Easter Cheese Paskha

Happy Orthodox Easter! Христос Воскерес!

Presence of God in our souls, the magical and spiritual feeling of joy every time you hear “The Christ has risen!” Risen indeed!”

Easter is one of the greatest holidays in Christianity. Each country has its own way of celebrating this glorious holiday, with its own set of traditions. In Ukraine traditional dishes include Easter eggs, Kulich and Easter Cheese Paskha – my favorite. Blessed by the priest during Easter service in the church – this trinity would always represent Easter traditions for me. No matter how busy I am, I always like to keep traditions alive in my own family as well. The urge to cook, bake and color eggs blow away everything else.

It also represents spring – time of renewal and new beginnings. I love spring, the sun shines more, and people look happier. Every Easter I am taken back to my childhood in Ukraine where the holiday is coming from century-old traditions and memories. I wasn’t familiar with the Easter Bunny and the Egg Hunt but instead, I got to eat a lot of hard-boiled eggs. Anyone you meet and greet on Easter day in Ukraine would give you a colorful egg. I ate soooo many of them. Everyone did, even our dogs and cats and even chickens did. Because there were always sooooo many! My babushka would color them in onion peels and have collections of onion peels specifically for this purpose. This year I decided to color my easter eggs the old-fashioned way as well.

Traditionally Easter Cheese Paskha is made from a farmer’s cheese called “Tvorog”, eggs, sugar, vanilla, butter and dried fruits. No cheesecake can compare to the smell of this delicious Easter Cheese Paskha baking in the oven. But BEWARE! Once I gave this recipe to the co-worker and her husband loved it so much, he kept asking her to cook it everyday. She would come home from work and the new set of Easter Cheese Paskha ingredients was waiting for her in the fridge with the sticky note “Can you please make it tonight again?”

It’s so easy to make! I know, I know, I say this almost every time, but trust me when I say easy it means stupid easy! All you have to do is combine all the ingredients and bake it for 45 minutes! See!?! I told you!

Ingredients:

2 lb cottage (farmers) cheese

6 eggs

1/2 cup of melted butter

1 cup rasins

1 vanilla bean, or 1 tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup greek yogurt

I recently allowed myself to pour some condensed milk over the top of Easter Cheese Paskha and decided it was a great success. And don’t even try to stop me!