Healthy Easter Brunch Recipes (Access Hollywood Live)

Entertaining expert and Eat Drink Garden blogger Valerie Rice gives Easter brunch a healthy make-over on Access Hollywood Live. Enjoy five recipes for a festive and healthy holiday!

Valerie’s Easter Menu includes Ginger-Honey Glazed Ham, Greek Style Potato Salad, Jazzed-Up Grilled Asparagus, Turkey Sausage & Egg Bake and Coconut Egg Cake.

Recipes:

Ginger-Honey Glazed Ham

Serves 10-12 (with leftovers)

1 (9-12 pound) fully cooked ham with bone

For the glaze:

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup crystallized ginger – finely chopped

2 tsp fresh ginger, grated

2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 cup Dijon mustard

1/2 cup white wine or water

Heat oven to 350. Score the surface of the ham, making cross marks with a knife. Place ham in a large baking dish. Mix all of the glaze ingredients (except the wine) together in a bowl and pour over the ham. Then pour wine into pan. Bake for 1 hour, until ham is warmed through and the glaze is golden brown. Then, tent ham with foil until you’re ready to eat. Thinly slice and serve with a trio of mustards.

Greek Style Potato Salad

Serves 4 (for a large crowd, double)

Red potatoes are great for this side; they contain less starch than other potatoes, and cook up creamy and delicious.
First, get the potatoes going:

1 1/2 pounds of new red potatoes, sliced in half

2 bay leaves

1 clove garlic, whole

Cover potatoes with cool water, add the bay leaves and garlic and bring to boil simmer 15 minutes or until a fork is able to pierce a potato half completely.

While potatoes cook, mix together:

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 cup diced Persian cucumbers

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard

1 hard boiled egg, diced

.25 tsp cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon of salt

1-2 green onion stalks, sliced for garnish

After the potatoes are cooked, drain and cool in a colander, be sure to fish out the bay leaf and garlic clove. Once potatoes have cooled, mix the dressing with the potatoes and taste for seasoning. Garnish with green onions and serve.

Jazzed-Up Grilled Asparagus

With grilling you blister the skin of the asparagus, resulting in a great nuttiness while keeping a good crunch. For this preparation, you always want to find the thickest possible stems with tightest flowers. If you use the skinny kind, your cooked asparagus will get stringy and limp.

A quick tip to figure out where to cut your asparagus is to hold a stem and grab the head or flower tip and the end of the stem then snap it in two by hand. If you do this, rather than cutting it with a knife, the stalk’s woody stems will naturally separate from the part you want to eat.

Serves 4 – 6

2 bunches of asparagus, woody ends trimmed

2-3 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Kosher salt

For the garnish:

1 hard boiled egg

Best quality olive oil

Sea salt and cracked pepper

Set your two burners on low or simmer and place your grill pan on top of them. Then, crank up the heat to medium high. If you turn up your burners to high and then set your grill pan on after, you might end up searing the hair off your arms.

Prepare the asparagus spears and place them on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with a few tablespoons of oil and two healthy pinches of salt.

Move the spears around to coat all of the veggies with the olive oil and salt. Once the pan is smoking, transfer your asparagus to the grill pan and cook until the asparagus skins blister, turning with tongs from time to time. If your pan is hot enough this should only take 3-5 minutes.

Arrange asparagus on serving platter and then using a box grater, grate the hardboiled egg evenly over the veggies. Finish with a drizzle of best quality olive oil and serve.

Turkey Sausage & Egg Bake

Serves 6-8

6 hardboiled eggs, thinly sliced

6 raw eggs

1 lb. turkey sausage, in casings

1 bottle of beer

8 ounces fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon Dijon

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350

First, cook your sausage. Prick each sausage with a knife three times. Place in saucepan on medium-high heat and pour in the bottle of beer. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook until beer evaporates, about 20 minutes. After sausage is cooked, slice into coins and about 1/4” thick.

To prevent sticking, butter a 8 x 8 casserole. Layer sliced hard boiled eggs, sliced sausage and sliced mozzarella and continue to build about three layers.

In a small mixing bowl whisk the raw eggs and Dijon with a fork. Pour over the layers and top with the Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature

Coconut Cake

For the cake:

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar


3 cups flour


4 eggs


5 teaspoons baking powder


1 teaspoon salt

1 cup coconut milk


1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350.

Prepare two 8-inch round cake pans with butter and a dusting of flour.

In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment mix butter, sugar until light in color and fluffy in texture — approximately 5 minutes. Next add eggs one at a time, incorporating after each addition and being sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Combine milk at vanilla in a measuring cup. In a separate bowl, whisk flour and baking powder. Add both mixtures to the bowl of the mixer alternating the flour and milk mixture (beginning and ending with the flour.) Bake at 350 degree for 45 minutes or until cake pulls slightly away from the sides of the cake pan and center is solidified. Place the cakes on a baking rack until cool.

Filling:

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 tsp coconut extract

2 tablespoons coconut milk

1/2 cup sugar

.5 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Once cake has cooled, this will be the center filling for the cake.

8 Minute Frosting

This frosting is usually called 7 Minute Frosting but the real key to success is the 1 minute of mixing before putting it on the stove.

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup water

2 egg whites

Place the sugar, cream of tartar, salt, water, and egg whites in the top of a double boiler. Before putting the pan on the stove, beat mixture with a handheld electric mixer for 1 minute.

Then, place the pan over boiling water, being sure that boiling water does not touch the bottom of the top pan. (If this happens, it could cause your frosting to become grainy). Beat constantly on high speed with electric mixer for 7 minutes over the heat. Beat in vanilla and then cool before frosting the cake.

Garnish:

1 1/2 cups unsweetened toasted coconut flakes

Seasonal flowers

To assemble the cake (if making a standard layer cake): Place the first cake on a serving or cake upside down on a plate and poke holes with a fork throughout the cake. Pour 1/2 of filling mixture and then repeat with next layer of cake. Frost with the 8 Minute Frosting over the entire cake and push the toasted flakes with your hand (if you cup it slightly it will hold the flakes and go onto the cake nicely). Garnish with fresh, seasonal flowers.

To make an egg cake: Pour batter into egg shaped baking pan, making sure to even distribute batter. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Put egg on cake plate, slice in half horizontally and follow directions above for layer cake.

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