Easter Weekend & Easy Salad

 Hello, and welcome back. I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! And if you don't celebrate Easter, I hope you had a nice weekend anyway.

We spent our weekend in Indiana with The Boyfriend's family. It took almost 12 hours to get there this time because of accidents and rain. This little cutie spent most of the drive sleeping in the back seat:

But the long drive was worth it just to see these three smiling faces; The Boyfriend's niece and nephews:

We celebrated a belated birthday, had an easter egg hunt, and played with the kids outside.

This little guy spent a large part of the weekend attached to my side:

 And here I am with his sister-in-law, his parents, and his niece and nephew on Easter morning:

 On Easter Sunday we did some more traveling to a northern part of Ohio, where his grandparents reside in a retirement village. I got to meet his extended family on his Dad's side, including aunts, cousins and grandparents.
 Everyone brought a plate of food and The Boyfriend and I brought our mediterranean pasta salad, as planned:

It turned out good, as usual, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The other main dishes included:

• ham loaf, which is ham, sausage, and beef all mixed together in a loaf-like shape.
•  a macaroni dish, which looked nice but was swimming in cheese and sour cream
•  corn casserole, which is very good but made with cow's milk sour cream. I will re-make it with vegan sour cream and post a recipe. Only three ingredients necessary!
• a delicious salad that The Boyfriend's Mom and I made
• and lots and lots of candy. 

as you can see, we knew it would be important for us to bring something we could eat. I threw the pasta salad together the night before and put it in the cooler with the rest of the take-along food on Sunday. If you are vegan, and if you are going somewhere you know will have a lot of meat and dairy dishes, take something you know you can get full on. Never assume anyone else will bring something you can eat, like salad or even rolls. Most things have dairy in them, even butter. And a lot of times, people are quick to add meat in places it doesn't necessarily need to be, like bacon bits on a salad and ham in green beans. They either don't know any better or they don't know there will be vegans attending, and that's no big deal, so bring your own food and everyone's happy!

  After the big meal, Jill and I had fun putting together easter baskets and hiding them for her kids.

Then we told them that we came out of the bathroom and saw "something" hopping away down the hall. They tore through the rooms looking for their easter baskets and it was fun to watch. I think kids really do make holidays more fun. Then everyone, grandparents included, went outside and had a big easter egg hunt.

 Of course, Jill and I couldn't let the day get away without making a little of our own fun and having a little photo shoot. Here we are in the "ice cream parlor" making "sundaes" for no one in particular:

and then we sat by the cute popcorn signs and enjoyed our "sundaes"

 and again...

 All in all, it was a successful holiday, and by the end of the day we were so tired we could barely keep our eyes open!

 I wanted to share a recipe for an easy, delicious salad that we took to the Easter meal with us.
It's crispy, fresh, and has a homemade salad dressing on it that is fast and easy.

 Easy Delicious Salad
1 head of romaine lettuce
2 carrots
1/2 red onion or you can use chives
1/2 cucumber
5 or so radishes
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
salt and pepper

 Cut up all the vegetables and lettuce into bite size pieces. Mix olive oil with red wine vinegar and drizzle on top.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss salad. You can easily adjust up or down to meet the amount of people you are serving.  Everyone who tried this salad really liked it, and we re-made it today now that we are home and it came out just as good.

This time, we added tomatoes and used chives instead of red onions. You can substitute as you see fit. The key ingredients here are definitely the red wine vinegar and olive oil.

 Did anyone else have to bring their own vegan meals to an Easter get together? What is your favorite go-to recipe? Have a great evening, and see you tomorrow!