How to throw a canned food Easter feast
As the Easter bank holiday weekend approaches, we’re quite sure lockdown isn’t what anyone had planned.
But, whilst your plans for dinner guests or barbeques with the neighbours are put on hold, there’s no reason not to enjoy a flavour-filled feast with your own family or partner this Easter Sunday.
Creative cooking is one of the unexpected joys to come from this time of isolation, and as consumers begin to look out for long-life food, choosing groceries with good nutritional value and longer shelf life, canned food is changing status from store cupboard staple to everyday necessity.
Ensuring home cooking is nourishing, flavoursome and available throughout the year canned food is something of a lockdown hero for British homes. And in the spirit of coming together to eat during a crisis, we’ve looked into our recipe archive to bring you a spring menu featuring a range of canned foods that together, create a standout Easter menu.
First on the table, we love this Tomato and Olive Tart starter featuring a combination of goats cheese and pesto alongside the canned tomato, cherry tomato and olive topping. Serving 4-6 people, the recipe is a straightforward one which means it’s a great dish to prepare with children too. Involve older children with chopping ingredients, and little ones will enjoy layering up the toppings on the pastry. If six servings are too many, this starter will also keep a day in the fridge and is equally delicious served with salad as a light lunch option another day.
If you don’t want to give up your Easter Sunday lamb this year but are enjoying the creative cooking movement, this recipe from Billy & Jack – MasterChef finalists – is one of our all-time favourites and is one of our most visited recipe pages.
Roast lamb stuffed with olives; hummus; and roast potatoes delivers an Eastern Mediterranean twist to the traditional Easter roast with some different seasonings. Olives, anchovies and garlic give the lamb a punchy flavour, to which the velvety hummus and crispy minted potatoes complement perfectly.
It wouldn’t be unreasonable to need a pause in proceedings after two such glorious courses, but when the inevitable sweet cravings arise, we wholly recommend a spring favourite for pudding – Pavlova with boozy cherry sauce.
Another winning recipe from Billy & Jack, the meringue in this recipe uses chickpeas! We know it sounds mad, but believe us, this is absolutely worth trying and has the added bonus of allowing a sense of smug virtue whilst eating a huge serving. The chickpeas act as an egg substitute, which means you can also file this recipe as a great option for vegan dinner guests.
Whipped coconut milk and icing sugar combines to make a light and delicious cream, whilst the warmed mix of canned cherries, Amaretto, thyme and cinnamon will create a sauce you will want to pour onto most, if not all desserts. There’s less nutritional virtue in this, of course – but we reckon you’ll still love us for it.
And that brings us to the end of your Easter lockdown lunch – all that remains now is to wash up… and restock the cupboards with canned food, ready for the next menu masterpiece.
Happy Easter can lovers!
