Mother's Day

[Kim Shook]

Like Daniel mentions in the dinner thread, we are making some changes in our eating/cooking habits so Mother’s day was my last blast, so to speak. I cooked what I liked. Everyone asked why I was cooking on Mother’s day and I said that it was my treat to myself! I cooked a lot ahead and then spent most of the day in the kitchen with lots of help from my mom and Mr. Kim. It was fun and exhausting and we’ve got plenty of leftovers to finish before we start the new habits .

I did both brunch and dinner. Ted Fairhead and my mom are up and my dad and his wife were on their way back to FL from Northern VA. Mr. Kim’s parents are here in Richmond, so we had a houseful. I love the sounds of a full house! I had a few crazy moments (I always do – one Christmas I sent all the children back to school with some new vocabulary words!), but I had a lot of help!

Before the invasion:

I served shrimp salad and mini croissants:

Breakfast Strudel:

Sausage & Grits Casserole:

Benton’s Bacon:

Fruit Salad:

With Momma and Ted’s Taz policing the buffet!

Dessert:

That’s coconut cupcakes with lemon curd filling and a purchased fruit tart.

Dinner was much simpler. Predinner nibbles included fried haloumi cheese w/ pita and some really good olives I found:

For dinner I served James Beard’s pastitsio and French bread:

I don’t have a picture of the salad – I did one of our favorites. It is the one of the simplest and also one of the most delicious salads that I make. It’s just really crunchy, fresh iceberg with a dressing made of equal parts light cream, sugar and white vinegar. Everyone always loves it, but it’s one of those things that you don’t tell people the ingredients until they’ve tasted it!

Everything turned out really well. But best of all, we all set around and talked and laughed and told stories. I served brunch at 1pm and we were still around the table at 3. Dinner was at 7 and the last one left after 11. I call that a success – no matter what the food tasted like!

I hope all the mom’s at eG had a wonderful day, filled with what makes you happy!

[racheld]

Woooo, Kimber!!! What a LOVELY repast!!!

Chris gazed over my shoulder as he pointed out all the similar/exact serving pieces we share. What a lovely day!!

Just to see what the august JB did to pastitsio, I googled it, and you're the fourth entry---clicking took me straight back to your table.

We spent the day at DS#2 and DDIL's new home---our family, her parents, her sis and her family----with three little girls giggling and romping to keep us amused.

They called it a cookout, but the weather was a bit grumpy, so we ate indoors.

Burgers, grilled chicken breasts, and the most wonderful plain old Nathan's hot dogs. I'd grown so accustomed to having the dogs steam atop the sauerkraut before assembling the hot dogs, that I'd almost forgotten the charm of the little blistery dark-to-black sections which accent every bite of a real-toasted dog, whether from a grill or over a fire with a stick---they're a classic.

The usual accoutrements---potato salad, stuffed eggs, vegetable tray and chips and dips, as well as a bowl of blue slaw. Strawberry ice cream cake, fudge medallions, and a four-berry WW crumble which was just wonderful---the real taste of every berry in the purply syrup bubbled at the edges to make the best part of any cobbler---that thick, almost chewy cooked-onto-the-casserole part that's part candy, part pie.

[Kim Shook]

Rachel, that is just the way that I love my dogs - blackened and crispy. Our friends joke that my designated hot dogs go on the grill with the hamburgers instead of later with the other dogs !

[curls]

Reviving this older thread to ask what are your Mother's Day cooking plans this year?

 

I will be hosting my mom and mother-in-law this year for dinner, along with a few guests. The planned menu is: chicken pot pie with a phyllo dough top crust, salad (salad greens, tomoatoes, cucumber, peppers, avocado), store-bought loaf of bread, and KAF berry blitz torte. I have experience making (or buying) everything except for the torte. Have been looking for an occasion to make the torte and finally have enough time and people to bake it! Will try to take some photos and post them after the event.

Edited May 13, 2019 by curls (log)

[BeeZee]

We are doing lunch, my sister is hosting, she is making shrimp cakes and puff pastry baked with tomato and zucchini (I believe). I am tasked with making some kind of sauce for the shrimp cakes, I will be making a mango based one (found recipe online) and classic cocktail sauce. Also making a strawberry crisp for dessert.

Edited May 12, 2019 by BeeZee (log)

[Kim Shook]

We are having two celebrations.  My mom is in a nursing home and we are taking tea sandwiches (cucumber, ham & hard boiled egg, and smoked salmon), fruit salad and store-bought pastries and cookies to her for lunch.  Then my SIL is having dinner - something on the grill and she doesn't want me to bring anything.  Not sure whether to be relieved or insulted.  😉

[liuzhou]

23 hours ago, curls said:

Reviving this older thread to ask what are your Mother's Day cooking plans this year?

 

 

Right now nothing. Not only is my mother on the other side of the planet, but Mother's Day was back in March! The May Mother's Day is American, but China also follows that model.

 

All day I've had people asking if I have called my mother. It took me a while to work out why.

 

Never mind. She turns 90 in June, so I'm planning a trip home - haven't seen her for 12 years!

Edited May 12, 2019 by liuzhou (log)

[MetsFan5]

My mom is temporarily on a low sugar diet until she gets another blood test later this month. She didn’t tell them she hadn’t fasted and just had a lot of coffee 🙈. 

 

So anyway I respect that so we are having mini (1 oz if that) crab cakes, procuitto, salami, bacon wrapped scallops and olives for apps. This is stupid of me, it’s four people. 

  Because then we will have cheese fondue with a $17 baguette my husband put in the cart. I didn’t look because who in their right mind would actually buy a long piece of bread for $17? I don’t spend that much on wine (other than wines I store). 

 

  So my mom can’t eat the bazillionaire bread but I bought precut veggies and that makes life a lot easier. 

 

  We did go to a high end grocery store but other than buying a family in need a grocery bags worth of “Pasta Dinner” (they keep them at the check out and give them to the various local shelters. It does focus on children) and I was a bit curious about the total and the looked at this 3 fr baguette. I almost want to use it as a sword because I expect truffles to come flying out, but it’s a basic, long piece of idk, “French bread”? I thought he’d idk, maybe look at the various prices and not throw the most overpriced science experiment in our cart, ever? 

 

[suzilightning]

@MetsFan5...you have just described why I do NOT let John go grocery shopping with me!!!  The last time I did was just before he started Hep C treatment.  He had the top part of the cart; I had the main part.  His was over 75.00; mine about 40.00.  Then he didn't eat most of it as the medications he was on changed his tastebuds...sometimes several times in one day.

To all of you who are mothers I wish you great happiness with your families; for those of you who no longer have your moms with you I hope you will share stories with your loved ones.  I still remember being about 4, standing in the kitchen of the house I grew up in confronting my mom and Nana who were standing opposite me.  Mom at 5' nothing, Nana at 5'7"  and me pointing first at my mom then at my grandmother and saying " Now, let me get this right.  You're my mom and she's your mom?"  

She will be gone 29 years in September; mother-in-law #1 gone for 5, mother-in-law #2 gone for 21, now I'm going to go call mother-in-law #3.

[Katie Meadow]

For several years my husband and I have hosted a brunch for his mother and his siblings plus whatever nephews and nieces are around. My daughter is never around since she lives in Atlanta. My mother passed away years ago at 94. Now my MIL is 92 and our brunch plans flew out the window when she broke her arm (badly) last week. She's in a rehab center and we are converging on her this afternoon. I made brownies for dessert, a substantial number of which disappeared last night, but no one this year is in a position to cook much of anything and drive it up to Davis so we will order pizza, which will most likely be terrible. The only request my MIL has made is that her cat come to visit her. Maybe someone is working on that, but it isn't me.

[kayb]

I got lazy and declined to cook the sides to go with the barbecue I had, so we are ordering Mexican to eat in, because that way we don't have to keep the grandson still in a restaurant, and we can all slouch around in our yoga pants. Waiting on it to arrive. I may drink a batch of mimosas, which I had planned to do at brunch.

 

[robirdstx]

Cooking plans are Sous Vide, then finished on the grill, Beef Ribeye with Crash Hot Potatoes and a Salad for the two of us. We have both spoken with our mothers. Very happy and lucky to have them, and our fathers, healthy and still with us! Ages range from 91 to 84.

[IowaDee]

Hubby and I are both "orphans" now.  And the kids won't be here today.   Just the two old farts.  Like we do several times in the spring and summer, we made a meal of nothing but strawberry shortcake.  Our SIL was shocked to his core when he heard this but he has sense gotten over it.  Hope he never finds out we have been known to wash it down with champagne!   Face it, we are just not "proper"!

Edited May 12, 2019 by IowaDee (log)

[Okanagancook]

Just my DH’s 97 y.o. Mom still standing.  Called her at the “ home “ she loves.  They gave all the gals roses for mother’s day and a special lunch.

We are having grass fed rib eye steak, grilled oyster mushrooms and spring onion plus a nice baked potato with all the fix’ns.  But first a gin martini made with the world ‘s best Gin from Vancouver Island...documented over on the Gin thread. It is really a wonderful gin, herbal but not over powering with a long finish.

[chefmd]

1 hour ago, IowaDee said:

Hubby and I are both "orphans" now.  And the kids won't be here today.   Just the two old farts.  Like we do several times in the spring and summer, we made a meal of nothing but strawberry shortcake.  Our SIL was shocked to his core when he heard this but he has sense gotten over it.  Hope he never finds out we have been known to wash it down with champagne!   Face it, we are just not "proper"!

 

It is how I feel after losing my Father last year: an orphan.  Which is a strange feeling for a grown up.  My mother died a while ago.  Today I went to a meditation where the topic was Mother's Love.  We all said our mothers's names out loud at the end.  I also said my Grandmother's name, she practically raised me.  Not cooking or doing anything special, still not on board with various Hallmark Holidays after living in US for 25 years.  So I am not "proper" either :).  Or I can call my roasted chicken and cute baby zucchini dinner "Mother's Day dinner".

[gfweb]

SV lamb chops, mashed potatoes, hot sprout/onion/cranberry slaw. 

[gfweb]

2 minutes ago, chefmd said:

It is how I feel after losing my Father last year: an orphan.  Which is a strange feeling for a grown up.  My mother died a while ago.  Today I went to a meditation where the topic was Mother's Love.  We all said our mothers's names out loud at the end.  I also said my Grandmother's name, she practically raised me.  Not cooking or doing anything special, still not on board with various Hallmark Holidays after living in US for 25 years.  So I am not "proper" either :).  Or I can call my roasted chicken and cute baby zucchini dinner "Mother's Day dinner".

I agree about Hallmark holidays. Not quite legit, but Mother’s Day comes close for me. And it’s an excuse to cook/eat/visit so there’s that. 

[pastrygirl]

Keeping it simple & bringing over take-out fried chicken.

Edited May 12, 2019 by pastrygirl (log)

[kayb]

2 hours ago, IowaDee said:

Hubby and I are both "orphans" now.  And the kids won't be here today.   Just the two old farts.  Like we do several times in the spring and summer, we made a meal of nothing but strawberry shortcake.  Our SIL was shocked to his core when he heard this but he has sense gotten over it.  Hope he never finds out we have been known to wash it down with champagne!   Face it, we are just not "proper"!

 

Proper is highly overrated. Also, not nearly as much fun as strawberry shortcake and champagne (she said, as she munched chocolate covered strawberries and sipped on a mimosa....).

 

[MetsFan5]

My therapist does a lot of groups for people who lost their mothers. I hope to hell I will never be a part of those groups for decades. My mom said to me yesterday “I’m 69 years old, how gross is that?”  Then I reminded her I was 39 and hardly a child. 

 

  We did fondue with zucchini, squash, mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli, baby potatoes, ham, mini meatballs and the $17 baguette. It came from Manhattan. We live 20 miles away and my husband works there. I’m still in shock. It was just.... bread. 

  

[Katie Meadow]

6 hours ago, IowaDee said:

Hubby and I are both "orphans" now.  And the kids won't be here today.   Just the two old farts.  Like we do several times in the spring and summer, we made a meal of nothing but strawberry shortcake.  Our SIL was shocked to his core when he heard this but he has sense gotten over it.  Hope he never finds out we have been known to wash it down with champagne!   Face it, we are just not "proper"!

 

Bubbly and strawberry anything sounds like the perfect meal. And very very proper. Frankly you would be weird if you washed your strawberry shortcake down with anything else. Well okay, maybe a cup of Earl Grey, but that wouldn't be very celebratory...more like comfort food.

[Bernie]

The Earl Grey would be OK but only if you were to add some gin or bourbon ......

[curls]

As mentioned earlier, some photos of the Mother's Day meal. Not pictured are the bread and salad. Also, looking at Kim Shook's earlier photos, I realize that it would have been nice if I had caputured some dining room shots with everything arranged and served. Hopefully I'll remember next time. Everyone apperared to enjoy the meal and I can highly recommend the KAF berry blitz torte.

 

chicken pot pie with phyllo crust

 

berry blitz torte, recipe from King Arthur Flour

 

Edited May 13, 2019 by curls (log)

[Kim Shook]

Momma's afternoon tea went very well - I'll post the pictures in the lunch thread.  My SIL ended up making delicious grilled salmon, steamed shrimp, baby kale salad and fruit salad.  Dessert was lemon granita made with lemon's from my BIL's tree in AZ.  

[chefmd]

My friend’s daughter is an aspiring baker.  She made this box for me with tea sandwiches, scones, cookies, macarons, lemon curd.  She even included tea drops!  What a lovely surprise.