Saturday, May 10, 2008

Under Pressure


Happy Mother's Day (tomorrow) to all my mommy friends out there! Hope your day is filled with love and lots of pampering :)

I'm not a mom...yet. Since I'm not yet a mommy, I decided that this year I will celebrate and honour some of the very special mommies in my life. We've got family from Montreal (including one of my favourite aunts), my grandmother is here from the Philippines, and of course we've got my mom, my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law who lives right around the corner from us.

Au lieu of taking all the moms to a restaurant, I decided that Mother's Day would be at our house. It was going to be on Sunday, but my mother-in-law is singing in the Island Singers concert and my cousin, Super Boy is returning to Montreal since he has to work on Monday. There will be fourteen dinner guests tonight and I've been cooking since 8:30 this morning.

Remember how I said that Baby Bro taught me how to work under pressure? This is what I'm talking about. The old me would never plan a big supper at the last minute. I like the have my menu planned out way in advance. I like to be able to have time to prepare the meal and have ample time to clean the house. When I told everyone yesterday that dinner was at our house tonight, I almost immediately thought: What on earth were you thinking!?!?!?!

Super Boy and his girlfriend, Super Girl told me that they wanted to help out when they heard what the menu was! They're going to be in charge of manning the BBQ grill.

Tonight's menu:

Appetizers:
Baked whole grain nachos and salsa with cheese
Cucumber Salad
Tomato-Boccaccini SaladMain Dishes:
Roast beef with onion, carrots and potato
BBQ chicken
BBQ pork chops
Whole grain rice

Dessert:
Homemade chocolate brownies with chocolate fudge frosting
Homemade Ice Cream Cake
Strawberries
Mommy's Famous Filipino Leche Flan (made by my 88 year old grandmother)
I wanted Mother's Day to be a day for all the lovely mothers in my life to not have to cook or clean. My grandma insisted on making her leche flan!

Since I'm in the sharing mood, here's the recipe for my Tomato-Boccaccini Salad.
3 ripe tomatoes
1 red onion
1 seedless cucumber
Boccaccini cheese
1 bunch of fresh Basil
2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and Pepper to taste

Slice tomatoes, boccaccini cheese, red onion and cucumber into 3/4 inch slices. In a measuring cup, mix together the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. On a serving plate, arrange each guests' "tomato-boccaccini stack" by layering in the following manner: tomato slice, boccaccini cheese slice, red onion slice, two cucumber slices, tomato slice. Top each "stack" with a basil leaf. Drizzle each "stack" with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle salt and black pepper.

It's a very tasty, refreshing and pretty dish :) Enjoy! The brownie recipe is a family recipe, so I'm not at liberty to divulge any of that information ;) I'll post a step by step recipe with photos of the ice cream cake sometime soon (if I don't forget).

I'd better dash if I want to get everything done in time! It's 10:25 AM and so far the ice cream cake is made, the chocolate brownies are made, the roast is in the slow cooker, and the living room has been cleaned. I'm starting to panic. I'm such a spazzzzz! I don't know why I freak out so much about getting everything perfect when things always end up fine in the end. *sigh* I annoy myself sometimes. LOL!


I don't care what anyone says, but Freddie Mercury and David Bowie were hot in their day! Yes, I know Freddie was gay. He was still hot though! LOL! I had such a crush on him when I was younger!

19 comments:

Ed & Jeanne said...

That's really not fair showing me brownies without a warning. No fair!

Anonymous said...

oh why did you have to move so far away from me chrissy?! i would have loved to be part of your special mother's day celebration you are an amazing cook!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think it's so sweet what your doing for your family and all the mom's. your friends and family are lucjy to have you in their lives.
miss you ; hugs from me, dh and the kids

Uncivil said...

Happy Mother's Day to all your mommy friends Chrissy! I know you will make a special day for them!
My mom came up from S.C. to spend a week or two w/me!

Jeanna said...

You had me at baked whole grain nachos and salsa with cheese.
Must have barbecued chicken.
Uh oh, Jimmy's on his best behavior for a week. Hope he doesn't crack.

merinz said...

What a caring daughter, daughter in law, grand daughter and niece you are! Hope that you all had a wonderful Mothers day.

Anonymous said...

I am coming over for a meal! I'm getting on the next flight out of Tokyo! {{{{{{lol}}}}}}}}}

-Pete

BusyMamma said...

everything looks YUMMMMM especially that ice cream cake...may have to make the drive up to the island just for your delish cooking!!

louann said...

Oh C, your menu sounds so yummy! I hope your family has a great time!

Unknown said...

VE:
Sorry :) They were chocolate fudge brownies with a chocolate frosting. I had to send the rest of them home with my little niece last night because if those brownies stayed in our house, Hubby and I would have eaten them! LOL! At the end of the night, I tried to send our guests home with the desserts! We somehow ended up with a couple of brownies, a Swedish something or other (I don't know the name but it's sort of like a cake/bread and filled with lots of raisins and stuff inside), 1 1/2 leche flans, and a few strawberries. The ice cream cake was devoured!

Hot Mommy:
When you and your family come over, I'll cook for you :) We should also go to the Garden's Gate Restaurant though!!!

Uncivil:
Oh! That's so sweet! I hope you are going to spoil that mom of yours! :) What are your Mother's Day plans? Taking her out for a nice supper, I hope? What a sweet son you are! ;)

Unknown said...

Jeanna:
LOL! "You had me at baked whole grain nachos and salsa with cheese" made me laugh! It made me think of "You had me at hello"...you know, that famous pick up line! Instead, it was "You had me at baked whole grain nachos and salsa with cheese"! LOL!

I would love to meet Jimmy's mom! It would be interesting to see what his mom is like :) Jimbo, I think your mom should write a post for one day. It would be so interesting to read what she has to say about her son ;) XO

mrinz:
Awww! Thank you! I try :) I'm not always this good though. LOL!

Happy Mother's Day to you! Hope you have a lovely day! XO

Pete:
LOL! Okay! We'll see you shortly then! ;)
BTW, don't you find the restaurants and bakeries in Japan amazing? I used to frequent this lovely Italian restaurant in Japan and it was AMAZING!!!! I used to go there EVERY week! The first apartment (errr...mansion) I lived in when I was in Japan was located above this delightful little bakery. Oh my goodness. It was dangerous living there. Every morning the smell of chocolate and baked goods permeated the air. *sigh*

Unknown said...

Dina:
Happy Mother's Day!!! Hope your boys have lots of wonderful surprises planned for you today :) Enjoy your day!

I hope to see you sometime soon-ish! I don't know when I'll be in TO next, but hopefully within the next couple of months. Miss you! XOXO

Louann:
Thank you! :) Happy Mother's Day to you! What did your three men have planned for you?

Curiosity Killer said...

Happy mother's day, honey.

Curiosity Killer said...

btw - that strawberry flan looks sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. You are such a tease.

Anonymous said...

C, I have been SUCH a bad blogger friend. I owe you an email, first of all, and second of all, I have been so very busy and have been neglecting my favorite blogs. I am so sorry!!!!!

I wanted to come say hello. You are so awesome to put together a Mother's Day celebration for your friends. What a special woman you are!

Talk to you soon... I promise I'll get an email to you soon!!!

xoxo,
Jane

Uncivil said...

C
I know you will be the best mom when your time comes!
I just let loose with a barrage of comments over at Miss Jeanna's blog!
You'll have to go by there to see what me and mom did!!!!LOL!!!!
I had to settle for a cream cheese filled slice of french toast smothered in strawberry topping at IHOP this morning after looking at that picture of the homemade ice cream cake you made with the strawberries!!Yummy!!!!

Oh, and mom is computer illiterate. I can't even get her in here to sit and look at stuff (like my blog?) on the computer for very long?

We've been rained in most of the day....so it is a little boring around here at the moment!!!!

Can you say "stir crazy"? The dogs want to go for a walk and I want to oblige them, but it's just to nasty outside. We even had a freak hail storm. About popcorn size hail.



Mom says..."you on the computer again?"....I say back....."You watchin' the Home & Garden channel again?"...gotta love her!!!!!

♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys said...

Beautiful tribute and OMG that food I am so hungry now

&hearts

Karen MEG said...

So sweet that you're having that feast for mother's day.

You will be such a terrific mommy, you really, really will ;)

J said...

Love Bowie. LOVE HIM. Love Freddie too. My coworkers many years ago (read early 80s), used to tell me I couldn't love Bowie, because he was gay. (well, bi) I said, "So? How does that change my chances with a guy I'LL NEVER MEET??? My chances are zero anyway, so who cares?"

HA!

Anonymous said...

You put on a fabulous spread for Mother's Day! It all looked delicious and I am sure the everyone had a great time.

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City girl moves to the country, falls in love, and marries a farmer. She tries to incorporate her city ways with her new country lifestyle and blogs to keep in touch with friends, family & students who live far, far away :) Can this city girl go country? Watch as she learns all sorts of exciting things about life on the farm and in a small rural community. *UPDATE* We are now parents! Our baby girl was born on Nov. 11, 2008 (at 28 weeks gestation- 12 weeks premature, but she's quite the trooper)!!!
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