Money is tight right now. Really, really tight. And I'm hosting Easter brunch for the extended family - 8 adults and 2 children, INCLUDING an easter egg hunt for the kids (argh).
Total budget: 20$, INCLUDING the eggs for the hunt, plus an already-owned bottle of prosecco that we were given at Christmas and whatever is in the pantry.
Plan: Easter egg hunt with coffee for the adults, and then quiches and salad and mimosas. Festive enough?
Menu:
Chocolate eggs, and a chocolate rabbit for my daughter: 5$ MAX
Quiche lorraine x2, spinach and gruyere quiche x2 (Eggs on sale 2$, leeks 1$, gruyère/cheddar 4$, pie dough made from pantry ingredients plus 1$ in butter, ham leftover from the ham I made on Tuesday from the ham that was bought on sale, and about 1 cup of milk from our ever-plentiful milk supply - maybe 50 cents worth)
Spinach salad: huge bag of costco spinach for 3$ (take out 2-3 handfulls to put in the veggie quiche), with a lemon-dijon-fresh herb dressing that's homemade and kept in the fridge in a 1L mason jar; I make a batch every 2 months or so.
Mimosas: 2$ orange juice, already-owned prosecco (12$ to buy, looking at the govt website)
Decoration: 1 dozen eggs (on sale, 2$), hard-boiled and home-dyed (onion skins=yellow, slightly-rotten red cabbage=blue, withered and gross beets = red, and then you can compost them anyway, which is what I was going to do in the first place!). Lay that out on top of planted wheatgrass (planted last weekend, in a large serving platter, should be nice and green by weekend) and you've got a lovely centerpiece for 0$ out of pocket, since the hard-boiled eggs can go right back in the fridge and be peeled and used for lunches during the following week.
Festive brunch for 10, including mimosas AND easter chocolate for kids, for 20$CAD out-of-pocket or 35$ total (including alcohol and approximate cost of pantry ingredients). Yep. Go us.