Easter is a busy season for me and includes a lot of cooking.

Tonight was Maundy Thursday. I like to include a light meal as part of the service. I made chicken tenders and set out trays of veggies, fruit, cheeses, crakers, and pita chips.

The marinade for the chicken had a Greek yogurt base with lemon juice and red wine vinegar. Garlic, oregino, cumin, paprika, and coriander. I marinated the chicken strips overnight. I wanted to use thighs, but the store was out. They had a sale on breasts, so that made the decision easier. The tenders were juicy and had a great taste, I will use that marinade again.

Sunday morning we are doing a Sunrise Service starting at 6:30 a.m. I have long thought that anyone who gets up that early for a service should have steak and eggs for breakfast. I was going to get a NY strip and slice it into thin breakfast steaks. However, there was a sale on prime rib and it was $1 cheaper per pound than the strip. Easter breakfast will be an egg bake, prime rib, and my wife's cinnamon rolls.

We are also doing a free community dinner on Easter. It will be a full traditional meal. Fortunately I don't have to do any cooking for that.

Any other Easter cooks in the works?

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Sounds like you deserve a break from the Easter meal, with all the other cooking you do.

May I ask how large of a congregation you are cooking for?

For myself, my cousin's husband volunteered me to cook and host Easter dinner. Pretty plain and basic, I am not able to work outside the box. Ham and carbs pretty much. Mashed potatoes, noodles, corn , bread, stuffing, and some kind of cake, the cousin is bringing a strawberry pole cake, so keeping with that theme I am going to do a Boston Cream Pie poke cake. Probably only be about 15 people.

Glazed ham, scalloped potatoes and green beans.

Younger members of my relatively new extended family are fussy eaters and their parents cater to it.  As a result I've been charged with grilling pork chops.  I bought a pork loin and will cut two-inch boneless chops from it, brine them and two-zone grill them in my kamado.  It would be easier to grill them on the PK but it won't hold them all.  Others are making the sides.

I will be doing a pork butt.  It is for only two of us, but I will take the leftovers with us on our upcoming 18 night trip in our new travel trailer.

green bean casserole (like on the back of a French's package) from the wife and I'll probably make some deviled eggs.  Headed to the in-laws.  Normally we'd host an ornate brunch.  As the kids have gotten college aged and COVID put us in full on lapsed Catholic category... just not as fun anymore.   

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The only thing I'm smoking is a pork butt; going to try Lambert's Sweet Rub O' Mine(with a dash of cayenne), with a sorghum molasses coating, and see how that works. Others are bringing a ham, and there's too many sides to count. 

Sounds like you deserve a break from the Easter meal, with all the other cooking you do.

May I ask how large of a congregation you are cooking for?

For myself, my cousin's husband volunteered me to cook and host Easter dinner. Pretty plain and basic, I am not able to work outside the box. Ham and carbs pretty much. Mashed potatoes, noodles, corn , bread, stuffing, and some kind of cake, the cousin is bringing a strawberry pole cake, so keeping with that theme I am going to do a Boston Cream Pie poke cake. Probably only be about 15 people.

They are fairly small groups. There were 26 at the Maundy Thursday service. I am not anticipating more than a dozen at the Sunrise Service. We are making a push for people to watch on Facebook if they don't want to face the elements. The Easter dinner  however, will probably serve 125+ people. My only job will be to drop off lunches to those who are shut-in.

Younger members of my relatively new extended family are fussy eaters and their parents cater to it.  As a result I've been charged with grilling pork chops.  I bought a pork loin and will cut two-inch boneless chops from it, brine them and two-zone grill them in my kamado.  It would be easier to grill them on the PK but it won't hold them all.  Others are making the sides.

Would you mind sharing your brine recipe? I am doing pork chops for our family Easter, which we will celebrate the Saturday after Easter.

Would you mind sharing your brine recipe? I am doing pork chops for our family Easter, which we will celebrate the Saturday after Easter.

I'll happily offer it up.  I posted it in Basic Brine a couple of years ago.

EDIT:  This is my favorite pork chop recipe.  It's what I'm doing again for this Easter meal.

We will be haviving a smoked ham with a glaze, lionize potatoes, vegetables and roles.  For desert chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies and a chocolate coffee cake with dark chocolate ganache. I will use a coffee butter cream for the frosting.   

I'll happily offer it up.  I posted it in Basic Brine a couple of years ago.

EDIT:  This is my favorite pork chop recipe.  It's what I'm doing again for this Easter meal.

Thanks for posting it. Once I saw it, I realized I had used it before. It is a good one. I used your prime rib recioe for our breakfast and was very pleased with the results. https://pelletfan.com/index.php?topic=4539.0

Easter turned out to be quite an adventure. My computer went crazy about 11 p.m.on Saturday night and created some major challenges that took all night to deal with.

The breakfast turned out great. Prime rib, and egg bake, and cinnamon rolls. It has been a while since I've eaten any of those things, they tasted especially good.

The Easter community dinner was nice. I didn't stay too long, I was whooped! I did deliver a few meals to some folks and called it a day. I wish I had some pictures from.the lunch. People were having a fun time eating and fellowshiping together.

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 Nice looking plate for breakfast, the GF would be back in line for the cinnamon rolls a few times.

What is in your egg bake?
 
making what I call a fritatta tomorrow for dinner, with some of the left over ham. Green peppers, onions, cheese and eggs. I will mix it all together and in an iron skillet to cook for a minute or two and then finish in the oven.

very very nice