Mother's Day 2011

[Chris Amirault]

As with most holidays that involve food in some way or another, I'm cooking for mother's day. (I'll be charting the developments over here.) What are y'all doing?

[emannths]

Hoping to take advantage of the favorable forecast to grill some lamb (butterflied leg or rack, not sure yet) and a mess of vegetables (asparagus, eggplant, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, potatoes). Sunny and 65F counts as summer after the winter/spring we had this year!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I'll be baking a rather ridiculous number of strawberry shortcakes for everybody else's mothers!

For my own mother, I'm planning to make a gambas, which is her favourite dish, along with seared fresh tuna steaks in soy-balsamic glaze on a bed of fresh rattlesnake beans from our own garden, and a 7-green salad with lemongrass-peanut vinagrette, and for dessert a triple-chocolate zucchini cake with brandy truffle ganache icing.

[Chris Amirault]

A gambas is what, exactly?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Small langostino, butterflied and pan-fried with chunks of fresh tomato, diced red peppers, and fresh shallots. Sprinkle with parsley and serve. Strictly speaking, I should also be using good Hungarian sweet paprika and powdered Aji Macho in the dish, but Mom swears by the more delicate flavour of just the fresh red peppers (we grow an open-pollinated type that's somewhere between a Poblano and a Bell, which really are quite nice done this way - they have a very mild, sweet heat.)

Edited May 3, 2011 by Panaderia Canadiense (log)

[Genkinaonna]

My husband is surprising me with a lovely dinner out. I haven't decided where we're going yet .

He knows better than to try and pick a place himself...smart man!

[the old cook]

We learned years ago to forgo dining out on Mother's Day, it is as bad as Valentine's Day...overcrowded, rushed waitstaff, poor service, and generally speaking, poor menu choices on that day. So we either go days before, or days after any "holiday" to our favorite restaurants.

Meanwhile, I shall butter steam lobsters for husband and myself, and he'll grill small rib eyes to go with...we have fresh leeks from our garden which I"ll saute, and lettuces (also from our garden) to have nice salad. Bottle of wine, and we're happy people.

In fact, thinking about it, think I'll use some of our leeks, onions, cucumbers and make cream of cucumber soup to start. Sounds like a good meal to me!!

[rebecca]

Wait, it's mothers day?!? Woops... Toast it is!

[threestars]

I'll probably treat my Mom on a nice restaurant. I'm still thinking where. I won't have time to prepare a dish because of my current work sched.

[ChrisTaylor]

Dinner the night before at Embrasse. My dearest mother is only just starting to develop a taste for nice food so I wanted somewhere interesting but conservative. She won't, after all, eat anything even kind of resembling exotic ingredients such as prawns and scallops.

[toolprincess]

For my (almost) MIL we picked up deli sandwiches, potato salad, bacon and tomato pasta salad, mixed marinated olives, Route 66 lightly salted chips and apple pie for dessert. (all bought at the Fresh Market)

My MIL and I also shared a small sushi appetizer.

For my own mother - dinner out in her small town at a chain establishment not worth mentioning (she picked and it was mother's day).

Edited May 9, 2011 by toolprincess (log)

[Darienne]

Well, I am the Mother and we had Mexican food which I made. And I was quite happy at that.

[Genkinaonna]

We went out. I'm the mommy and I milked it for all it was worth! We did the chef's tasting menu at Clarklewis on Saturday night, which was amazing. We had:

Duck confit with gnocchi and pickled strawberries (my favorite course, hands down)

Asparagus and prosciutto with parmigiano

Gem lettuce with oregon blue cheese and lamb bacon

Rigati pasta with pork meatballs and chili flakes

Pappardelle with Lamb Ragu

Spagetti with Black Sheep Creamery ricotta, asparagus, and lemon zest

Cornmeal dusted halibut cheeks with black quinoa

Roasted Lamb with broccoli rabe

Chocolate profiteroles with salted toffee ice cream

Rice Pudding with Strawberry rhubarb compote

I was still full when I woke up Sunday morning!

[Kouign Aman]

Favorite local chinese restaurant for their house special shrimp, lo mein, chicken corn soup, and fried dumplings. Ate way way way too many shrimp. Life is good.

[heidih]

Snacked on homemade guacamole and salsa throughout the day and then hit the local pho house for rare beef pho. The basil was in particularly fine shape - I roll the larger leaves up with some of the beef and noodle and a squirt of hoisin.

[judiu]

Favorite local chinese restaurant for their house special shrimp, lo mein, chicken corn soup, and fried dumplings. Ate way way way too many shrimp. Life is good.

What's too many shrimp? I didn't know such a thing existed!

[Kouign Aman]

Good point.