Mother's Day Brunch and Dessert

I am one of the few people in this world to be blessed with two mothers and a mother-in-law.  One of the nice things about mother's day is that I get to celebrate these wonderful women in my life by treating them with things they love.
Sadly, one of my moms is not close by, so we just get to talk on the phone.  But someday I hope we can do a special mother's day brunch together!

This year we changed things up for Mother's Day.  We did not go to church and, instead invited Mom and Dad over for breakfast.  It ended up being brunch due to 3 disasters in the kitchen before 9 AM!  Fun way to start the day.

So the menu for our feast was Scones, Fruit Salad, and Bacon and Cheese Quiche.  I had been looking all week for a particular item to try a new recipe but cannot locate it in the store (anyone know where I can find some malt powder?), so I decided to go with an old favorite: Classic Cream Scones from Southern Living Magazine.  The Fruit Salad was inspired by a recipe in Cuisine at Home, but is completely different.  And the Bacon and Cheese Quiche was a recipe found on a delightful cooking blog I found a couple weeks ago. 

The adventures of this morning began shortly before 6AM.  I got started on the scones and was very happy at the success of this recipe.  It could not be easier to make these (15 minutes to oven, tops) and they are wonderful plain, but can be accented nicely with the addition of lemon curd or clotted cream.  They were so easy in fact that I am thinking of getting into the kitchen later this week and playing around with this recipe.  I am thinking cinnamon pecan scones (maybe with maple)?! 

For the fruit salad I was unable to get some of the necessary fruit for the recipe from Cuisine at Home (sad lack of good peaches thus far this year) so I went with what I could get.  Aren't all the best fruit salads made from whatever you have on hand?  I was concerned with the sweetness of the strawberries I had picked because they were HUGE(!)  so I worked up a little concoction of agave nectar lime and lemon juice and poured it over the fruit.  The results were wonderful. 

Now for the woes of the day.  The first: the pie crust fell in the oven while pre-baking it.  The second: the second pie crust fell in the oven while pre-baking it.  At this I almost cried.  What to do? Run to Target for another pie crust (the frozen kind that won't fall in the pre-baking stage).  Success!  The third: Upon filling the pie-crust after getting it pre-baked, it overflowed...and overflowed....and overflowed.  Verge of tears again.  I slipped it into a pie pan and threw it in the oven and prayed for success.  Thirty minutes later...success...yay!  I don't know what was wrong with the pie crusts, but I did buy the store brand and I am considering taking them back and asking for my money back.  Have you ever had this happen to you?  The quiche tasted great - I will definitely modify this recipe in the future and use it again.  I forgot to take a picture, but after all that, can you blame me?

So, with breakfast finished, I got started on a dessert we were taking to the fish-fry at my sister-in-law's house for Drew's Mom.  Morgan requested the dessert based on the picture when she was here on Thursday, so I could not disappoint.   Besides I had been thinking of making it all along.  The recipe for Strawberry Pizza is from Cuisine at Home mag.  It is basically a pecan, shortbread-like cookie with a mascapone filling, topped with strawberries (it should have also had chocolate shavings on top, but I had a hard time locating a dark chocolate bar).  This was surprisingly light after a heavy meal.  It was perfectly sweet (but not too) and the pecans were a nice treat with the strawberries.  I don't think it needs the chocolate, but if you love chocolate, it might be a must.  Mmm...too bad I didn't get any to bring home, man was it good!

So, there you have it.  A mother's day meant to honer the mothers in my life.  I am thankful everyday for the women God has placed in my life to teach me the path of womanhood.  Someday, I hope to be a mom to some little one, so I can tell him/her all about his/her grandmothers.  Thanks, Moms!

A Young Favorite Returns

Today was a Thursday with Morgan day!  I love when Morgan comes over...great conversation and great food are always in order. 

Tonight we had an old fashioned recipe made somewhat different by one modification.  I got the recipe for Meatball Stroganoff out of a Cuisine at Home recent issue.  Yes, it is what you are thinking: beef stroganoff with meatballs instead of chunks of meat, pretty clever.  I actually began making this dinner a couple weeks ago when I made the meatballs for this an tomorrow night's recipe and flash froze them.  They had a great deal on ground sirloin, so I jumped on it and made enough meatballs for two completely different recipes.  I have to say these meatballs are stand-alone good.  I highly recommend the recipe from this mag for meatballs.
The dinner is very easy to prepare once you have the meatballs thawed out.  It takes about 30 minutes from start to finish.  I was hoping the sauce would be a little spicy because of the addition of paprika and cayenne, but was surprised to find all heat missing.  If I were to do it again, I would double the ammount of cayenne to give it a little kick. 

I paired dinner with some asparagus.  We found great thin asparagus at Henry's Farmers Market yesterday and I was pleased with the result.  Don't you just love when you find a great, fresh ingredient at a great price?

After washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen a little bit, and an episode of the Golden Girls (yes, I introduced Morgan to Rose Nyland), we got started on the dessert.  This one was interesting.  Morgan and I made a Chex cereal based recipe a while back.  When she got in the car today, she told me she was craving it again.  So, I set about creating the recipe as I remembered it.  Well, I got the recipe completely wrong, but we ended up with a nice after dinner treat.  She will also be taking some of it in her lunch tomorrow because we don't need the temptation around here for very long. The recipe is Snickerdoole Chex Mix and can be found here.  We will have to try the one she was craving next time.

N'alens Date Night

Tonight we took the closest thing to a trip to the Big Easy we will ever probably have.  We hold nothing against the food in New Orleans, just the dirty streets, binge drinking, and opressive voodoo are not really our idea of a great vacation spot.  But those Cajuns sure know how to cook up some flavorful food, so I thought I would give it a try.
I tried a dinner for 2 menu out of a recent issue of Cuisine at Home (I highly recommend this cooking mag, because there are no ads, just recipes and the food is always, always good).  The Recipes were Jambalaya Wraps, Fried Okra, and Hurricanes.  Drew, our household bartender, helped me out with the hurricanes while I finished up dinner.
The recipe for the jambalaya wraps was adjusted while I made them to increase the flavor profile.  I added some PC Cajun Rub, a lot more Tobasco, and left out the wraps.  I was thinking it looked so good by itself, I was wondering why the tortilla made it any better, so I left them out.  This is a great quick recipe for two (it actually makes enough for a third wheel, too) and tasted great.  As always, the ultimate compliment in our house is seconds.

For me the star of the night's dinner was fried okra.  My favorite southern vegetable...I will eat it any way you give it to me, but fried, it can't be beat...mmm...where is the rest of it?  Oh wait, there wasn't any more.
Now for the Hurricanes...Drew said took a sip and said they were a lot less rum-flavored than he was expecting.  I took a sip and said all I tasted was rum.  Such is life in this house.  I switched to water immediately and Drew was left to try to finish the drink meant for 2 without me.  Don't worry, I don't have an inebriated man in my house. 
Great dinner with my man.