Happy Easter! Last Minute Decorations & Making Stuffing Bread

Easter really snuck up on me, isn't it weird when that happens! Lately I have been seeing all these cute easter decor projects and natural dyed eggs on Pinterest, and thinking that maybe I'll get to that. Well... of course I didn't, because I just realized a few days ago that, wow Easter is this weekend!

In Sweden it's very common to take in branches (usually birch), place them in a large vase and decorate the branches with colorful feathers and eggs. It's kind of like the Easter version of decorating a Christmas tree. So, since I didn't want this holiday to go completley unnoticed, I went out and got some branches, put them in my pitcher and got to work on decorating them. 

I had some egg decorations and old feathers in my drawers that I used. This made me think, wouldn't it be absolutely awesome to get small quail eggs, blow the interior out and dye them with natural dyes and then somehow attach a ribbon and hang those instead of these fake ones on the branches? Add to that real feathers - now that would be some centerpiece!

But for now, colorful feathers and cute little eggs + some candy will do just fine.

Fussy little chicken decoration. 

My table is looking somewhat festive.

Also found this cheerful candle holder in my drawers which I had completely forgotten about. 

For easter dinner we're making ham, and to go with that we are actually thinking of making stuffing. Each year for Thanksgiving we always say; wow stuffing is so good - why do we only make it once a year? Well, this year we will make it at least twice, since we're planning to have it with our ham.

A couple of years ago we bought some awesome herb-scented stuffing bread at a local bakery and it made for the best stuffing. Well, I figured it would be kind of neat to try to make my own stuffing bread so here we have a new experiment: soft bread with a large addition of herbs (dried sage, thyme & basil + finely chopped fresh rosemary.) There is also an egg and butter in this dough, because I wanted to keep it soft, rich and buttery. I also added some cornmeal since cornbread usually works well in stuffing and I like the added texture that cornmeal gives a bread.

We had a slice of it before (had to try it out before converting it into stuffing) and this would make a pretty awesome sandwich bread I think. However, considering the amount of herbs in this bread I was slightly disappointed. I was imagining an herb-explosion type experience when tasting, but instead I got a rather well balanced hint of herbiness. Very good, but not the herb-explosion I was going for.

Overall, a good bread though, I'm sure it will make a nice stuffing. Also, planning on making a rhubarb crumble for dessert; courtesy of my sweet neighbor who had some growing right in her garden. I'm quite excited about this, first rhubarb of the year... in fact there are few things I like as much as rhubarb!

So there we have it: easter decorations and food plans. Happy Easter!