A sunny meal for a cloudy day.

On the Menu: Sunflower Shoot Salad with Sunny-Side Up Eggs and Roasted Sunchokes

Easter was way late this year, and it snuck up on us unexpectedly amidst end of the semester projects, papers, and studying for exams. Oh, and we’re supposed to be doing thesis research, too. Easter has great meaning for me, as I was confirmed in my Catholic faith two years ago on Easter. Kevin isn’t religious, but last year we made a nice dinner with a small ham, cheesy scalloped potatoes, and green bean casserole. It was a very grand gesture and made my first Easter half a country away from my family much easier.

This year, Easter feels very strange. I gave up Twitter for Lent because I spent so much time scrolling through little updates of what other people were doing with their lives and being insanely jealous of their wonderful exploits. I have become increasingly unhappy with my graduate school career and found the somberness of Lent to be too much for me to deal with this year. I haven’t gone to church since the first week of Lent, when Mass made me so unhappy that I couldn’t imagine going back until after Easter. The guilt that has racked up inside of me as a result of not attending Mass hasn’t made this Lenten season any easier.

Well, it’s Easter now. I woke up this morning with a warmth in my chest that I haven’t felt in a long time. The sky was clear and the sun was shining, and even though clouds have since moved in, I feel an optimism that I don’t want to go away.

Our Easter dinner this year? Not happening. Neither of us really has the time or energy to make a nice dinner like we did last year. Today we’re working on homework assignments and term papers. We did go to the farmer’s market yesterday, where we picked up some sunchokes and some sunflower shoots, surefire signs of spring in the northern reaches of New England. We decided on a fresh Easter lunch instead; a salad with spinach and sunflower shoots served with roasted sunchokes.

Sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes, are a tuber in the sunflower family. You can plant the roots or you can eat them. Clearly we would choose the latter.

We followed a recommended preparation method from The Kitchn, slicing them and tossing them with garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper, and olive oil before putting them in the oven for 15 minutes.

While we were roasting the sunchokes, we decided to add some sunny-side up eggs to the meal to bring the greens and the starch together. I plated the spinach and sunflower shoots and whipped up a red wine vinagrette while Kevin fried up two eggs. I dressed the greens, Kevin topped each of our plates off with an egg, and the sunchokes came out of the oven. Things got pretty sunny around here.

Our Easter lunch was delicious. The sunchokes were perfectly roasted and had a similar texture to a potato. Kevin thought they tasted like beets, but I thought they tasted just like sunflower seeds. The salad was equally as delicious; the egg yolk and the red wine vinegar combined to make a rich and tangy salad dressing that complemented the greens well. The sunflower shoots have a nutty taste, just like sunflower seeds (and sunchokes!). As we ate, we thought of summer, that season of endless outdoor opportunity that is calling our name after such a long winter and a dreary spring. The sunniness of our lunch was happily overwhelming and left us both in a state of sheer contentment.

Tonight, I’m going to Mass to celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord. Then I’m coming home and baking a wicked cake that I hope to tell you about at some point. It’s going to be a three-layer cake, something I’ve never made before and something I’m quite nervous about. But I woke up this morning with a renewed optimism, ready to tackle anything. Even school, but I don’t want to get too crazy just yet. We’ll see how this week goes; I’m about to begin the meat of the research for my thesis and I’m absolutely terrified. Today, I will celebrate and acknowledge all of my blessings. Like living in Maine. Being with Kevin. My family, half a country away who no doubt ran through the house and found their Easter baskets at an ungodly early hour this morning. I have truly been blessed.

Happy Easter!

Roasted Sunchokes
from The Kitchn (link in post)

2 to 3 large sunchokes, sliced 1/4-inch thick
2 T. olive oil
1/2 T. salt
1 sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves removed
3 to 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Scrub the sunchokes under cold running water and slice 1/4-inch thick. Add the sunchokes and garlic to a roasting pan or baking sheet and toss with the olive oil so the bottom of the pan and the sunchokes are lightly coated. Add more olive oil a tablespoon at a time if you don’t feel like the vegetables are coated enough, but not too much; you don’t want them swimming in olive oil. Sprinkle with the salt and rosemary. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the sunchokes are tender inside, like a potato.