I consider myself lucky that my octogenarian mother is still alive and well, my own daughter has not yet left home and my husband’s little girl visits so I can have my family around me on Mother’s Day. And what better way to show how much you love and appreciate your family than with a feast?
The more the merrier is my motto so I find myself catering for eight guests with an age range of 80 to 8, half of us veggies. Sounds like a recipe for disaster but it’s recipes that get me through.
So what do I rustle up to make everyone faint with admiration, avoid spending my “day off” in the kitchen and put a smile on everyone’s faces?
I put my thinking cap on and have come up with a real crowd pleaser this year.
Velvety green soup
Sweat 3 leeks, 3 courgettes, 500g diced potatoes in a little butter. Add 850ml vegetable stock. Cook for 10 mins. Add 350 ml of milk, 200g frozen minty peas and cook for another 5 mins. Get in there with your blender, adding more stock to get the consistency as you like it.
Honey mustard chicken / Quorn fillets with baby vegetables
Boil 800g new potatoes until tender then add two packs mixed baby vegetables ( e.g. corn, carrots broccoli, sugar snaps, beans, leeks, asparagus ) to the water for last three minutes. Meanwhile add a little olive oil in two frying pans – brown 8 Quorn deli chicken style fillets in one and in the other cook 4 skinless chicken breasts. To each pan add juice of a lemon, 2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard and 1 of runny honey. Share the cooked vegetables between the pans, shaking gently to glaze. Serve.
Black cherry clafoutis
Take a large tin of stoned black cherries and drain, reserve the juice. Beat 2 eggs with 50g caster sugar, 50g plain flour, salt, 400 ml milk 7 vanilla essence until pale and fluffy. Butter a 9” baking dish, add cherries then pour over the batter and cook in preheated oven 190º for about 30 mins. Serve with the reserved juice and vanilla ice cream.
N.B. Family -I still want breakfast in bed, on a tray, with a cloth. Flowers. Chocolate. Buck’s Fizz etc. Love you loads. Mum xx.