Mother's Day in France and Spain.

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and while I won't see my Mother until next week, G's mother came over for dinner last night (with G's father of course).

We struggled with what to make, wanting to make it special, but wanting to cook something fun. So, with much leafing through magazines, we came up with a lovely dinner that was a rousing success.

For the first course (oh yeah, we had to have courses), we served a beautiful soft cheese with a freshly baked (not be me or G) olive baguette. At Kensington Market's Global Cheese store, we were given a lovely French soft cheese to try, being told that it was like a brie but dead on ripe. G had a bite and fell in love. We brought it home, let it come to room temperature, and then served it on the great bread/cheese board that I bought.



From there, our dinner took a turn to Spain. Paella! We made the first batch with chorizo and chicken, and then took out my portion, and added shrimp for everyone else's. We had purchased some saffron while in New York City that we used in this recipe. Basically, you start by browning the chicken and chorizo then putting in onion, red pepper, garlic and rice. It cooks for a minute, then you add broth and the saffron and let it cook away for about 30 minutes. You then take out my portion, and add some shrimps. Cook until shrimp is cooked.

It was great. The smell was amazing and everyone loved it.

Here is the paella with shrimp...


For dessert, we had a fantastic spicy chocolate pavlova with freshly made whipped cream and raspberries. The recipe is from Nigella Lawson's "Forever Summer" cookbook. We used this spicy chocolate called 'Dagoba'. It's a spicy Mexican chocolate. It was really delicious.


Yummmmmmmmmmy. Everyone ate seconds. It was great fun. The only downside to the beautiful pavolva was the extreme (and I mean EXTREME) mess G and I made trying to whip the egg whites. We had a big bowl, but our whisk is crazy powerful and when we tried to whip the whites, the eggs went everywhere. We had it all over our clothes, all over the cabinets, in my hair. GROSS! But we managed despite the mess. It was good fun to make and really great eats to eat, so it was nice.

All in all, it was a delicious meal. I really really enjoyed it, and it was really a fun meal to make.