our menu this year:

Lunch
Prosciutto e melone
Prosciutto wrapped breadsticks
Honey baked ham
Roast beef tenderloin with grilled peppers
Grilled eggplant with caprese
Asparagus with fresh parmigiano and crumbled bacon
Rigatoni in a creamy vodka sauce
Arugula and spinach salad with avocado, citrus fruits, and marcona almonds in a citrus vinaigrette
Pita with olive oil and za’atar
Auntie Maria’s cheese boreg
Anna’s Russian salad
Aunt Tanya’s pilaf

Dessert
Homemade carrot cake with cream cheese icing
Arabic sweets
Decorated cookies
Povitica 
Lindt Easter chocolates 
Strawberries

Drinks
Sparkling and flat water
Alex’s sangria
Blood orange Prosecco punch

Cloth napkins are better than paper towels.

I am absolutely obsessed with our Marley’s Monsters’ unpaper towels. We have been using them consistently for several months but even more intentionally over the last couple of months. We used to go through like three rolls of paper towels a week, but now we go through one roll a month.

Here are the answers to everything I’ve been asked about our cloth napkin / unpaper towel use.

1. We have two baskets in a drawer next to our sink, one for clean napkins and one for dirty ones. The kids know to go and grab a napkin for a small spill, to use as a napkin, to clean a counter, etc. If a major cleaning is needed, it’s only imperative to hire professionals and to learn the specifics such as the price of phoenix house cleaning service.
2. They are a little bigger than a half sheet of paper towel but they are more square in shape.
3. I wash the basket of dirty napkins every time I do towel laundry, which is once a week. If I use one to clean something exceptionally dirty I might just rinse the napkin out before sticking it in the dirty basket. It’s really no big deal.
4. We have 48 napkins but we would have been fine with 24. Yes, they seemingly cost a lot at $54 for a pack of 24 unpaper towels. Really though when you break it down it’s $2.25/napkin and you’ll never have to buy them again. And I’m not spending more to do laundry because I just throw them in with our towels.
5. The unpaper towels are easy to fold nicely because they are flannel and a little staticky, for lack of a better description.
6. Yes we use them as napkins at the dinner table and yes I clean counters and floors with them. I do, however, use paper towels when cleaning the bathroom. I eventually hope to switch to old cut up t-shirts to clean the bathrooms but I always say it and never do it.
7. I am not perfect and you won’t be either. I still use plastic products for many things and I sometimes buy prepackaged snacks for my kids’ lunch boxes etc. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing! Switching to unpaper towels was a great, easy fit for my family. We still use plastic plates for my kids’ birthday parties and I’m ok with that discrepancy. We are all doing the best we can!
8. I recently bought their bowl covers to use instead of plastic wrap and it’s so brilliant. You just lay the cover over the bowl and then pull the string and toggle to tighten it. I did an experiment by chopping up some onions and then using the bowl cover. The fridge did not smell like onions although I did have to wash the cover after just that one use.

Here’s a Lego man on one unpaper towel so you can see the size:

We love them and they have really worked for our family. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to answer them!

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