My sisters and I are all lucky enough to live near our amazing mom so we make sure to get together to spoil her as best as we can every Mothers Day. She would be happy just to spend the day with us but considering how much she does for us all year, we make sure to at least cook and clean for her so she can try to take a day off!
We love planning out special meals our mom would like and since they all turned out so well I thought I'd share them with you guys as they're all great any day of the year and for any special person in your life (or yourself!)
Starting with brunch, we decided to have a make-your-own yogurt parfait set-up along with some homemade biscuits and jam.
My sister Genevieve did most of the work on the yogurt parfaits, laying out two kinds of tropical-flavoured yogurt (Greek and regular), bananas, strawberries, blackberries, and mango for fruit, some coconut chia granola (which I've mentioned before and love!), and a strawberry chia lemon curd which she made the night before. The curd was delicious and everyone loved that it was healthy too! The recipe she used can be found here on Edible Perspective.
My older sister spent the morning making homemade biscuits that were perfectly fluffy and warm and amazing topped with jam. The recipe for the biscuits came from a cookbook called Breakfast and Beyond: Comfort Food from Dawn to Dusk, which she bought at Sunny Point Cafe on a recent trip to North Carolina, after eating there and loving it!
After brunch, we each gave Mom some cards and gifts, then we all went for a family walk in a big park. The weather has finally warmed up here and flowers are just starting to bloom, so we were able to walk outside in t-shirts for the first time and took some lovely photos!
The nice weather also meant we were able to eat dinner outside for the first time this year, which was awesome!
For early evening appetizers, we all enjoyed some chips with storebought jalapeno passionfruit salsa and homemade mango guacamole which my sister made!
We loved that a lot of the dinner work could be done earlier in the afternoon so we had time to all si together and enjoy some appetizers and drinks!
Afterwards, we wanted to have a nice light summer-themed dinner so we decided on a strawberry salad and focaccia.
I took charge of the salad for dinner, and decided to follow Closet Cooking's recipe for strawberry and balsamic grilled chicken salad. The dressing he recommended was a homemade roasted strawberry balsamic vinaigrette, which is basically a vinaigrette with pureed roasted strawberries. I ended up over-dressing my salad a little but I didn't mind because I really liked this dressing! The dressing recipe can be found here.
I used a mixture of spinach, arugula, and baby greens for the base, then added fresh chopped strawberries, toasted almonds, thinly sliced shallots (which I soaked in water briefly to remove some of the bite), and lots of goat cheese! I followed the recipe for marinating the chicken but cooked it on the stovetop because the bbq hasn't been cleaned up for the season yet. It was still delicious though!
And for the vegetarians, my sister prepared some breaded tofu based on this recipe, which I'm told was good!
Love eating outside with my family!
For the focaccia, my sister Genevieve followed this recipe for strawberry focaccia with maple balsamic onions. We also decided to add goat cheese since we had some extra, which complemented the other flavours well. It was a bit of work preparing the dough ahead of time but it turned out well!
My dinner plate - yum!
Finally, for dessert my older sister went to a lot of work to make two different kinds of homemade tarts for us all to enjoy. On the left was a lemon cheese tart with mascarpone cheese and fresh lemon juice and zest, and on the right was a rhubarb custard tart which was similar to a butter tart but with the first of the season's fresh rhubarb! Click the links for the recipes she used - even though it was a lot of work, it was worth it as everyone loved them both; I don't think I could pick a favourite!
I'm so grateful that I got to spend the day with my amazing mom and family and that they are all such great cooks! :) Hope you all had a nice weekend and that the weather has warmed up where you are too!
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