White Bean and Ham Hock Soup with Arugula at our house today. After reading the reviews, we were careful not to add the fresh tomatoes until the beans were cooked, lest their acidity interfere with their softening. They went in near the end with the arugula. Cooking the beans took about two hours, not one. We also pureed two cups of the beans to a gravy-like consistency and poured the slurry back into the soup.

Although the recipe called for corn bread croutons, we had corn bread on the side. It's Delicious Southern Cornbread doubled to fit our 10-inch cast-iron skillet. The texture was fine, but the taste was a little bland. Maybe the recipe's suggestion of using sorghum molasses (or strong maple syrup) instead of honey would help. There's only 2 tbsp. in the doubled recipe, so more pronounced sweetener might give it some flavor rather than merely take the edge off.

Dessert was an apple salad with Gala and Granny Smith apples, finely chopped celery, raisins, dried cranberries and a little vanilla yogurt to keep the apples white and pull it all together.

This was all lighter than traditional Easter meals, pleasant, fresh-tasting and springlike.

Ice cream, cookies, and assorted chocolate was optional.

I hope you're also pleasantly stuffed and spending the holiday with people you like.