Our Easter meal was a comparative breeze

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After my wife and son mutinied and refused to order from the Passover menu at Rosa Mexicano, assembling an Easter dinner the next day was easy.

When I ate meat, we'd buy a ham as the centerpiece of the meal, but my 13-year-old son wanted lobster, so my wife went to ShopRite after church. 

But live lobster, usually on sale for $4.99 or $5.99 a pound, was selling for $8.99 a pound on Sunday. My wife called, and when she told me the price, I said I was leaving to buy a ham at Whole Foods Market, a couple of miles away in Paramus.

I found just what I was looking for: A boneless, fully cooked Applewood Smoked Uncured Petite Ham from the Niman Ranch -- pork raised with "no antibiotics ever, no added hormones ever and all vegetarian feeds." It was $7.99 a pound, and weighed about a pound and a half.

I heated up the ham in the oven and found the rest of the ingredients at home -- hand-trimmed French green beans from Costco that needed only steaming and seasoning, and white rice, which I prepared in a rice cooker with Badia-brand Sazon Tropical to make it yellow (no MSG).

My Easter dinner? Old Farmhouse Vegetable Stew, also from Costco, and a big salad with beets, tomato, and some of those steamed green beans. 

I wanted a light meal after over-indulging the night before at the Mexican restaurant.