Saturday, April 19, 2025

What to cook for 20 people? A Favorite, Simple Festive Dinner + More Easter Favorites

Friends, hello from Vermont, where green mountains and dogs abound!

We arrived at my cousin's house yesterday evening with dinner in tow for 20 people: four baked pastas (assembled but not baked), large-batch Caesar dressing with many bags of Romaine, focaccia, and two almond tortes, which my sister, who does not like to cook or bake, whipped up yesterday morning.

We baked the pastas upon arrival, assembled the salad while the pasta baked, and warmed the focaccia while the pasta rested. It was simple and got the job done, feeding a ton of people without a ton of work.

When contemplating the menu, I had thought about a few other favorites, namely Yotam Ottolenghi's roast chicken with clementines with a simple salad on the side, but with a few vegetarians and lots of children in the mix, the baked pastas felt like the safest bet.

It was all well received, and again, easy. Today we are celebrating Easter a day early with lamb on the spit, spanakopita, Greek salad, and orange-ricotta pound cake. To all who are celebrating, I am wishing you a wonderful holiday weekend. Gotta get back to these dogs! 👋👋👋


Review of the Week

My Grandmother's Mustard Sauce

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"This stuff is addictive, seriously. I just made it for the first time, and when I took a little spoon and tasted it, I had to keep going back to the cutlery drawer for more spoons for more tastes. I just washed eight tasting spoons. This will be fantastic with our Easter ham and I can't wait for our foodie son to taste it!"

— Maureen


A Simple, Festive Menu

Roasted Chicken with Clementines

All-Purpose Lemon Vinaigrette

Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread

Orange and Olive Oil Cake


Easter Menu 2025

In this post, I've rounded up all of my favorite Easter recipes, from baked ham and mustard sauce to rack of lamb with tzatziki to scalloped potatoes and punch to buttermilk pull-apart rolls and hot cross buns to easy-to-peel hard-boiled eggs and more.

Find all of them here as well as a few highlights below:


Hot Cross Buns

The dough for this recipe holds up well in the fridge, so don't be afraid to assemble your pan on the Wednesday or Thursday before Good Friday.

Baked Ham with Brown Sugar Glaze

If you've ever toiled over a roast turkey — from the brining to the basting to the carving — a baked ham feels like a complete dream. This past Christmas, I made a half ham (8 lbs.), which still fed a crowd of us and gave us leftovers for days (as well as a nice bone for split pea soup):


Crispy Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, For a Crowd

Lofty Popovers (Yorkshire Pudding)

There is nothing more magical than pulling a pan of lofty popovers from the oven just as everyone is sitting down for dinner, and making them couldn't be simpler. The secret? Room temperature ingredients.

Buttermilk Pull-Apart Rolls

Orange-Ricotta Pound Cake

I've included a number of desserts in my Easter post, and of all of them this is likely the easiest: orange-ricotta pound cake. What's nice about this one is that it can be made ahead — it keeps well for days — but it also can double as a tea cake or breakfast cake or really an anytime cake.

Flourless Chocolate Cake


Baked Feta with Olives and Citrus

In Friday's pizza newsletter, I shared a recipe for baked feta with citrus and olives from a gorgeous new cookbook. Get the recipe here:


Thank You

Thank you to all who have ordered Pizza Night. If you haven't left a review yet, I would be so grateful if you did! 🙏🙏🍕🍕🥗🥗


5 Free Resources Available to You

PS: All previous editions of this newsletter can be found here.

Happy Cooking,


Alexandra Stafford



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