Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day (now nearly over) to two great moms! Words cannot describe how blessed I am by my own mom, and now by HH's mom. Come to think of it, I'm too tired to even try out the words.

If a picture's worth a thousand words, how much is a meal (sans pictures) worth?

Yep, you guessed it, I decided to use a meal to say "Happy Mother's Day" to both moms.

Here's what we had:

To start:
- Cream of Avocado Soup (recipe at bottom)
- Homemade artisan bread (this recipe is seriously fantastic, and super easy. I make it with 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup white flour; I also let it sit for about 17 hours this time, and I think it might have been better for it. It has a great crispy crust and chewy, but not too dense texture).

Main Course:
- Lemon-sage chicken (I think this sounds better than "Chicken in Milk"). I wasn't sure how much we'd eat, so I squeezed two small chickens into one roasting pan (we ended up only eating off of one... leftovers!) and I didn't think enough of the liquid evaporated. But otherwise it was great -- tender, moist, intricate-yet-delicate lemon flavor on the sauce. This recipe was flying around a few food blogs I read a few weeks ago, so I was glad to be able to give it a try. yum!
- Asparagus bundles; we wrapped bunches of 5 or 6 pieces of asparagus in prosciutto, secured them with toothpicks, and then grilled them on low for around 15 min. (Season sprinkled with pepper; this was particularly good with the chicken's lemon sauce).
- Roasted potatoes. I used some of the leftover butter mixture from browning the chickens and then added a potato seasoning mix to the chopped spuds, then baked for like 90 minutes.

Dessert:
Apple tartlets. These were quite good! I couldn't find dark honey so just bought a high quality lighter one ... I think in the future I'd maybe just drizzle straight (warmed) honey on top of the tarts. We served a little dollop of whipped cream (drizzled with some caramel sauce) next to the tarts.

On the whole, I think the meal was a success -- all the flavors were light and went well with this beautiful spring day!

Here's the avocado soup recipe, which I highly commend to you! (with a good bread, this could make a rather filling meal on its own... if I were to do it again, I'd make smaller portions for a starter since we were all full by the time the chicken came out)

Cream of Avocado Soup (from a Williams-Sonoma "Food Made Fast" cookbook):
serves 4

3 avocados, cut into chunks
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
2 serano chiles, seeded and chopped
juice of 1 lime
3/4 c water
white pepper and salt
lump crabmeat (I used the stuff out of a can and drained it well)
chives

Put avocados, coconut milk, chiles, lime juice and water in a blender and blend it all together. Add white pepper and salt to taste.

You can chill it in the fridge for 30-60 minutes (any more and I'm thinking the avocado would start to turn brown) or serve it at room temperature.

Serve garnished with crab and chopped chives.