Mother's Day Brunch

I had the best Mother's Day with my mom this weekend. She came down to visit her three girls and we ate, laughed, and just had ourselves a good time! She had to drive home on Sunday and didn't want to leave too late, so instead of doing a big dinner, we planned out a fabulous brunch menu. I've never really done a brunch before, in fact, not really sure what exactly qualifies as brunch. But either way, it was so fun and delicious, and another excuse to use every serving dish in my cupboard. Our menu consisted of: watermelon, strawberries and my favorite fruit dip ever, mini frittatas, crepes with the best fillings, lemon bars, and chocolate dipped strawberries. It was a very sweet meal, but light and very mother's dayish. Mom's number one request was chocolate dipped strawberries. It did take a little while to cut everything up and make the crepes, but each item individually is very simple to make. Enjoy the recipes below, make them all together, make just one, but leave a comment if you try some of them out!


Strawberry Fruit Dip:
I'm almost embarrased to put this one up here. And I'm sure most of you have had this or made it before, but if not, it's definitely worth giving a try. This tastes great on all fruit, but my favorite is strawberries.
8 oz. cream cheese
1 jar Marshmallow fluff
mix above together (a hand mixer works best)


Mini Frittatas:
At Christmas I made these using one of Giada's recipes, but this time I just sort of put in what I had. I think this is a great way to serve eggs to a large group of people.

8-10 large eggs
thinly sliced ham, cut into small squares
1 bunch sauteed green onions
cheddar cheese
cream or milk (optional)
Beat eggs in large bowl, add ham, onions, and cheese (all amounts can be adjusted to taste.) Add a few tablespoons of milk for creamer frittatas. (I forgot that this time) Spray a muffin tin, large or small cups, with cooking spray. Fill the cups about half way. Cook at 375 for 10-12 minutes or until eggs are not runny.



Lemon Bars:
I got this recipe from my Aunt Sue who got it from someone else, I think. But it is fabulous and fool proof. Confession: this time my crust cracked when cooking and all the lemony goodness ended up underneath the crust. So they were kind of upside down lemon bars. But generally that doesn't happen. And the taste of these is the perfect combo of sweet and lemon tart!

Grease and flour 9x13 pan.
Beat: 1 cup butter until creamy
Add: 1/2 confectioner's sugar, work in 2 cups flour to make dough smooth.
Press into pan. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Beat 4 large eggs with a mixer.
Mix in:
1 3/4 C sugar
dash of salt
5 Tbsp grated lemon peel
6 Tbsp lemon juice

Then add 1/4 cup flour and stir in.

Pour onto crust and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes until set and has a thin brown crust on top. Sprinkle top with confectioners sugar. Cool on wire rack before cutting.



Crepes:
This recipe comes from Brittany's friend, Khadiga, who is from Egypt. She made them for us when she was visiting one summer, and mom couldn't stop talking about them. Hence they made an appearance for Mother's Day brunch. The recipe is very forgiving, and not an exact science. So below is the recipe, as texted to Britt, from Khadiga!
same amount of flour and milk (I did 2 cups each) mix until smooth
add an egg
2-3 spoons of vanilla
2-3 spoons sugar
pinch of salt
couple spoons of melted butter
Make sure the pan is hot before putting in the batter. Coat pan with spray or butter. Batter should be thin enough to spread around, like think pancakes. If too thick add more milk.

I ended up adding quite a bit more milk so the batter was nice and thin, just enough to coat the pan. And the "spoons" vanilla and sugar I used about 3 teaspoons of each. and about 2 tablespoons melted butter. I used my smaller, handy dandy non stick skillet and it worked like a dream. Mikken was actually in charge of crepes and she was flipping those babies in the air with out a spatula. Put the batter in the middle of the skillet and swirl it outward until it fills the pan.

We had a few different fillings. Our favorite is powdered sugar and lemon juice. Brian loves Nutella and bananas. We also had strawberries. Any combo of the above was delicious.