mother’s day brunch

Josh & I invited our moms (and dads and siblings) over for a sweet little Mother’s Day brunch on Sunday.

I’ve been having lots of fun with my Farmer’s Market “cook one new thing a week” challenge (see: Chiogga Beets, Nopales), and this week I picked fresh, in-the-shell sweet peas.  It seemed appropriate for Mother’s Day, since peas are the pregnant women of the vegetable world.

Shelling peas is bizarrely fun, like popping bubble wrap.  It’s also fascinating because every time you break open a shell, you get to discover how many babies are in the pea’s litter.  Four.  Three.  Five.  Seven! (fertile pea).  I could never work in a pea-shelling factory because I’d get too distracted collecting little green pea families.

(in case you did know, peas are really fun to photograph)

So, what to do with my bowl of freshly-shelled peas besides photograph them?

I was inspired by a class Josh & I took at Surfas where we made pasta with peas & prosciutto.  Super easy, super flavorful.  So I boiled some farfalla, crisped up some proscuitto and sauteed the peas with a little olive oil, shallots, and garlic.  Toss it all together with parmesan reggiano and a little lemon zest and it tasted fresh & lovely.  I don’t think I can ever go back to frozen peas again (except maybe for icing a sprained ankle).

In addition to the pasta, we put together a really yummy spread… definitely our best brunch to date.  And Josh’s mom brought over the most beautiful wildflowers that they picked right in front of their house that morning (note to self: go on a 5am raid of the canyon with shears in hand).

Our Mother’s Day menu:

• Pasta with fresh peas & prosciutto
• Bacon & green onion quiche
• Broiled salmon with herb mustard glaze
• An assortment of tea sandwiches, including 1) tuna, 2) cucumber, light cream cheese & fresh dill, and everyone’s favorite, 3) radish, light cream cheese & mint (really tasty combo, try it!)
• Vanilla bean cake with strawberries & whipped cream frosting
• Pastel vanilla bean cupcakes

The salmon was one of my faves and really quick to prep – plus, it cooks in under 10 minutes (love that).  We’re so lucky to have Santa Monica Seafood so close by… it’s a fish-lovers playground.  Seriously, I have dreams about this place (I’ll do a full post on SMS when we do our seafood BBQ in a few weeks).

Strawberries were running rampant at the farmer’s market on Saturday so I bought a couple flats knowing Sam would eat one and we could use the other one for dessert.  I had some leftover cake batter after making the cupcakes, so I popped a 9″ square pan in the oven, cut the cake up into 4 squares, and made two mini strawberry layer cakes.  The whipped cream frosting kept it light & airy and we served it with a bunch of fresh strawberries on the side (we can pretend this is healthy, like the banana bread).

The cupcakes, on the other hand, could never pretend to be healthy.  There are two sticks of butter and 3 cups of powdered sugar in the frosting alone.  And that’s why they’re so delicious.

Note to my future self:  committing to three different frosting colors is a pain in the boot.  Buy more pastry bags or just settle on one color.

And to our wonderful, beautiful mothers… we love you, Happy Mother’s Day!