Mom's Birthday Dinner

We hosted a birthday dinner at home last night. It was a dinner for my mom and it was just me, the kids, and her. Dave and my dad (Gramps) were out of town.

The kids and I debated on which restaurant we should take her to for several days, and finally I decided, to cook at home. I love cooking and I especially love special occasions because it gives me an excuse/reason to bake something new.

I have this crazy love of baking. Muffins, scones, I will try every variety of chocolate chip cookie out there, but because I believe we need to eat healthy at home, I often don't bake as much as I wished.

So, this worked out great. Plus, I don't really love restaurant food. I can never find anything tasty enough given what I really like to eat. And my kids always eat crap! Their out-to-eat diet wavers between chicken nuggets, pizza, corn dogs, hot dogs and spaghetti. Yuck.

I am not going to reveal my mom's age (she might kill me) but I will say that I can only hope to look as good as she does.

Here is what we had:



Pork Tenderloin, Bread, Bacon and Sage Leave Kabobs - I got the recipe (and the photo - we were too hungry to wait) from the Williams-Sonoma website. Mine actually looked better than this. I used large pieces of bread and went with a sourdough I picked up at Whole Foods that day - it was perfect. I say if you are serving this to guests, the more random sizes the meat, the more rustic and prettier it looks on the table. Very easy to do - and just perfect.

We also had a really great tossed salad full of great summer veggies, carrots, cucumbers, red onions, apple juice sweetened dried cranberries - Yum!

To top it all off - we (the kids and I) baked a Strawberry Plum Crumble. It was so sweet and buttery. Something you must try and very easy. We served ours with some homemade vanilla ice cream. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Strawberry Plum Crumble

1 Pint of strawberries
4 Plums - pitted and sliced

Place them in a pie pan or tart pan - I seriously could have just stopped there.



Combine 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 -2 tablespoons cornstarch - sprinkle on top.



To make the crumble -

1/3 cup cold butter - diced small
3/4 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup oats

Combine and the sprinkle on top -



Bake at 350 degrees for a half an hour.



Wow!





Original recipe and photos courtesy of Dinner with Julie.