It’s Easter weekend, friends, and today on the blog I’m sharing my beautiful Easter table setting and a brunch menu perfect for two!
Easter table decor
For Easter, I don’t typically get the chance to set our table and create a beautiful display. We usually spend the day with family. This year though, Mike and I are spending Easter at home, just us two.
I thought it would be fun to play around a bit and create a tablescape using some of my recent thrift store finds. But to be honest, it’s really just an excuse to bring some fresh flowers into our home!
And, since we’re staying in I headed to Pinterest to get some ideas for our Easter dinner for two.
A classic but modern Easter table setting
Last year, Mike and I spent Thanksgiving at home. Covid cases were on the rise and we opted to stay in and celebrate the holiday on our own.
We were missing family though so I wanted to do something a little special to elevate our day. I created a simple Thanksgiving Day table and put together a menu of some of our favorite turkey day foods and shared them on the blog. I decided to do the same for Easter.
Wanting to keep things simple, I approached our Easter table setting much like I did our Thanksgiving Day one. I started with items we already had at home and used that as inspiration for our final look. Adding a couple of new pieces to complete the design and add those Easter vibes.
Blue, white, and clear glass
For our Easter tablescape, I knew I wanted to pull together my collection of blue and white pottery. I love my large vase and use it constantly to display my fresh flower blooms.
Since it’s just the two of us, I knew I could add in my smaller ones to create impact and still have enough room on the table for our plates and all the food.
I’ve had a thing for clear glass lately and have slowly been collecting a few key pieces here and there. The glass feels very fresh and modern and brings a bit of airiness and lightness to our home decor. Making it perfect to use for spring and Easter.
I spotted these candlesticks at our local thrift store a few weeks ago and immediately scooped them up. Knowing they would be perfected when spring rolled around, mixed in with my blue and white decor.
Sticking with my blue, white, and clear glass theme, I pulled together pieces we had at home for the place settings. Using some of my blue and white plates found at antique stores over the summer and our glass coups and double old-fashioned glasses from the bar cart. Our everyday silver utensils were perfect as is and mixed in well with all the other pieces.
Add a bit of color and spring time vibes
To add a bit of springtime color and keep our Easter table setting feeling happy and fresh, I added one of my favorite home decor essentials, fresh flowers!
One of my favorite places to pick up fresh blooms inexpensively is our local Whole Foods Market. I opted for white roses, knowing I had a trick to maximize their impact, and a smaller bouquet of wildflowers.
The white roses as is weren’t enough to fill out my large blue and white vase. They were pretty tightly closed and I was impatient for them to open up. I once saw someone take their closed roses and peel the outer 4-5 layers down, creating fullness where there was none.
For mine, I didn’t stop with just the outer 4-5 layers, I continued to peel and separate each layer working my way inward until I had a nice full bloom. It’s an easy trick to maximize the impact of your flowers but it also creates a different look. Giving a sort of vintage garden rose look to a regular store-bought rose.
I also purchased a smaller bouquet on a whim that was displayed closer to check out. It’s the perfect mix of wildflower blooms and greenery in beautiful pinks, lavenders, and greens. Adding just the right amount of springtime color to my table decor.
Infusing Easter into my table decor
Because it’s Easter, I wanted to add a few small touches to our table in honor of the holiday. These were the items I purchased new to complete the look.
To create a beautiful foundation from which to build my table setting on, I added this bunny table cloth from HomeGoods. The shades of blue are perfect with the blue and white pottery and the navy in our dining room.
While on a Target run, I spotted these adorable egg-shaped stoneware plates. They had them in a few colors and I almost went with blue but knew the pink was perfect. Tying in with the colors in the flowers and adding in a bit of interest while breaking up all the blue and white.
Finally, on a clearance endcap at Target I spotted these blue and white striped towels. I was on the hunt for napkins and these were perfect! The shade of blue works really well with the other shades of blue in the room and at $2.00 each, they were a no-brainer.
With the table set, I focused on the menu for Easter Day.
Easter brunch for two
Planning a menu for any holiday can be a little overwhelming. With so many different options, it can be hard to narrow it all down to a select few if you’re a foodie like me.
In order to get started, I asked Mike whether he wanted brunch or dinner. Determining this helped give me a starting point. Once we landed on a brunch theme, I then started thinking about different recipes.
When I think about Easter brunch food, there are a few ideas that come to mind. Ham, eggs, potatoes, fresh spring vegetables, and lemon. When throwing these ideas out to Mike, he immediately requested strata and left the rest up to me!
A decadent and fluffy egg strata
Knowing Mike wanted strata, I decided to start there and build my menu around it. I found this recipe for a fluffy egg strata and decided to give it a go.
Strata is an egg-based casserole that uses Italian bread to soak up the egg custard mixture to create a rich and souffle-like dish. You can mix in any kind of meat and veggies you like to personalize the dish to your liking.
I really liked this recipe because it recommended and gave instructions for making this ahead of time. The longer it sits, the more time the bread has to soak up all that delicious egg custard. I made this the night before and just pop it in the oven the next morning for about 65 minutes.
I did change up the recipe slightly. It calls for whole milk and by accident, I used heavy whipping cream. It turned out delicious but was a bit rich. The pan I used is super deep and this bakes up super fluffy and tall so a small piece goes a long way!
Because it’s Easter, I stuck with ham as our meat but skipped the roasted red peppers simply based on personal tastes. I also used a regular gouda instead of a smoked gouda. Again, simply based on personal preference.
Some of you may be thinking, “Deanna, why make a whole casserole if it’s just you two?” Well, Margo, what makes this recipe so amazing is you can freeze any leftovers you have for up to three months and just thaw and reheat when you want some. Game. Changer.
I highly recommend adding this recipe to your favorites! It would be perfect for any holiday and make an easy and delicious Christmas Day breakfast.
Creamy and cheesy potatoes
Mike and I love a good potato dish and what better to accompany our strata than potatoes?
With it being Easter, I wanted something a little bit special while also being easy to make and perfect for two. Enter these creamy potato stacks with garlic, thyme, and parmesan.
This recipe is similar to a scallop or Au gratin potato dish but you bake them in a muffin tin so you can control the amount you make.
I used the recommended quantities and this recipe made 12 little potato stacks. More than we needed but this gave us leftovers for the week. You could easily cut this recipe in half or double it depending on your needs.
I also deviated slightly from this recipe as well. We love Yukon gold potatoes because they’re buttery and I thought they would be perfect in this dish. Also, using a smaller diameter potato worked out perfectly when stacking the slices in the muffin tin.
My grocery store didn’t have fresh thyme so I opted for fresh rosemary instead. Garlic isn’t something Mike can have because of allergies so I typically leave it out when cooking.
I wasn’t sure if this recipe would work without a little tweaking. I was afraid the potatoes wouldn’t bake all the way through in the recommended time or how the seasoning would be.
To my surprise, these turned out great! I cut my potatoes at 1/16 of an inch making them thin enough to cook in 30 minutes. The only thing I would do differently is cut back on the nutmeg. The recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon and I thought it was a little strong.
I will definitely be making these again!
A spring time salad
With the main and supporting side dish figured out, I turned my attention towards a veggie dish. I wanted something light and fresh to balance out all the richness in the strata and potatoes.
I got this idea to do a shaved asparagus salad. I’ve seen them before but have never tried one, let alone made one.
I came across this shaved asparagus salad recipe on Pinterest and it sounded amazing!
It’s super easy to make and requires no cooking. The asparagus is left raw in the salad which keeps it fresh and light. The only tricky part is shaving the asparagus.
The recipe recommends laying a piece of asparagus on a cutting board and, starting at the base of it, use a vegetable peeler to create the strips. The thicker the asparagus the easier it is but it did take a little trial and error to get the technique down.
Arugula adds body to the salad while avocado brings a bit of creaminess. Toasted pistachios give some much-needed crunch and shaved parmesan cheese rounds out the dish.
The dressing is super light and lemony. A perfect accompaniment to this light and fresh salad. This was probably my favorite dish and I just had to have seconds!
End it on a sweet note
What’s any meal without a bit of dessert? Don’t worry guys, I wouldn’t forget to give you something sweet, and in typical Deanna fashion, I made two!
In my opinion, lemon and Easter go hand in hand. I love that tart freshness lemon adds to any dish. Making it a perfect ingredient to use in a springtime/Easter dessert.
I decided to head to Sally’s Baking Addiction to see what I could find. I’ve made several of her recipes and they always turn out for me.
Her iced lemon pound cake stuck out to me and I knew it would be something Mike would love. It’s got great lemon flavor and I added the icing she recommended for extra sweetness. I didn’t get a picture of it before Mike started cutting into it but thankfully he left me some so I could!
Because I like to bake and I especially like to bake with fruit at springtime, I decided to also try Sally’s raspberry streusel bars. I couldn’t find raspberries at my local grocery store though so I decided to do a blackberry version instead.
The recipe didn’t quite work out for me for some reason. I must have jinxed myself with my statement above! The streusel topping and the preserves underneath melted together and in some places there was no topping at all because of it. They may not look that pretty but they taste delicious! So buttery and sweet with a bit of tartness.
For this recipe, you make the crust and pre-bake it for 15 minutes. While it bakes in the oven, create the streusel that will top the bars. When the bars come out of the oven, spread the preserves on the warm crust. Top the preserves with fresh berries. I forgot this step and I’m wondering if this could have been my downfall.
Sprinkle the crumble on top and pop it back in the oven until golden brown. I ended up baking mine for 5 minutes longer than recommended because of the melting situation.
The recipe recommends cooling the bars in the pan and then popping the whole thing in the fridge for 2 hours to firm up. Even though these bars didn’t turn out exactly as pictured, they definitely won’t go to waste. I will try this recipe again though to see if I can figure out what I did wrong.
Creating a Beautiful Easter table for two
There you have it! Our table all decked out for Easter and the perfect brunch menu for two!
If you’re still looking for ideas for your table setting decor or menu, I hope this helped! I always love seeing what others are doing and I love sharing my recipe finds with you all.
Happy Easter everyone and enjoy your weekend whether you’re staying in or visiting with family and friends!
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